focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
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
The pressing issue is the lack of certainty which the company could quite easily clear up. I can't speak for anyone else but on the last two investor meet interviews my questions put forward went ignored, the company no longer respond via email and recent SP decline and placing at 11p adds further questions around Poddars motives
I suspect the next interview may come, if we are lucky, after next update but it is long overdue
If the company cannot capitalise on recently tailwinds from China's export restrictions or provide any guidance on increased orders outside of Pranagraf, which the shareholders should have ownership of, then I fear we have little hope.
My question around the shares for salary arrangement is around the timing. I would need to look back over past results but these read like annual salaries, if it's settling amounts owed have the management not been drawing a salary? If so, they would have been doing so with a plan in mind to settle their salary somehow - why now at 11p when for months the SP has probably averaged out at around 15/16p a share?
The 2x large sells this week dragging the SP down to this region, if someone had wind this was coming before it hit the market surely that is insider trading?
Another question which I'm sure someone will be able to answer is around the related party transactions - in half-year report there's £821k revenue being earned via PranaGraf - there's other transactions and fees occuring - TGR are supposed to own PranaGraf (TSG) what are these back office fees being shelled out and why hasn't a solution been found to bring this under the TGR umbrella. There might be a good reason for this, but when you read Customer A/B/C PranaGraf is clearly Customer A on the list - so basically we've increased revenue from ourselves.
I have all but written off ever seeing a return from TGR and as time drags on - unless I'm reading these the wrong way - there's too much activity going on for Shishir's benefit and not the shareholders
My overarching concern at this point - after looking into the companies where the joint-broker has resigned - is a large portion no longer exist on the open market, is that where TGR is heading?
"We are pleased to welcome Shard Capital as our newly appointed joint broker, reflecting the exceptional progress the Company is making. Alongside Optiva Securities, Shard Capital will help us to enhance our capital markets presence to support the continued strong growth trajectory. We remain focused on developing our portfolio of high-quality graphite projects to meet the significant demand required for the energy transition."
2 months later, resigned.
TGR has proven to be a massive disappointment in the last couple of years! Looked past many of the red flags (my fault) to see the bigger picture of growth but at the moment I am of the opinion that Shishir has used the market listing to take a nice salary, and further his own interests in companies owned in India
Just my opinion but the related party transactions tend to stack up in his benefit
TSG for example was supposed to be owned by shareholders, 21st August it was “on the radar” and recently company confirmed no news imminent - market subdued at the moment but just one in a long line of actions that have eroded any trust with ownership
Investors were promised & reassured no dilution at these levels - but then again someone had to threaten a winding up order on LSE to get their CLNs acknowledged!
Let’s see what the debt funding looks like but significant sales today never instil any confidence when an update is imminent
Shishir had reassured investors that non-dilutive funding was the route the company was looking to take.
Time & time again he has promised a mile and delivered an inch. A couple of years ago this was a company with a lot of potential and an exciting future, he’s transformed it into a mining company with no money to expand and barely enough cash to pay his £360k a year wage.
Very disappointed but I’m sure this there will be an RNS in six months time that will state he remembers TSG should still be in hands of investors and it’s being looked at…
$8.3m spent and currently very little to show for it, our ship needs a new captain before we hit an iceberg
Ajaye,
You posted this on TGR board in Sept-23
"I don’t think there is a floor to this share until you get to 11.2p - its small production revenue does not support the market cap
I’m hoping that the rumours are true and the company will be cash generative towards the end of November and that the SP will be double from here.
Lots of news coming I’m sure ?
DYOR"
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No concerns raised at this point?
Extremely disappointing month and very little appears to have been delivered since the last investor meet. The price action this month does appear to correlate with the market (see Syrah) but TGR have put themselves in a position where they're heavily punished for any question marks that hover in an RNS
The only catalyst that will propel us forward is a blockbuster quarter - too much now expected to get the SP back on the right track. I like many others had questions submitted in the last investor meet which were neither answered on the day or followed up on, disappointing.
Just for clarity I did avg. down a little but that brought it from the 70p down to 55p! Still a long way to go to breakeven and I've been far from happy with this years performance, however the recent news RE China and the latest presentation has given a sense of optimism back
I took the opportunity at 15p to average down a little and it's been reassuring to see the share price work its way back up in the past week. If Shishir can deliver positive news soon around the £1m VAT refund, working capital arrangements and the non-dilutive financing which is being discussed then I think this is only the beginning of a sharp re-rate. Fingers crossed.
After a few years of stagnation next year feels pretty crucial for Trin and realising value. For years the commentary on the company has been that it's exceedingly undervalued, a low cost producer, minimal debt etc. etc.
The changes to SPT were noted as the catalyst for change and after years of lobbying, the government are finally starting to make amendments to the taxation thresholds
With oil hovering around £90/barrel, tax reforms underway, dividend starting to be rolled out - if they can't deliver for shareholders now, who's going to have any hope in 12 months time?
In 2017 TRIN rode from 6p up to 26p in 2018 and the company has been treading along ever since while the SP has dwindled back down to 6p
Under BD the company communicated with shareholders well and there was a lot of trust in the process - Unfortunately JB has failed to take the business to the next level
? In H2 FY 24, the Company estimates base case production of 7,500 tons though working towards reaching 10,000 tons, given the limitations of head grade
Stronger second half of the year with 7,500 hopefully in Shishir’s promised realm of underpromise and overdeliver
Profitability guidance would’ve been nice however this is showing progress, 14p a share is crazy imo bearing in mind this level is partially as a result of BAT offloading to raise cash in a terrible market
Confident this will be higher in 6 months, however, Shishir needs to deliver a good fundraising deal for shareholders
What has frustrated me beyond the obvious is that Shishir had an opportunity to tackle many of these questions head on in an online interview, as opposed to 1-2-1 interviews, none of which we've had any official update on in terms of what individual shareholders were told by TGR
The problem Shishir has put himself in over the last two years is there's always so much expectation pinned on "the next RNS" it sets up for disappointment - Q2 update SHOULD dispel many of the recently highlighted concerns (sales, capacity utilisation, cashflow etc) but any hint of doubt and I don't think we will see the quick re-rate that we're hoping for.
The market appears to have changed in the short-term on the downstream side - as long as the company is committed to bringing 100% of the assets into TGR when the time is right, I would prefer all efforts are put into the mining side of the company... there's several companies in an embryonic stage aspiring to the levels of production TGR have already achieved, notably there's one listed in the US - GraphiteOne valued at multiples of TGR and hasn't yet got a bean out of the ground
Demonstrate to the market a low-cost base, profitable operation, tighten up the corporate governance, make strides to repair trust between Poddars and investors and we might actually start moving in the right direction
The large trade today - possible buy?
I posted this link the other day but the pres from Peter Duerden posted 3 weeks ago talks about an exciting 3-6 months for TGR - mentions "drawing on the funds" as needed which we've seen over the past few weeks but at these levels you wouldn't expect them to sell any more shares than is necessary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2hTrHMPqxE&t=11s
I am hopeful for a positive month or two ahead of newsflow, new NED appointment in "advanced stages" as per yesterday RNS, trading update and confirmation of ramp up to 50% capacity
Battery Minerals selling shares has been painful however there are a few graphite plays out there valued at multiples of TGR and they haven't even started production yet - if TGR can post a strong quarter (Shishir recently promised in an interview to underpromise and overdeliver in future(!)) then I'm hopeful we'll see the share price start moving in the right direction
I'm optimistic that they were only selling what was necessary to raise funds - the Battery Minerals MD did a presentation only two weeks ago highlighting the importance of TGR investment as part of their renewed strategy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2hTrHMPqxE
He does at the very end mention "drawing on the funds" but based on what they've presented I don't think they would want to sell their entire holding
Hopefully those chunky sells were the end of it and the price can bounce from here
I was being as conservative as possible with snippets from latest FY results and the Q1 update, which is pleasing to see others providing good reasoning that the estimate should be higher
It's mainly musing on a drizzly tuesday to reassure myself a £17m Mcap is vastly undervaluing the business
Re-reading the Battery Minerals recent set of results I'm convinced they are offloading shares - I guess there's two lines of thinking on the back of this:
1) Good opportunity to purchase more shares, 16p offers significant upside potential once cashflow concerns put to bed
2) Increasing concern that they'll have another 6m+ shares they can liquidate from December, it would be interesting to hear whether TGR can renegotiate with Battery Minerals to prevent that happening