Member Info for Montmuzard

"You think it’s plausible they’d send a false red flag, via RNS stating no cash left, to waken up this mystery ‘buyer’"

No, I don't actually. My view is that it is even more simple than this. The auditor wants to see that the UK PLC has enough cash to keep going for another year or so. The company have said "well, we anticipate a sale completing before then". But the auditor has said "but even if you sell now, the money is unlikely to be available by November, and we are concerned you might struggle to sell the concentrate or remit capital from Russia in time, so we'd rather see some kind of financing in place to sign off as going concern". To which the company have responded: "okay, we'll get some of kind of revolving facility to do that, but hopefully we won't need to access it". Something like that. I predict that in the next week or so Eurasia will confirm a facility for £XXm is available to them, after which the accounts will be published and, hopefully, a sale confirmation following on at some point after that.

Of course, another explanation is that today's RNS was forced by the NOMAD to clarify what is holding up the audit, but the company are quite happy to see the audit and suspension drag on for a few more weeks as that means they can announce a sale around the time they publish accounts and announce the AGM. Either way, there are as many positive readings of what is going on as there are negative ones.

@Makeabundle - Agree, excellent post. I'm surprised that none of the commentary I've seen today here or in other places has focused on the position of the buyers. The assumption from some is that they are waiting for the Eurasia to circle the drain. But what if this is actually Eurasia sending them a "last chance" message before changing strategy?

"Situation is like AMC (I said it before a few times and got shot down), a fire sale, with dirty deals, directors rewarded handsomely, retail investor given zero choice, take it or leave it scenario"

Situation is not like AMC in a couple of important respects. One is that the company does not have to find £1bn of its own money in up-front capex to build infrastrcture like roads and so on, and they also have a contract in place with Sinosteel for almost £200m to provide financing to get MT producing. The other is that none of the AMC executives owned 16% of the company's shares: any firesale would devalue Dmitry's holding significantly, and he would have to be spectacularly handsomely rewarded in some other way to offset the full value of that shareholding.

I don't think anyone can pretend that this isn't a very nasty bump in an exceptionally bumpy road. But, personally, I still prefer to remain optimistic for now and think there could be a fairly simple set of explanations. The auditor won't sign off the accounts as a going concern (despite the Russian subs having plenty of money and, it seems, some unsold concentrate), so have told the company they need to find bridging finance in the UK. The company aren't panicking, because they have visibility of both the sale of concentrate and sale of assets (perhaps the delay in the Queeld case until October remains a due diligence sticking point for the buyer) and they are now securing a bridging loan to fill any gap between a sale being announced and money actually coming in. I think the words "if any" in the RNS are critical here: I think it unlikely that the NOMAD would have let them sneak that in if they could not demonstrate that there is a reasonable likelihood that they will not actually need to access the facility.

They also have the option of raising money, so we should ask ourselves: why haven't they done that? One positive interpretation is that the scale of dilution - relative to a financial facility that they might not access - would far outweigh the benefit of access to capital if they know that they can sell the concentrate and remit the proceeds and/or get the sale through in the near future.

12 million in the kitty - see the SP go parabolic now

Don't see any gapping down personally. We've clearly found support at around 100p, and it won't take much for the fuse paper to be lit again.

Looks like that loss of momentum was just a little breather!

Something is tickling here this morning...

Seems like my comment brought a few green ghouls out: no idea what you’re saying, and nor do I care. It’s been a long road, but I am confident we’re close to a resolution now. All the LTHs here are going to be well rewarded. Can’t see any other reason for being in suspension now other than to line up the various ducks in the final stages of the deal without massive swings in the share price. When that RNS lands and suspension is lifted, my strong suspicion is that lots will be left on the sidelines wishing they had taken a chance when they could.

"Any potential buyer can afford to wait until the money runs out, or there has to be another fund raising"

Just checked in for the first time in a wheel to be greeted by this nonsense. The money isn't going to run out. WK is clearly producing and there's clearly money sloshing about. Even if things were to get tight, there is always the option of activating Sinosteel and then cracking on with building the MT mine. Although none of that is going to be necessary because there's sale news inbound any day now!

It was Anders I think? Sold some to buy a house but saved the disclosure until after hours so as not to effect the share price.

"Crabby - don't think they would need to declare their position until they'd finished building it."

I don't think this is right. My understanding is that any transaction that takes an investor above the 3% threshold usually requires disclosure by the end of the next business day. The FCA guidance (see section 5.8) makes it pretty clear that this is "not later than two trading days" afterwards: https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/DTR.pdf

"For instance, buy half the company at an average of say 7 pence per share and the remainder at 25p will save the buyer(s) hundreds of millions and the opportunity is there now after years in the doldrums and PI's are worried..."

If this is what's happening, why haven't we seen any TR1s? Can't see it personally. Any buyer purchasing big amounts on the open market would be taking a big legal risk under their NDAs.

Some of the buys going through are huge - massive blocks - so it's hard to believe that it is PI punt money doing this.

@ Funds - I didn't say they did. Of course they wouldn't have to RNS in response to your opinion. My comment was that, if your opinion is right - i.e. sale not progressing - I don't see how they could not RNS it and would not have to start looking at developing the assets again. Care and maintenance is only a viable (and, by definition, temporary) strategy if there is a potential sale lined up in my view.

"Do feel placing is under way, forward sell probably, the Company has only sufficient working capital to meet ongoing obligations until early Q32024. Don't think the Russia asset sale will be concluded until peace"

And funny that this is your first comment on the company here for certainly the past year or more, possibly forever.

And there we go, nice bit of accumulation for MMs to rinse and repeat on next leg up.

MM's dropping the ask to try to flush out weak sellers. Just a tree shake. Don't fall for it.

"Personally I don't believe there will be a sale until Russia are no longer at war and sanctions have been lifted. That could be a long time"

If this were true, the company would have had to RNS it and begun the process of mining MT.

"I personally want the company to start mining now the sale has dragged on for too long. I think the buyer(s) are taking the mick"

I agree ... if the resolution of the Queeld case is not the final obstacle to a sale proceeding. We'll know soon enough.

"Im just being real"

You're being green binned