The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Narrowest one I have seen for some time.Actual sale price quoted at 0.36 and purchase price of 0.365 for 1m shares which suggests that todays transaction at 0.365 was actually a buy and not a sell ,which I am always happy to see.
IG .To be frank I would be surprised if anyone is "sniffing about" at present but please do provide further details. And if there is a potential predator is that necessarily good news except for anyone who has bought in recently around the current sp level? Even a purchase price of twice the current price would leave many of us well out of pocket
I have heard from James that the annual results are out "shortly".
I strongly suspect that in his report James will highlight the future prospects for the company and that in terms of income earned ,this will not amount to much,owing to the sharp decline in diamond prices,hence the need for the recent raise.Perhaps work on the newly discovered blow at Marsfontein is also on hold,hence the lack of any updates for some time.Certainly the markets are not behaving as if anything exciting is about to be released because the sp is being held at the current level despite a decent level of buying taking place.Quite a contrast to the depressing slow decline of the sp which occurred on daily sales volumes which were probably less than the current level of buying.
Let us hope we have reached the bottom of a thoroughly depressing slide in the sp,in a year which promised so much at the start. At that point we hoped to be mining Thorny River after a few months but instead an inexplicable delay occurred in obtaining the water licence ,diamond prices dropped sharply and such sales as were achieved from mining the gravels etc were evidently insufficient to cover overheads,hence the need for a raise.Weather permitting, I hope that we can at least speed up the work on the Marsfontein blow ,which I understand has been proceeding slowly owing to lack of funds
Bizarre really that at a time the Company is in it's best position ever, the sp is dripping downwards towards historic lows.I guess it's a combination of small sellers in a thin market and a general lack of appetite for diamond shares generally,given the weakness in the diamond market at the moment,which means that at the moment any support for the sp rests on us long term holders keeping the faith and averaging down,which is my approach.Hopefully there is some good news coming up, which will stimulate interest from new investors but as ever with this share,patience is required
Troajan.SP seems to have been driven down by one or more sellers at a level of 500 000 shares or thereabouts.No such sales so far this week, so if the sales do not resume and/or there is good news eg re the water licence issue ,we may well have seen the end of an annoying and as far as I am concerned, totally unexpected decline which as ever has been totally out of proportion to the number of shares traded relative to the number of shares in issue.
He tells me that, at the Symposium, he met a senior officer of the Dept of Water Affairs who will "see what he can do"re the Thorny River Water Use Licence and also that BOD and the contractor are currently investigating kimberlite targets at Marsfontein,which look attractive and if they work out, the contractor has the capacity to at least double production.
So a couple of positives there
I emailed him to ask if he can give us any indication of the value of the diamonds recovered, as referred to in the RNS. He said that they will be worth in excess of the value estimated in the CPR for Thorny River which was 120-220 per carat, which is of course a little vague but gives us some idea.
I also asked why the licence is taking longer than anticipated to be issued and he said that it is the associated water use licence which is taking time ,rather than the mining licence itself.
For me the sting in the tail of the 6th July RNS is the requirement to work with the Local Authorities to sign necessary contracts.This begs the question "what contracts ? " Are they standard documents which require little amendment or do they have to be prepared from scratch and are any of the Local Authorities fundamentally hostile to us to the extent that they could drag out the whole procedure? Badprophet is perhaps excessively negative but he does raise legitimate points in relation to timescale and also to the risk of a fundraise which in my own view is inevitable, as we continue to burn through reserves and the only question is "when? " It could be soon.
So far no sign our our Friday seller, hence signs of a recovery.
As to a fundraise, this always involves the bod,families and friends participating and with some income coming in at present ( and I wish we knew more about this) I would have thought that the intention is to avoid raising money.The deal with Vast would have been on the basis of Vast providing all the finance(some hope anyone knowing Vast would say) and I would expect the bod to look for a similar deal from a more reputable company.
You are probably right Perroverde ,although we simply do not know how much Vast will raise from the sale of the diamonds.The only information we have is that they amount to 129,000 carats but as to average size ,quality etc ,we have no information,as far as I am aware.Vast give the impression that they hope to have the proceeds of sale by the end of the month and will immediately pay of outstanding debts of £7.3 m but will there be enough left over for other ventures?