Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
Bu we have just had the opportunity to get them removed and we didn't take it. They convinced shareholders to keep them employed. It would not have been my decision and I voted in favour of the requisition, but that ship has now sailed. Like it or not they are here and they are here to stay.
We do need answers on what is going on with Colle Santo though. Why is the environmental application still not showing on the Italian website nearly a month after they told us it was filed? https://va.mite.gov.it/it-IT/Procedure/ViaElenco/3/2
If there is a sensible reason for this then they should let us know and if there has been an issue with this then they should let us know that too.
I would also like to see a presentation on what their plans are for 2024. I hope that this is somethign that they are working on now. All I really want to see is when they plan to drill West Newton. That is the project that will get us out of this mess, not Colle Santo.
I agree Uggy. My concerns with CS are manyfold:
1. Will it ever get the license to produce - unfortunately I think that this is unlikely, though I hope I am wrong.
2. Will they get the 24-month production started this quarter - again I think unlikley especially since it still seems that they have not submitted the environmental report. https://va.mite.gov.it/it-IT/Procedure/ViaElenco/3/2
3, If they do get the license then they need to raise €30 million. €16million to pay for the initial development and €14 million, it would appear, to pay for the option. LNEnergy claim that they will do this via debt but I find this unlikely as they are a private company with no revenue so how will they service the debt? If debt is not possible then they will have to do it by equity. If they do it by debt then RBD will not see any money from the early production as it will all go to servicing the debt. If they raise it by equity the RBD's stake in LNE will be massively reduced. I also think that RBD have massively over-valued LNE so I think that they redcution will see our equity share drop by around 75%
5. If they do achieve all of the above then LNE need to raise another €50millionin debt to build the full plant that they have proposed. This should be perfectly possible if they are already in production with revenue in the numbers that they have published, but all the revenue from the development will then go into servicing the debt - probably for around 6 years.
So my fear is that even if all goes well, they roll 6s every time and they get everything that they need for the 24 month production to commence this quarter, which I doubt, then we would still be waiting between 7-8 years for RBD to see any revenue from the project. The only hope would be able to sell the stake for a profit to somebody else.
And this is all if everything goes right. If things go wrong then the investment will likely be worthless.
Its all in this link: https://www.reaboldrequisition.com/wp-content/uploads/New-Colle-Santo-V2-14-12-23.pdf
Avanti sold 41.66% of Colle Santo to the ADX consortium for $2,730,000 in April 2015 and then acquired the rest of it for a deferred payment of $500k in 2019.
LNEnergy have an option with the new owners to acquire 90% of CS but we do not know at what price. This can be seen on page 3 of the company's presentation here: https://wp-reabold-2023.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2023/07/Reabold-investment-in-LNEnergy-October-2023-v2.pdf
LNenergy have not acquired 90% of the field, they have an option to acquire 90% of the field for a fee that has never been made public. The link that itsawrap has put up shows this. The field is currently owned by a group called the AVX consortium who acquired it for $3 million in 2019. I think Mark Frascogna from LNE is also linked to this AVX group too, so that is the connection.
This is one of the big mysteries to be about CS. We have invested £4.3 million for a 26.1% stake in an entity that doesn't even own Colle Santo.
Well that clearly settles matters. The current BoD have won the vote by a huge margin and this gives them a resounding endorsement from shareholders to continue managing the company in the way they see fit.
I won’t say that I am not disappointed in the result, as I think that the company really could have done with a new direction and there are still huge questions to be answered about Danube, Daybreak and Colle Santo. However, the vote is the vote and we now either need to pull behind the current board or sell our shares and get out.
I intend to stick in here for a while longer. After the information the requisitioners released about the prospects of Colle Santo I still have grave reservations about the project, but S&S have promised that we will see progress on this in this quarter so let’s hope they are telling the truth and can deliver on this.
Looking on the bright side, if S&S are able to deliver on the 24 month production permit in the first quarter of this year then this will deliver some income for the company going into the West Newton drill later this year. I think that we all agree that this will be the real game changer for the company.
The board now need to focus all their effortds on delivering this drill. I was very wrong about the vote, so I hope that I am also wrong with my concerns about the West Newton funding. I’d even be happy for them to put off the £4 million dividend until after the West Newton drill. I just want to see it drilled this year.
I still think that overall we have made a bad decision to continue with the incumbent CEOs given their track record, but a vote is a vote and they won, so I am clearly in the minority. Here’s hoping for a brighter tomorrow.
Interesting rationale from noveckinggood, one of the big board defenders here.
The current board are incredibly inept and anyone with any commercial sense should have sold out years ago. I guess this makes me, him, Watts and almost everybody on this board commercially inept then.
The company is now effectively worthless, yet those appealing for a change of direction via a shareholders vote are trying to “steal” it.
If the current board are incredibly inept and responsible fort the company being worthless and us all losing a lot of money on our investments then why vote for them?
Fingers crossed, there enough sane investors have voted for change and not more of the same. We shall see.
It is definitely not a case of when not if.
The last environmental application took two years to be processed before it was rejected. It has not yet been submitted according to the Italian governmental site.
The Italian authorities made it clear last time that the Environmental plan must be approved before the 24 month production test will be authorised. This is not negotiable, it is the law.
Colle Santo is not a renewable project. It will not benefit from any Italian funding designed to help push these through.
Colle Santo is also less than 1km from an earthen dam. The Environmental plan will have to prove that there is no chance that there is no chance of the project affecting this dam to get through. It will have no chance of doing this.
Colle Santo will never be approved. It is a total waste of money, but it did allow S&S to issue 120% of voting shares to LNEnergy in order to try and win the requisition.
It is £4,3 million wasted.
But Jack, the Colle Santo project is not a renewable project. It is a gas project and claimed to be transitional at best. It would not be entitled to any money to help the development of remnewables.
What institutions? Apart from Miton and Chelverton, there are not any institutions left in RBD are there? They all saw the writing on the wall and got out ages ago. unless you consider LNEnergy and Oza's nephews as institutional shareholders.
I can only hope that the requisition is a success otherwise I feel that I will never see any progress or share-price improvement with Reabold. As has been pointed out many times here, the track record of the existing directors is one of failure after failure and there is no reason to think that this will change if they live to fight another day.
To me the requisitioners make a compelling case for change. They have a clear plan of what they intended to do – cutting the losses on the non-core projects and actually raising the funding to drill West Newton and I believe that the company can still be a success if they are successful. However, without a change in management I believe that we will just keep on being lied to and strung along with false promises that will never be kept.
I sound like a broken record here, but how on earth is it possible for Reabold to claim in their 20th December RNS that the Environmental application for Colle Santo has been filed with the Italian authorities when it is still not showing as being filed nearly three weeks later: https://va.mite.gov.it/it-IT/Procedure/ViaElenco/3/2 Does anyone still believe that, as Stephen told us, that CS will be producing under the test permit in Q1 this year?
If all goes well tomorrow and the requisition is successful then there should be a much brighter future for Reabold from this point onwards. But the votes have all been cast now and we just have to wait to see.
I am voting to get rid of S&S because I am sick of this lies and the £14.3 million they have wasted on Danube and Daybreak which they now want us to forget about and describe as non-core projects.
I have not forgotten about them and I want them to be held responsible for their failings.
S&S have paid themselves £4 million over five years and this is an outrageous amount of money. You may not mind, but I do.
You may not mind that the company have wasted £14.3 million on failed projects, but I do.
You may not mind that they've lied about the Colle Santo 24 month production and that they have lied again about the submission of the environmental report., but I do.
You may not mind that they have spent £4.3 million that should have been funding West Newton on Colle Santo, but I do.
You may not care that they have given away over 10% of the company's equity, which is 10% of the shareholding in West Newton for a potentially worthless project in Italy in order to try and win the requisition, but I do.
That is why I am voting them out.
3 days until the 10am closing for voting on Monday 8th January
5 days until the vote is held and S&S finally get kicked off the gravy train
14 days since we were told that the Colle Santo Environmental Application had been filed, yet it still has not shown up on the Italian government website: https://va.mite.gov.it/it-IT/Procedure/ViaElenco/3/2
I agree with the numbers not adding up Jack but I disagree with the rest of the statement.
Firstly, holding a second requisition a year on from the first, when the company have failed to carry out any of the promises that they made prior to the previous requisition is hardly vexatious. It is clear that Reabold were also advised that no court would agree that they had a case or they would have tried to take the legal route that you proposed.
Secondly, say a company has 100 shares and you have 10 and I have 10. They then buy back 10. Both your 10 share AND my 10 shares are worth 11.11% not just mine. Everybody's share holding goes up in equal proportions, so it would not affect the outcome of any vote, unless the company were allowed to use the shares that they bought to support themselves which I doubt would be allowed.
The only people who would have less of a vote would be those who sold shares to the company during the buyback, and if you sell some of your shares then you do so knowing that you have less of a vote.