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Next week is going to be extremely important imo. If Shishir is serious about getting trust re-established he will have got his Q3 update ready to RNS first thing tomorrow morning and get a solid forward-looking statement out
Based on the very brief email he sent last week I'm also expecting the investor meet to be set for late next week
The other distinct possibility is continued silence and the drop continues
From HY update:
· Considering an average head grade of c.3% across the two Madagascar projects, the Company will add two pre-concentrate units and ramp up production and sales in Madagascar to steady state of 2,000 tons per month in the minimum possible time.
It'll be interesting to see if this target was hit - it was only a few months ago where underpromise/overdeliver was assured - how that has failed to materialise.
SP just tumbling at this point. Awful.
If Shishir & co wanted to stabilise the share price they would've got a trading update out weeks ago - it wasn't long ago that he wrote something along the lines of this being a transformational stage for the company. If you can't put out positive forward looking statements then, what hope do you have.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I do fear the long term aim has been to have TGR fold and Prangraf buy the assets for a pittance. Have tried to be mildly optimistic in the last few weeks as HarChris and a few others have put forward well-reasoned posts to remain patient, but there is very little cause for optimism today.
I agree, this is absolutely crucial. The last investor meet my questions went unanswered and I know many other people said the same thing. It was entirely selective and on this occasion I believe the board (basically just Shishir at this point!) needs to tackle everything head on.
The TSG/Pranagraf business has been an issue for a long time, the transactions will have been audited so I don't agree that there has been stealing taking place, but TG essentially funding Pranagraf's development after the failed acquisition would be a real kick in the teeth for investors, especially as it looks as though this acquisition will never come to fruition.
This is an opportunity to salvage reputation with investors, based on the SP fall and exit of nearly everyone apart from Puruvi & Shishir it could be last chance saloon, let's see.
Final question - post from Madagascar trip showed Christian St-Dennis with Shishir & Murat, if he's resigned from post why was he there and not Isabel?
Reinforces all the concerns many shareholders have had for a while - the board member feedback also extremely concerning, whoever that was.
If Shishir was committed to turning TGR around he would've been sitting in front of investors answering these questions months ago, more time has passed and there's been no shred of positive news.
I, like many, have been ignored for ages via email but I'll be pushing again for an investor meet
I haven't looked at Syrah in detail however interesting as a point of discussion on wider market trends (concerningly) is that their short position is at record high levels, 0.5% in 2022 now 17%+ shorted
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=SYR
Separately another interesting news article for NMG who announced a supply agreement for 18tpa - I wonder if TGR are looking at similar deals with customers being shown around in madagascar recently
https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20240214190689/nmg-and-panasonic-energy-announce-binding-offtake-agreement-and-us25-million-private-placement-to-secure-the-supply-of-active-anode-material-for-north-american-battery-production
The recent activity on X has been an improvement however the lack of RNS newsflow and, as mentioned many times, an investor meet has allowed continued doubt to manifest itself across shareholders and when the SP has plummeted to where we are now, you'd be very hard pressed to find anyone happy with the situation at the moment
It was great to see an email shared on here last week, but again, why is Shishir cherry picking one person to respond to? If he is that worried about a hostile takeover then surely one of the first priorities is to get in front of shareholders, dispel any rumours that he consistently says are unfounded and reassure everyone over the cash position - lack of any positive news and reassurance is putting the SP in an awful place right now.
Someone last week asked about the trade import/export link, this is the one I found before, hope that helps! https://www.trademo.com/companies/tirupati-graphite-plc/40464231
Croqman, thanks for sharing it's very much appreciated
Reading through this has given me more comfort in terms of the Pranagraf related party transactions - it's surprising this wasn't outlined more clearly on one of the investor meets but nonetheless the reasoning makes sense. I think we would all like to see this brought officially under the TG ownership in future
The supply/demand note echoes what harsht posted a couple of weeks ago, if I remember his point around larger flake prices remaining stable was interesting and hopefully the next qtr results show TG maintained a good avg. price overall
I still firmly believe a well executed investor meet presentation will stimulate buying volume, if the next quarterly update provides bullish forward-looking guidance & confirmation on funding then we might just start to turn a corner
I also did some quotes this morning and it looks like every trade this morning was a buy, some sizeable purchases made this week which is good to see.
The recent posts on X look promising however you only need to see the comments to see investor relations are at an all time low. Of course that is largely driven by the share price, but even if Shishir has been busy on site, is it not part of Puruvi's job to be communicating to shareholders? The company should be comfortable putting her on an investor meet to do a Q&A
AJAYE post a few days ago on interest being paid is reassuring that TGR is meeting obligations and if expansion plans are underway there looks to be some light at the end of the tunnel, but why is this narrative not being hammered home via the right channels? I am convinced 1 RNS and an investor meet has the potential to double the SP in a day and even then you would still argue there's significant upside
Three main concerns posted from various investors over the past three months:
- Relationship of TGR to Poddar limited companies in India and is TGR the main beneficiary of those relationships
- Cash position
- Sales growth and hitting profitable production volumes
Reassurance to shareholders on these will turn the tide significantly.
A very small slither of potential positive news in the sense that if "next steps for expansion" are being put in place, that must surely mean a resolution on debt funding is close. If funding instead comes via dilution or on bad terms then I think at these levels I think it will really be unrecoverable at this point in terms of the share price
Another 1m offloaded today I can only think that's battery minerals
The research / data shared around % ownership have all been very useful but the buck once again stops at Shishir for not communicating with shareholders and allowing unrest and uncertainty to manifest itself.
Fingers crossed a positive RNS is released soon, it's been too long coming.
Still blocks of 25k & 50k shares being offloaded at these ridiculously low levels, no interest in buying and if the company have any eyes on forums they will see there's people sat on the sidelines waiting to invest/reinvest on the sign of good news
Syrah risen +33% this month, it's taken a breather in the last couple of days but that could be a sign that interest in the graphite market is waking up again, JP morgan increased their stake in the co. recently too
For TGR we've had nothing out of Shishir recently, one positive investor meet could change sentiment drastically but silence is deafening
Bearing in mind Hemant’s other business ventures include the Tirupati ltd company in India it’s becoming more important in my opinion for Shishir to do an investor meet and answer shareholder questions & dispel any concerns around going off market
There’s been a number of resignations in previous months (NED & joint broker) and very few hires
As just mentioned, if TGR is on the brink of profitability and this is a transformative year as Shishir mentioned, why would he leave now
Re pay - fair points you raise, equally your points earlier on wider market.
I don’t aim to exaggerate anything and if you look back on historical posts I would like to think I’ve been very balanced & positive. Last few weeks & months I’ve had a negative sentiment on management though and will concede that is largely driven by SP and a hefty paper loss
I would like to know where I’ve been incorrect though in the past - will always hold my hands up if that is the case
Latest HY report director emoluments & management salary over £500k - that's a big chunk of money to be forking out each month when cash is as tight as it is
Where I was confused was latest subscription @ 11p was in lieu of payments owed to directors - surely the £450k between Shishir & Puruvi wasn't on top of this?
HarChris I don't discount this being an important factor in the SP decline, GROC are valued at 1/4 of TGR and last time I looked haven't even developed an asset into production yet, TGR does/should offer a huge amount of value at these levels
My issue sits with ownership still. They have seen trust questions crop up time and time again over the past two, three years and when you sit here Jan-24 and say trust is still at an all-time low; coupled with Shishir doing no interview or investor meets for months now, it's not a good place to be.
The lack of news, still, regarding debt funding is also concerning - we're drifting towards single digits and it doesn't seem like the board are being held to account over it.
I don't want to appear as a troll & will add this as my last post as I've added a few to the BB recently
I invested in TGR because I thought this was an exciting company in an emerging market - pays your money and takes your chance. But, SP has been trashed because the directors aren't working in the interests of UK shareholders
Final link is Pragraf import/export data
https://www.trademo.com/companies/pranagraf-materials-technologies/37938983
November shipment value was $651,859 - if you look at the order data the graphite purchased from TGR appears to match up with Customer A data so the company that was due to merge with TGR is just buying it from the business and flipping it retail for a larger profit
Whilst the directors take a large salary developing the assets with raised capital, the profits are going off into the limited companies
Hope i'm wrong.
Bit of research shows they have a separate ltd company registered in Jharkhand - advertising graphite but can find no mention in half-year reports: https://tirupatigraphite.tradeindia.com/
https://tirupatigraphite.com/index.html
it's also interesting to note Pranagraf currently advertise large natural flake graphite at £1,090.71/ton on their site: https://www.indiamart.com/pranagrafmaterialsandtechnologies/graphite-flake.html#20727840930
Natural flake graphite £758 whereas we realised an avg. price of £658 MT
Let's hope those sort of prices are realised for TGR before they're sold to Pranagraf.......
21st August 2023:
"The 2018 agreement between Tirupati and PranaGraf to combine the businesses has been frustrated by regulatory restrictions. The many benefits encourage us to continue to seek solutions to enable a combination to be executed. Having completed the acquisition of Suni Resources and arranged the progress of ramp up of production at our Madagascar projects, we are now well placed to focus on this and shall update the markets as we progress further."
The constant trust issues stem largely around how Shishir is dragging this out and using Pranagraf as TGRs main customer (Customer A on last results)
The optimist would see it as a strategic move to keep showing TGR revenues increasing, however the pessimistic/realistic angle may be that customers are being nurtured via the Pranagraf brand and that business is growing / generating profits which TGR shareholders should, and currently aren't, benefitting from
Be interesting to get the views of someone with more expertise in corporate structure to explain possible scenarios