Member Info for johnpwh

No I genuinely don't, there are very, very few people who believe KS has been truthful.

Whether I believe that AAU is now at such a level that it cannot go lower is a gamble, and its my gamble, and mine to decide. But just because someone decides not to sell it does not necessarily follow that they think they haven't been repeatedly lied to or that the Board of Directors have shown the basic level of competence that you might expect in a listed company.

Point is that we don't know what to believe! The consensus is (take it as 26%) mean that effectively the result is a 26% Joint Venture partner that contributes nothing towards capital expenditure but carries a 26% vote, and 26% of dividends declared. So sort of 26% of profits but putting no financial input into the need of running the JV.

I see that is a problem as where does that leave AAU? Where does many tens of millions for plant construction come from when the company has a market cap of £22m and at present little or no working capital? What additional party would join a toxic sounding JV like that?

Stranger

Bit like the old golden share that the UK Government held in privatised countries that gave them veto?

I don't know. I heard that Tom Whatshisname interview with Kerim Sener. The latter went on about the Zimbabwean government only being interested holding a free carry in strategic metals, so not gold, which I don't believe for a second. What is a strategic metal for a start, google 'is gold a strategic metal' and the answer comes back that 'it can be considered to be strategic'. My bet is that if gold remains at $3k+ then the Zimbabwean government will be convinced it is!

You know better than me about the significance of 26% but am happy to believe. I have read elsewhere that there have already been settlements made with companies at around 15%?

Whatever, at least the interview gave a 'watch this space' hint that de Villiers may be on his way out as Chairman, but not after the recent considerable damage has been done with that ludicrous (and now we hear unnecessary due to unused debt facility) placing which has destroyed the SP, despite £3k PoG, right before a much larger ASX offering. You and I could run this business better than KS and MDV from the business side, and that is not a flippant remark.

I have just looked at the site. Think you can do a single day for a couple of quid. I probably over the weekend

Shame its only for 200 shares at for a total of £2.60

TP

Tharisa are a major partner in Karo Minerals which is a Platinum mine and which several years ago had a 15% free float imposed on the mine in Zimbabwe.

Which begs the question why didn't Ariana flag this to its shareholders as a risk factor before the Dokwe vote, and were the Rockover owners concealing that it was one of their reasons for selling out to Ariana (or did Ariana due diligence simply fail miserably as proper questions weren't asked).

Not sure how long you have been a shareholder, but I suspect not long as you still believe what comes out of the CEOs mouth.

I will be concerned if gold falls to less than $3000, especially with the weakness of the $ against major currencies.

Another increase. Come on Science Group, you make a decent offer an shareholders will accept to leave this ****show behind. Woke management have killed a once superb company.

Finally point few every mention. Why cant the orange moron string a coherent sentence together? 3 year old learning to speak can string a better sentence together than Mr Pretend Bone Spurs.

Stranger

I agree with you.

I have a problem with Venus, heaven knows why that was ever considered a viable investment without the intention to take it over in its entirety. I presume Venus as an entity has no funds to develop anything, with no way of raising them as evidenced by the aborted IPO (and how much did that cost?). Even if the minority Venus shareholders offered to sell out to Ariana, to give Ariana 100% and free rein to pursue Apliki to get something going, then where is the money coming from? After all Ariana has just had to go to the market with a dilutive discounted share issue just to keep itself going until July.

Effectively, from memory, we are a majority shareholder in Venus who own a dormant project. Where/ how do you find a buyer for a stake in a private company like that? Its almost worth contemplating writing the investment off completely, taking a hit on the accounts, and walking away to avoid wastage of any further management time from more pressing issues where their full focus is desperately needed.

This whole mess is a result of Kerim Sener wanting new toys, losing control in Turkey to a majority partner for a relative pittance to raise funds for those aspirations, and ending up with a rag bag (some admittedly potentially attractive) of projects with no cash to advance any to production in any reasonable timescale.

Seriously, who would bet £100 on Dokwe production in 5 years given their record? 10 years ago Salinbas was the big 100% owned project hope that was going to 'make' Ariana. Its potential was mentioned constantly. What happened to that apart from the fact that we now only own 23.5%? Another 10 years will that be in production?

The result of course could to desperately look for a saviour on a white charger who will be only too happy to pay 10 cents in the dollar for the better projects and walk way with the spoils that we shareholders thought were ours. And it it could happen out of desperation.

Please tell me your gamble wasn't £1m! By coincidence I also have 1m shares, bought for the princely sum of £363.

I'm sure the shares will be £1 each soon......

Yes. When shares are bought back by a company they are either held in Treasury or cancelled. I think here they are being cancelled so if Tim Martin has an unchanged number of shares out of a smaller number of shares in issue then his % will increase.

Mathematically as long as the buybacks are done when the shares are undervalue (yes ok, that is open to debate!) then its a good strategy. Fingers crossed.

Genuine question. How does a 30m company raise 1048 m?

Bring on a bid for 400+ pence. They would have my support to exit this.

Stranger

That's being a minority member of a JV for you.

One hope is that if AAU survives this ****show the directors, who surely should have intuitively known without needing experience, will now think twice before giving control away again. It is very bad business.

God knows they should have known, especially that lead weight that is de Villiers who supposedly had decades of business experience in mining companies.

I read over on the other board that Sener is supposed to have an interview today conducted by someone who is proposing that he will field hostile questions. I wont hold my breath, either the subjects and tone will be agreed before hand or Sener will avoid and have an early night.

I remember this floated at just over £2, went to nearer 3 then its been a one way street from there. A fashionable sector for a time but what a disaster. I forget what my losses were, I got in at maybe 125p and exited a bit burned a month or 2 later. After playing with shares for 40 odd years I have finally realised that I haven't got a bloody clue. Good luck to remaining shareholders.

Weird. LSE nicked all my capital letters.

thanks dj. i would rather have been wrong about the jv to be honest. it felt wrong from the start, giving away the majority control to a third party especially as the proceeds seemed inadequate even at the pog current in november 2019.

i also remember you were cynical about the venus deal in cyprus, which got sener all excited and publishing rns every 5 minutes for months followed by years without a mention while the newer projects were the new flavour of the month.

ariana really could not have been given a much greater tailwind to succeed from both pog and pos. yet they have still screwed up. many people. myself included, were always ambivalent about de villiers but were impressed by sener. sadly i think that other than in a technical role we had way too much confidence in him. good geologist, great even but poor ceo. i blame him for this mad headlong pursuit for more and more projects to put additional notches in his geological bedpost without a real plan as to how projects will reach maturity within a reasonable finance or timescale. witness to this is that to date only one mine has ever operated, and that was 2016 i think, though hopefully this will change later in the year with tavsan. though god knows no one here would be in the least bit surprised if it slips to 2026 (or 2027 or 2028!!).

that dean bloke is no concern to me, his messages have been a pleasant shade of mid green for several years. it makes me laugh to imagine he still wastes time writing posts ****ging me off!

Stranger

At one time I though you and I weren't really on the same page, but it is clear to me now that we are.

From a finance background myself (actuarial) I agree that you don't budget for everything going swimmingly, that contingencies have to be built in. Now Sener is a geologist, by all accounts a very good one. He should not be CEO. Although de Villiers is not FD he is an accountant, has been FD in Mining operations in the past I believe for several decades. As you point out where is his prudence, why is he not steering Sener away from this. What is William Paynes influence as CFO?

I've long said there are too many projects. and mad as it sounds I would be appalled but not surprised to see another project added on at any time because Sener wants something new. Each of these projects will cost even if they are effectively dormant, taking management time, licenses renewed etc etc. Look at the farce that is Cyprus, sold to us as a virtual turn key operations with Apliki. I believe AAU shareholders invested nearly £200,000 drilling in Apliki then were unable to buy it as Venus as an entity didnt have the money. From what I can see the only winners there were the Apliki owners who got lots of nice new data to support a sale at a higher price in an eventual sale to whoever (probably not Ariana/ Venus).

As for dividends to shareholders, once Tavsan is on line, I have never changed my view. As the old saying goes there is No Hope and Bob Hope. It wont happen. Ozaltin with there 53% will want all funds possible to go to Salinbas and any dividend from the JV to Ariana will be used to progress Dokwe and keep the lights on. If no distribution is made then Ariana will need to put debt on their balance sheet, sell something, or have a series of rock bottom price placings which will anchor the share price because the market knows that more will be needed in due course.

Its a bloody mess, it is 100% the BoDs fault and I think they could do worse than appoint you as FD! It hardly as if the PoG has been against AAU.

To give an airing to an overused word, I never thought that Ariana would faced existential threats, but I think it is.