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Pleased to see some bids returning today. Would be great if we can finish the week in the green (above 33.8p) to keep our winning streak going for another week at least (that would make it the 5th green week in a row, and six green weeks in the last seven).
Just goes to show Condor is still flying well under the radar, which means that either it always will and the share price will never reflect full value, or that if/when the herd arrives the share price could absolutely rocket.
They tried to sell the company back around 2015 but it just demonstrated how bad the market for juniors was back then, especially with the gold price in the toilet. Excellent drill results was doing little to increase the share price, and I think (I'm guessing) JM back then didn't really want to single-handedly fund a risky gold exploration company but he was locked in and unless he wanted to lose his existing investment there was little to be done but commit fully and plough ahead.
They then changed strategy to derisking and building a mine (rather than drilling and expanding the resource) as that (so they thought) was the only way to unlock shareholder value given market conditions.
My question is whether they would have gone ahead with the financing if the sanctions had not dropped last year, or having realised the M&A market had actually improved they would have instead put the company up for sale. Given the history I suspect the latter.
ICB I agree with that 100%. Explorers are not miners, but the market has been a ****-show for exploration companies over the past decade sadly. Under better conditions, Condor would have done extremely well in much less time, as it has been well run given all the surrounding challenges IMO.
I disagree, I think JM wants an exit now and that means the company will be sold. I do not believe they will go back to attempting to raise capital to build the mine, given that now is a great time to sell (gold price at $2k, majors cash rich and looking to acquire to replenish depleting resources) and the idea of another 5+ years of hard, risky work does not really appeal to them after putting so much blood and energy into Condor over the years.
However, that doesn't mean they will let it go on the cheap. Mark has said repeatedly that the key to unlocking higher valuations is competitive bidding, and that he believes they now have those conditions given the number of non-binding offers and site visits. We will see. As I said, we are now waiting for the first binding offer as that will get the bidding process going, then we will see if a counter binding offer appears shortly after. If it does, then we can certainly expect the higher valuations to be unlocked.
Current mcap is £62M. Condor's highest mcap was £70M in May 2021, and (recent) lowest was £25M in late Dec 2021. So at least in mcap terms we've pretty much recovered, in fact we're much higher than pre-2021 averages. In June 2019 we got down to £12.5M!! So all things considered, we're not doing too badly at all.
However the market is (typically with us) not pricing in any upside here whatsoever, so I guess we are going to churn around these levels until news drops. If that news is a binding offer at a much higher valuation then trading levels can be expected to reset higher.
The big question remains, at what valuation will the first binding offer place us at; will it match the market's current valuation (~£60M) or if higher by how much?
I would avoid consumer-based equities and hold industrials with pricing power, as I believe inflation is here for the long term and western economies are in dire straits and have no hope of turning themselves around for the foreseeable future. BHP looks attractive if you believe we are entering a commodity bull market. Entering a decent buying range as commodity prices have pulled back some, 9% divi yield.
I may continue to hold some major goldies but their underperformance when not in a storming bear market it just dire, and the timing of it is just too difficult to call. I've learned my lesson after 12 years here!
Hmm not particularly interesting yet ISA, slow and steady progress. The MMs are still trying to fill that order as we're still seeing lots of batch trades, e.g.:
24-Apr-23 12:48:54 35.40 25,000 Buy* 34.50 35.50 8,850 O
24-Apr-23 12:48:41 35.40 25,000 Buy* 34.50 35.50 8,850 O
24-Apr-23 12:47:47 35.40 20,000 Buy* 34.50 35.50 7,080 O
So they're only letting us rise slowly as far as they can. Volume is good so as long as it stays around 500k per day we should continue to move up steadily. However if volume jumps to 2m+ per day then it's really going to force the MMs to raise the bid, though I suspect we're going to need to see an RNS with a binding offer at a substantial premium to sp to see that kind of volume.
Whilst that's true Connect, as we are currently witnessing it is very difficult to acquire a substantial holding at these levels. LTH tend to have much larger positions, so we may reap a much larger reward if all goes to plan and the company is bought so substantially more than current levels - and also gives us a means of exiting these larger positions. So these traders jumping in an out with a profit is fine, but that was not the reason why many LTHs bought in (and I'm assuming that is also true of you).
And we're off! So far a few small sells and a much larger buy, how are the MMs going to fill that huge background order with only a few shares drip feeding back into the market?! Gonna have to push that ask up boys, or you're gonna have a very unhappy customer!
A finish today above 35p should be achievable.
Even if sleepy demented joe the hoe does announce more sanctions, they will be against individuals not the gold sector as a whole. The market has already seen this and how it was a non-event, business as usual. Future similar sanctions are now priced in, so unlikely to have such a dramatic effect on share prices.