RE: The Lithium Spot19 May 2018 11:13
And that is your opinion @Bannor! ;-) It's clear to me now that at least part of the "unnecessary debt" was vital to prevent the re-domicile to protect the economic value of our Sonora JV's. @Kiran spelt it out in the most recent seminar which I have transcribed below:
"Live Webinar" (Wednesday 25 April 2018)
http://webcasting.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcast/5acf1ed05a296618f1792506/5ae054e6715af0844c00007e
===[
@ 33:13-35:33
So Kiran I've got a question from Ken Macintyre. How and when does the board intend to monetise the Sonora Joint Venture areas for the benefit of long term shareholders.
So the first thing to do to monetise it is to have a contract which reflects, so we have a JV contract which is an exploration contract. So I've spoken about to various people about, we are in the process of ensuring that that contract is something that is a solid contract in terms of an operating company, you have the JV contract which is really about exploration contributing, and now there is a new contract which is a shareholders agreement, which we're developing and working with Bacanora, to put in place safety measures and ensuring that it protects our economic interest. Once we have that you can justifiably say well there is an economic valuation based on this contract which protects our economic interests. And that is what was missing when they originally did the readmission, and what we asked for so we voted against the readmission. This time we voted in favour because of course that had been progressed and we progressed that sufficiently to agree with the readmission.
So, when we going to monetise it? I think there is a limited trade sale basis which is ultimately to Bacanora. In the contract beforehand they always had first right of refusal, so if we do get an offer they would have a first right of refusal anyhow on it. So I think the monetisation on that will either come, well it will come I think much later, much later, it's not going to be in the next 3 or 4 months or 1 year. The monetisation will either be realised once Bacanora gets the funding, starts construction and then the value of that JV because it's secure on a good contract can be reflected in our market cap, as I've said, around the 30 million dollar mark, and that's where I think where we will see probably in the shorter term where we will see it affecting the share price rather than a straight out trade and sale.
]===
I'm happy to agree that not all of the debt was strictly necessary though! ;-)
Ob.