Member Info for Libero

Perhaps not the best link but from a quick google search I found this:

https://www.erieri.com/executive/salary/ian-watson-6w1y

After tax that's probs about £70k. So the tax bill would have exceeded his annual salary from the looks of it.

As I said earlier, maybe the company needs to stop giving bonuses in shares instead of cash. But then again that's probably because they've always wanted all the cash to be reinvested into the business itself...

... and that strategy has really paid off over the years, as evidenced with the NAV having increased hundreds of times over since 2015.

Thanks for your response. However Ian Watson's salary has historically been about £100k before tax / £65k after tax (even as Chairman of the company if I recall correctly), so it isn't like he's mad rich. He really isn't.

So if HMRC come knocking saying he owes some huge tax bill linked to shares given to him in 2018 that exceeds his salary, what choice does he have? How else would he settle the tax bill?

I agree the timing is v unfortunate. And I bet Ian was thinking the same thing, but if HMRC are on your back, I doubt they give 2 hoots about some deal involving big batteries in South Africa, and Vanadium price rises beginning to snow ball.

I disagree, Ian got fined by the FCA for his actions when purchasing Vametco (a transformational deal in itself) in a way that ensured limited share holder dilution. Ian was a hero in that sense. And he deserved to be rewarded for his part in the Vametco deal with Evraz which was genius.

Guess the problem is when you reward Directors with shares instead of money, eventually they will end up having to sell those shares, and there's no good time to do this - it will always look bad in terms of optics!

In future the company should reward in cash not shares to avoid this but it's done now.

The RNS does state:

"The sale has been undertaken to settle tax liabilities associated with the issue of Ordinary Shares to Mr Watson as announced on 8 August 2018.

Following the sale of Ordinary Shares as noted above Ian Watson now holds 2,455,000 Ordinary Shares in the Company respresenting 0.2% of the issued share capital of the Company."

So it is clearly linked to settling tax liabilities from 2018, which he presumably had no getting out of, and evidently did not have enough money in the bank to pay off himself.

He had no choice, from the looks of it.

Nah I disagree with you there.

Most of the directors have sold tiny amounts.

Ian Watson is the only director to sell a large number of shares but it still represents only about 30% of his holding. He has kept hold of the remaining 70% / 2,455,000 shares.

And we have no idea what's going on in Ian Watson's life. He may have had a huge tax bill appear out of nowhere. Or possibly it's something he isn't ready to share yet (recently discovering he has terminal cancer etc). We honestly do not know. All I know is that Ian's sell does seem odd when he's always been invested for so many years and tried so hard in the past to do what's best for us private investors.

None of the above changes anything.

Production is rising. That's a fact. 24% last year. Another 20%+ this year.

Vanadium prices are rising. That's a fact, being reported by many independent sources.

Higher V prices x Record Production = Higher Profits. That's a fact.

And V prices are expected to rise much much higher too because there's a structural deficit worldwide.

And I believe we will also be successful in the Eskom BESS contracts.

We're still ridiculously undervalued, we're still growing, we're still profitable, and the future is just as exciting as ever.

and you only get 40k rand in allowance for capital gains.

All of which puts the "selling for tax reasons" thing into some context.

Not sure when the tax year ends in South Africa, but the remaining director sells does appear to be for completely valid, reasons, because they've all done the same thing over there at the same time.

Also do wonder if it's somehow linked to the JSE listing requirements...

is based here in the UK so would not be surprised if he's trying to avoid paying a unpredictably large Capital Gains Tax bill, when the tax is expected to increase very soon.

Not saying that's alright but I wouldn't be surprised if that's a major reason for his sudden decision to sell.

Only other time I've seen Ian Watson in the limelight was when he got fined for this, but actually he was going that trying to protect us PIs from dilution to pay for the Vametco deal, so he seems like a good egg in that sense.

https://www.mining-journal.com/capital-markets/news/1352674/bushveld-fined-gbp490k-for-breaking-aim-rules

CHoS, I'm confused by your message.

Soz if I'm being stupid here. I've had a long stressful week-so-far at work and only just finished a 2.5 hour french lesson I had after a 10 hour working day, so it's safe to say I'm not at my sharpest !

I'm sorry to hear some Bushie investor was very rude to you on another board but no one individual represents the entire group of investors here. There's 100s of us and, in my experience as a regular poster here, the vast majority are a nice bunch of investors. So I would urge not to short out of vengeance against 1 individual.

If it isn't an emotional decision, then I would look carefully at what you're thinking of shorting.

This is currently trading at a huge discount to its inherent value. The gap has grown wider and wider in recent weeks and, with the RSI at roughly 30 (very oversold), the gap should stop widening and close v soon.

Also please note that Bushveld is expecting news any day now that we've been successful tendering for a massive project with Africa's largest utility company. The sort of news that will send shares rocketing to new highs.

So please do your research before you try to short the most undervalued stock on AIM (in my honest opinion) which is on the cusp of transformational news.

Putting your possible plans to short BMN to one side, I wish you all the best with your investments, and sorry once again that you've been insulted elsewhere on LSE by someone who happens to be invested here also.

And, FWIW, I do believe we've bottomed out this time. I think the sells have stopped and this will start to recover from here naturally with no news.

And also I believe that there probably will be the Rocket RNS either tomorrow or Mon-Thursday of next week.

DYOR & GLA

Alfacomp,

I am not convinced in this theory re the MMs. I do not think they have any sort of agenda, or that they're short selling and trying to push the price down. If that was the case, if they truly had that much power, they would've taken advantage of the RNS we had last Thursday, when instead they did not. The share price would honestly be much lower than this.

So, in my view, even if the MMs have some power, we cannot scapegoat them for where we are. I'm sure much of this is the result of genuine sells from PIs getting fed up with the wait for the big news they had hoped for in December or January not coming through yet. Not because of MM games.

When the selling stops, we'll naturally recover back up to 20p. And when the big news lands we will rocket to new highs. The MMs have no interest in stopping us. It will happen.

Understand that this has been a testing day, and a testing few weeks, for all holders here. We're all scratching our heads wondering how we've fallen 30% when Vanadium prices have continued rising during this time. So well done to all the diamond hands who have remained bullish despite the nonsense we've lived through during this time and today especially.

Hopefully you consider it encouraging to see how quickly we recovered from the 16.5p level we saw earlier today to close at 17.0p, which does suggest there are green shoots of price reversal to start catching up with the Vanadium price increases.

And, needless to say, we're really are at the crescendo of the long term strategy of Bushveld Energy coming to fruition in the next few trading days. Once that RNS lands there will be no stopping the sudden re-rate.

So yeah I know it's been a pain in the arse having to wait for this announcement but our time is near. Keep the faith and keep those hands like diamonds.

Setcentric,

Nice one - I enjoy your tweets. Keep up the good work : )

Reckon the delay in asianmetals reporting on the Chinese V prices could work in our favour because it may suddenly jump and make people sit up & take notice.

Setcentric

That's very encouraging to hear. Sounds to me as though this dip is opportunistic by the MMs and they've probably failed to anticipate the significant level of buying / support that's pushing us back north of 17p.

Looking forward to asianmetals website updates its website for V prices later this week : )

Completely agree, V prices have risen 20%+ in recent weeks, and yet somehow we've fallen about 30% here. It's madness.

But perhaps this ridiculous sudden dip below 17p is what was needed to kick us back into action and kickstart the reversal back to 20-25p and beyond.

This was a crazy bargain at 20-25p so 17p is just mind-blowing to be honest. If you can top up, now is the time to do so.

RSI now at 30 = Crazy oversold

Anything below 50 is oversold.

Anything below 30 is crazy oversold.

BMN is pretty much there at 33.

With V prices continuing to rise and with a sharp jump expected to be reported once asianmetals re-opens after Chinese New Year, I can see this pinging up very fast.

It's top-up time !

Excellent summary for prospective investors:

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/lionels-big-picture-428

Great to hear from you, Investor81

100% agree.

BMN's share price has historically tracked the Vanadium commodity price closely so the current share price decline whilst Vanadium prices have risen is completely bizarre and has created a unique & significant buying opportunity.

Asian metals website has not been updated recently due to Chinese New Year but this should come back soon and, judging from what's happened to the European V prices, we should see a sharp increase in Chinese V prices up to ~ $40kgV in the next few days.

So yeah I expect the share price will suddenly re-rate very soon on that basis alone !