Member Info for Libero

https://www.lse.co.uk/news/ATM/afritin-continues-ramp-up-at-uis-tin-mine-94ebtt4bxeee9bk.html

The share price over there is recovering nicely since the covid-related crash in March, and it's yet another company we partially own. Our stake over there must now be worth £2m now.

Likewise IES is doing well. Our stake in that company is worth about £8.1m now.

So that's £10.1m in assets right there.

As of 31 December 2019, we had audited Net Assets of $241m / £183.3m (converted as of today. This should have included ATM (I hope), but wouldn't have included IES at all. So you're then looking at a NAV of £191.4m.

We would need the share price to rise 31% to 17p to match that historic audited NAV figure.

And that doesn't take into the huge progress made since 31/12/2019, nor the incredibly bright future ahead of us of course, with Eskom news due in the new year etc etc.

So yeah, in case you needed a reminder, this is a bargain price we're trading at right now.

The big UK company I was referring to earlier in the year would certainly be involved in this!

As I said at the time, they were looking into all sorts of green energy initiatives, including green energy storage!

Very exciting times ahead : )

Says it all. He could've spent £500k on a whole variety of different things, but he's chosen to invest it here, because he knows more than anyone else about the company, the deals being worked on and news to come, the profits flowing in, and he's basically saying it's a bargain at this sort of price.

It's an indication as well that we're heading for brand new highs, comfortably north of the £12ish we've seen so far.

Thank you for sending Chika an email too, matey. Much appreciated. Despite what Chika says, I do think these emails had a positive effect.

As I posted last night (on the thread entitled 'Reply'):

"Being honest, I was disappointed when I first read the response saying that they intend to keep the name as it is, and continue doing what they've been doing in terms of communications and RNS announcements. [Also how does "Bushveld Minerals" show the right balance between the mining and energy businesses??]

But then I re-read it and I realised that they sort of had to say that, because - as Chika says at the start - they cannot say they are changing anything in the replies back to us. They could hardly say "Great ideas, guys, we're going to change the name, change the RNS / comms strategy, releasing release bite-sized chunks of news wherever we can, and written in a way that's focused on new investors" could they?

Also one could argue that key sentence (restated below) says more than it first appears. Because, unless the suggestions had a material impact, it would not need to be said .i.e. the suggestions have made an impact.

"Thank you also for your suggestions, I can offer some responses, but clearly cannot presage any changes to any Bushveld strategy or policy that would contravene listing rules."

This is something that is also evident by today's RNS, which was

1) Written simply with potential new investors in mind.

2) Was a bite-sized chunk of great news. It was literally an update, one which could easily Not have been announced in an RNS at this point in time.

Although, without wanting to be too critical, the amount of progress made with the Mini Grid shows that we could have been multiple updates throughout this year in regards to this. But an update that did not need to be announced is still good progress.

3) There were visible signs of the company showing off their Green Energy credentials which does hint at a change of focus / tone, which could lead to a name change further down the line perhaps.

So, long story short, I'm not convinced our emails have had no impact like Chika is claiming. I believe they have had an impact, and Chika has said that in the clearest way she could by replying to us and including that sentence I highlighted above which I consider to be significant for its unnecessary inclusion.

Hope that makes sense, and would be curious to hear other people's thoughts."

Correct.

And it does appear as though Fortune, Chika & Co have what could be described as a broad definition of "market sensitive information" which would explain why there has not been any director buys since 2016, because they've been negotiating various deals continuously since then, or knew something they felt could be considered advantageous.

For example, they may have felt they couldn't buy before they completed the Enerox deal. That was announced just as the Eskom tenders opened, and the BoD then started working on that, and that news is obviously yet to be published.

I reckon if you did a timeline you would probably find there's always been news / deals that have overlapped that has prevented the BoD buying in. Perhaps they've been overly cautious (it isn't like the Enerox deal sent the sp flying etc) but I sympathise with that because I would hate to accidentally end up in a situation where it appears I broke the rules.

James2k66, thanks for sharing your reply - you beat me to it!

Being honest, I was disappointed when I first read the response saying that they intend to keep the name as it is, and continue doing what they've been doing in terms of communications and RNS announcements. [Also how does "Bushveld Minerals" show the right balance between the mining and energy businesses??]

But then I re-read it and I realised that they sort of had to say that, because - as Chika says at the start - they cannot say they are changing anything in the replies back to us. They could hardly say "Great ideas, guys, we're going to change the name, change the RNS / comms strategy, releasing release bite-sized chunks of news wherever we can, and written in a way that's focused on new investors" could they?

Also one could argue that key sentence (restated below) says more than it first appears. Because, unless the suggestions had a material impact, it would not need to be said .i.e. the suggestions have made an impact.

"Thank you also for your suggestions, I can offer some responses, but clearly cannot presage any changes to any Bushveld strategy or policy that would contravene listing rules."

This is something that is also evident by today's RNS, which was

1) Written simply with potential new investors in mind.

2) Was a bite-sized chunk of great news. It was literally an update, one which could easily Not have been announced in an RNS at this point in time.

Although, without wanting to be too critical, the amount of progress made with the Mini Grid shows that we could have been multiple updates throughout this year in regards to this. But an update that did not need to be announced is still good progress.

3) There were visible signs of the company showing off their Green Energy credentials which does hint at a change of focus / tone, which could lead to a name change further down the line perhaps.

So, long story short, I'm not convinced our emails have had no impact like Chika is claiming. I believe they have had an impact, and Chika has said that in the clearest way she could by replying to us and including that sentence I highlighted above which I consider to be significant for its unnecessary inclusion.

Hope that makes sense, and would be curious to hear other people's thoughts.

9.75M Shares sold yesterday around 4 - 4.30pm

This would explain why the share price hasn't risen to 17p as we might've expected after the great Orion news. We rose to 13p fast but news of these sells must explain why the share price then fell sub 13p. All things considered, it's incredible we did not fall further. Which leads me to wonder if there's some very large delayed buys due to be announced soon, of such a large quantity it would have to be an institutional investor...

10-Nov-20 16:01:12 12.375 1,148,400 Sell* 12.50 12.75 142.11k O
10-Nov-20 16:36:40 12.15 2,000,000 Sell* 12.50 12.75 243.00k O
10-Nov-20 16:01:15 12.375 1,000,000 Sell* 12.50 12.75 123.75k O
10-Nov-20 16:01:08 12.375 1,343,600 Sell* 12.50 12.75 166.27k O
10-Nov-20 15:54:55 12.375 4,260,078 Sell* 12.50 12.75 527.18k O

Exactly what I was thinking. "Abengoa" and "Thebe Investments" are new names to us.

Wonder if Bushveld & Co used this project to demonstrate what they're capable of...

Also there's some major milestones in the RNS as well, plus a couple of names in the RNS I haven't seen before: Abengoa (the Engineering, Procurement and Construction company being used); and Thebe Investment Corporation. In addition to our Enerox manufacturing the VRFB of course (their 1st in South Africa but 100th odd worldwide)

All of which goes to show how much progress has gone on here beneath the surface. And to think some people were wondering what Enerox were doing when we kept seeing all this news from Invinity haha!

"Recent project achievements, include:

§ Receipt of environmental authorisation, following the submission of the Environmental Basic Assessment ("BA"), from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy ("DMRE") of South Africa, for the construction of the project.

§ Appointment of Abengoa, a technology solutions provider, to manage the Engineering, Procurement and Construction ("EPC") of the project, including the integration of the solar and energy storage systems. This will be Abengoa's fourth project in South Africa using solar plus storage, having previously commissioned 250MW with storage.

§ Selection of Enerox to supply the 1MW / 4MWh VRFB for the project. The Austria-based company has installed more than 136 VRFBs and 23MWh of energy storage capacity, bringing over a decade of VRFB operational experience to the project.

§ A memorandum of understanding has been signed with Thebe Investment Corporation ("Thebe"), a South African investment management company, as a strategic equity partner in the development and funding of the hybrid mini-grid project. Thebe will be active in the development of the project going forward including assisting the Company in finalising the terms of the external debt funding."

Also feel as though the company has listened to my email that I know a few of us sent to Chika not long ago, which said that the RNSs needed to appeal to prospective new investors etc

"I have been a Bushveld investor for XX months/years and I am writing because, whilst I’m a big fan of everything the company is doing, I am keen to suggest ways to improve upon the communication and RNS communication strategy in order to close the gap between the company’s inherent value and its stock market valuation.

The main reason for the extent of this gap between the inherent and stock market valuations is due to the fact that the RNSs are (1) typically written in such a way that is hard for prospective new investors to easily understand; (2) they often include too much information per RNS; and (3) they are too irregular [and can be poorly timed].

Re point (1): I believe the reason why the RNSs sometimes only make sense to those who are already invested and also very familiar with the company is because they are viewed in a very literal way as being what needs to announced to the market for regulatory reasons. This is a very narrow-minded view that is doing the share price no favours. Whereas the companies that do well on AIM view RNSs as opportunities to promote the share to market participants who may not know anything about the company, and to convince them to research further and eventually invest. These companies also use RNSs to give bite-sized messages of positivity to keep investors updated and happy to continue staying invested despite everything else they may see going on in the market. It’s important that Bushveld adopt this change of mindset to future RNSs for stock market success. It should not take a forum of longterm investors deciphering the best bits of the RNS between themselves, because those sorts of places are already an echo chamber, where few potential new investors frequent.

Points (2) and (3) link in with the above and with each other. When RNSs include too much information, the best messages can drown in the thousands of words that are published at the same time, minimising the impact they would have had otherwise on the share price. To avoid this, there should be more frequent RNSs, with bite-sized chunks of positive info and progress, released at intervals across a period of time, rather than keeping quiet for weeks if not months on end, before a ‘mega RNS’ is suddenly dropped.

How to achieve this? I would suggest splitting up the RNS updates between Bushveld Minerals (incl Bushveld Vanadium), Bushveld Energy (which may even include the updates from Invinity and Enerox), and possibly a separate one for Bushveld Belco. This could still be followed up by the ‘mega RNSs’ summarising this altogether at quarterly intervals if required. But I feel splitting out the different component parts of Bushveld will help the market realise the current BMN valuation is far too low"

There's so much I like about this RNS it's hard to know where to start.

First off, I love the introduction and how they refer to the company as an energy storage provider!!!

"Bushveld Minerals Limited (AIM: BMN), the AIM quoted, integrated primary vanadium producer and energy storage provider, with ownership of high-grade assets in South Africa, is pleased to provide an update on the hybrid mini-grid project being developed at the Vametco vanadium mine comprising of 3.5 megawatts ("MW") of solar photovoltaic ("PV") generation and 4 megawatt hours ("4MWh") of vanadium redox flow battery ("VRFB") energy storage."

It then goes on to talk about renewable energy, reducing CO2 emissions, and demonstrating how VRFBatteries are superior to the alternatives!

"This project is part of Bushveld's strategy to demonstrate both the superior technical merits of long duration VRFB systems when paired with renewable energy, while providing a commercial return to the Company's shareholders. It will also use locally mined and beneficiated vanadium, showing how VRFB energy solutions can create more local value to South Africa than any other storage technology."

"In addition, the hybrid mini-grid project, will contribute towards reducing the carbon footprint of Bushveld's mining and processing operations as it will reduce CO2 emissions by more than 5,700 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions per year (and nearly 114,000 tonnes of CO2 over the 20 year-life of the project). This will be a positive contribution towards South Africa's low emission strategy."

I love how the vanadium has come from Bushveld's mine and the manufacturing has been done by Enerox (who Bushveld partially own).

It's clear that this result in a reduction in the cost of producing vanadium as well, so we will also see a benefit there.

So, all in all, it's just a wonderful development for the company, which will lower costs and CO2 emissions, demonstrate why vanadium is best; and the change of the tone of this RNS to show off our Green Energy credentials is amazing.

This is possibly the best written RNS I've ever seen Bushveld announce, and I've been here 7+ years!

Happy days : )

Honestly guys, you need to download the Telegram app. It's works like whatsapp so is not as good for debate, but it's better than zilch throughout the trading day!

A fully-working mass-produced vaccine to bring the world back to normal would be amazing for the Vanadium commodity price because so much of the historical/existing demand comes from the airplane & car manufacturing industries, which have both been in the doldrums as a consequence of covid-19. Once airplanes and cars manufactured at normal levels once again the V commodity price will recover also. Higher vanadium commodity prices = more profit for Bushveld = higher share prices.

So how we've fallen despite this news, and despite the Orion news today (where they've effectively agreed to pay 17p per share), is absolutely beyond me.

Only Bushveld could fall as a result of covid, and also as a result of covid potentially coming to an abrupt end. The former made sense to an extent. The latter (today) makes no sense at all.

I can see there were 450k of sells this morning in 150k chunks which could have been Golden Summit but otherwise I feel confused and exasperated by the lack of share price rise today.

We're worth a multiple of this FFS !

I don't think I would because of how quickly this has been produced and tested, and the possibility of longterm effects only becoming apparent years later.

If we were to assume the Pfizer vaccine was available as of January 2021, would you want to be vaccinated? Or would you rather continue as you are, taking the risk with the option of being tested if/when needed?

Genuinely curious to hear people's thoughts on this.

Finally decided to buy in at 340p ish

Obviously kicking myself for not investing for 10%+ less but this still looks like a wonderful mix of high growth, decent momentum, and it's also looking very undervalued all things considered.

Q1 Revenues exceeded the 2019/20 H1 figure of £102m
Q2 Revenues were only a tad less than Q1
Q3 Revenues will be amazing with both the US Elections and all the trading today due to the Pfizer news.
Q4 Revenues could also be very good with Brexit-related trading

So we can realistically expect yearly revenues to increase to £400-500m IMHO. A 35% increase at the minimum.

DYOR & GLA :)

Few things worth remembering:

1) Pfizer vaccine is not a done deal yet. Even when a vaccine does get approval, it has to be produced and distributed, and it would take years before there's enough people vaccinated to even consider not having big testing contracts like the ones we've seen to date.

2) There's a huge % of the population who do not want to be vaccinated. These people would rather continue as we are, accepting the risk and being tested as and when it is needed. There will therefore ALWAYS be a need for covid testing. It is merely that the number of tests required will reduce once a vaccine becomes available for millions (or should I say billions?)

3) NCYT has a massive first mover advantage, and has clearly become a respected company capable of winning major testing contracts from governments around the world, most notably the English and Welsh ones of course.

4) NCYT's financial health as well as its financial results this year will be remarkable. Once news of this is released in January you can expect a big re-rate.

So there's plenty of reasons to be hopeful here.

Superb post, Alfa. You really do know your onions

... and your Orions! (soz for the dad joke, couldn't resist)

Very pleased with today's RNSs.

The first RNS shows how absurdly undervalued we are that Orion are willing to effectively pay 17p - when have you ever seen such a premium to the prevailing sp? (rhetorical question - this never happens). Orion have agreed to this because they KNOW Bushveld is going to multi-bag. The fact they've lent $30m and now $35m so shortly thereafter also speaks volumes. It's like they've suddenly learned that's made them super bullish. And if they are willing to pay 17p, it makes it even more obvious what a no-brainer it is to be buying under that share price.

The second RNS is not ideal but, as BBN says on Twitter, it is a necessary evil for Bushveld to increase production from 2,930mtV last year to reach an annualised rate of 5,300mtV next year.

Why do Bushveld want to increase production so significantly and so rapidly?

1) Because the Eskom BESS contracts will require loads of vanadium. Chances are, as part of the tender bid Bushveld were involved in, they have been required to increase production so rapidly. And, upon hearing news that they have won some of these massive contracts, they have had to suddenly gear up to expand their production capabilities incredibly fast. This RNS is perhaps the strongest indication we've had yet that Bushveld have been successful with Eskom.

2) Because it is clear that VRFBs are taking off in general all over the world, and this is a completely new source of demand.

Invinity have recently won contracts in the UK and USA, Enerox must be doing something similar or gearing up to supply Eskom, and this is only the tip of the iceberg because we keep hearing of more and more VRFBs being built all around the world, including some real goliaths like the ones in Saudi Arabia and China of course.

VRFB take up will accelerate even more with the vanadium rental agreements we're now hearing about too. A genius bit of innovation. And, once again, this will cause more demand for vanadium which has to come from somewhere.

On this basis, I view the 2nd RNS as a necessary evil for Bushveld to achieve its incredible goals in 2021 and beyond.

And, overall, these 2 RNSs should be viewed incredibly positively. 2021 is going to be amazing!

Pickler,

Many thanks for your post - glad you agree with what I had said. Personally don’t think Duferco getting 43m shares would be all that bad. If they go for this, they are not allowed to sell a single share for at least 26 weeks.

And, as said yesterday, it’s worth remembering “that this Duferco money was required to purchase Vanchem at a bargain price. It was such a bargain that the auditors said it was worth $60M+ more than what we paid for it from day 1.

So, whilst it is not ideal that the number of shares required will be about 20m more than it would've been in different circumstances (without COVID-19 etc), the BoD were still geniuses for negotiating such a deal, and we're still massively quids in for it.”

With this Duferco CLN issue out of the way, as it’ll be announced next week, and with GS seemingly out of shares, the share price is finally going to have a fair chance to re-rate.

Genuinely believe lots of people will be caught out by how fast this re-rates over the next 2 months or so.

We are on the cusp.