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"Mounting uncertainty with availability of funds due to sanctions on Russian banks and economy. Higher working capital needs as a result of liquidity crunch and supply chain limitations. Balance sheet constraints imposed by lower credit availability as well as significantly higher cost of funding."

tHe NeWs Is PoSiTive

"It was all a clever plan to keep troops tied down..."

ok Baldrick.

Oil is up 7% today and my other oil companies are flying so it's a bit odd. But we've had a good run of late so it was due a breather and I'm sure we'll catch up soon enough.

"LOL only difference is they are in an industrial estate with their backs to the cold sea I guess."
Instead of an industrial estate with their backs to the volga... so not entirely dissimilar.

Fighting in a bombed out city is a big advantage for the defenders... as the russians learned at stalingrad.

pandamon - "Here you are again spouting this rubbish about the FTSE100"
It's a quote from the FT you absolute nugget. You're the one spouting your half assed personal opinions, I'm just quoting from industry sources.

Yeah a bit of profit taking, a bit of sell on news... idc it's an opportunity to pick up some more at a discount to fair value and secure the dividend at 6% and growing.

jotom - we can speculate about the auditor, the FT has an opinion that says: 'all ftse100 companies require auditors with the scale and reach of the big 4, so Polymetal may find it difficult to get a new one'. Your wife and other posters here say 'Nah, it's easy, anybody can do it'. Fair enough, I keep an open mind, obviously I give more weight to the FT than comments on a bb, but time will tell.

We know. Apparently, it's not a problem at all, according to some of the ostriches on here.

jotom - You are the only one mentioning motley fool. Your wife is obviously the brains of the operation. Ask her to read you the article I posted from the FINANCIAL TIMES.

"offmessage you have been filtered for being boring"
From someone who can only communicate in single unpunctuated sentences, I take that as a compliment.

"Seems more straightforward to me."
That's often the case when you lack the understanding needed to make a proper assessment.
I'm just going by the comment in the FT artcile I posted. I'm happy to accept their superior understanding of the subject rather than having a wild guess at how hard it might be myself.

There is a seperate FT article about Poly and the difficulties they face in finding a suitable auditor.
This is a follow on article illustrating the situation and the lack of suitable candidates outside of the big 4 when it comes to auditing ftse 100 companies, which essentially poly is/was.

"As I said its a 2 country operation..."
Yeah I know.. you reckon it's a piece of ****... but the Financial Times disagrees with you.

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https://www.ft.com/content/cfea503d-80cc-439d-af81-e5800c87b2bd

The business department said that the government, through its white paper, intended to introduce managed shared audits so that smaller accounting firms had the opportunity to increase their market share.

It also said it welcomed how some challengers felt able to tender for FTSE 250 contracts as sole auditor following the government’s proposals.

“We remain confident that managed shared audit will be effective to increase competition in the long term,” added the business department.

“The principle of shared audits is very attractive to challengers as long as the share of the audit is meaningful and brings incremental experience to teams,” said Fiona Baldwin, UK head of audit at Grant Thornton.

“If the challenger firm is just going to get what’s left at the bottom of the barrel, that’s not interesting and doesn’t help.”

The government has not ruled out imposing a cap on the Big Four’s share of the FTSE 350 audit market if competition in the industry does not improve.

Scott Knight, UK head of audit at BDO, said a market share cap for individual accounting firms would be more effective than shared audits.

He added: “BDO will work with whatever market intervention [the business department] land upon and try to make it work. We think the exemption from managed shared audits if you appoint a challenger firm will have a significant impact, particularly among the FTSE 250.”

Mazars and Crowe, the eighth and ninth largest accounting firms by UK audit revenues, said they would work alongside the Big Four on shared audits of big listed companies in sectors where they have the required expertise.

David Herbinet, UK and global head of audit at Mazars, said shared audits were an important tool to help challengers break into the FTSE 100 and not just the lower end of the FTSE 350.

Steve Gale, head of audit at Crowe UK, said shared audits were potentially a “good stepping stone” for challengers.

However, several accountants said there was concern that without BDO and Grant Thornton doing shared audits of FTSE 100 companies, other challengers could struggle to expand quickly enough in the medium term to meet demand.

Government modelling has predicted that within a decade, challengers could win up to 12 per cent of the more than £1bn in annual audit fees from the FTSE 350 market, requiring a significant investment in personnel and expertise.

Accountants also said challengers may be unwilling to audit extremely large or complex companies such as big banks, insurers and miners.

Some challengers also fear that companies using shared audits will ask them to check the accounts of unimportant subsidiaries that will not help them to build the skills they need to compete with the Big Four.

One challenger expressed scepticism about doing shared audits for this reason. “I don’t see how [challengers] will learn by auditing subsidiaries,” said one senior auditor at a smaller accounting firm with no FTSE 350 audit clients.

The UK government’s plan to break the Big Four accounting firms’ dominant position auditing FTSE 100 companies faces a major setback as smaller rivals examine shunning the reform.

Ministers have proposed “managed shared audits” of FTSE 350 businesses, under which a Big Four firm would work alongside a smaller rival to check the accuracy of a company’s accounts.

But BDO and Grant Thornton, the largest accounting firms in the UK after the Big Four — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — are considering not pitching for work on shared audits of FTSE 100 companies, according to people briefed on their stances.

This outcome could leave some FTSE 100 businesses struggling to find a smaller accounting firm — so-called challengers — to work alongside one of the Big Four on their audits.

BDO and Grant Thornton earn more UK audit fees in aggregate than the next 14 challengers combined.

Some smaller accounting firms beyond BDO and Grant Thornton are expected to pitch for work on audits of FTSE 100 companies, but accountants said they may find it difficult, partly because of lack of capacity and also because of the complexity of the blue-chip businesses.

The government’s plan for shared audits would force FTSE 100 companies to turn to “smaller firms that should not be anywhere near this”, said one senior auditor at a large challenger to the Big Four.

The plan was contained in a white paper by the business department in March that proposed far-reaching changes to the accounting industry and corporate governance after several scandals.

The Big Four currently audit the entire FTSE 100 and more than 90 per cent of the FTSE 250, but auditors were strongly criticised for failing to sound the alarm before corporate collapses including Carillion and Thomas Cook.

The plan for shared audits is meant to help smaller accounting firms gain the skills and experience needed to vet the financial statements of large companies, and thereby increase competition in the industry.

But BDO and Grant Thornton are instead considering focusing on increasing the number of FTSE 250 companies they audit on a solo basis.

Under the government’s plan, which is out to public consultation until July, a FTSE 350 company would have to hire a smaller accounting firm to carry out 10 to 30 per cent of its audit alongside one of the Big Four, which would have overall responsibility.

But a company that hires an accounting firm from outside the Big Four for its audit could be exempted from the joint working arrangement and thereby operate on a solo basis.

No Crowe aren't up to the job, they don't have the size or skills. Miners are complex and require more expertise than simpler companies.
This article gives an idea of how things currently are proposals for change: https://www.ft.com/content/cfea503d-80cc-439d-af81-e5800c87b2bd

"There are firms outside the big 4..."
Not with the scale and presence, apparently. BDO and Grant Thornton are the next biggest by quite a big margin, but both of them have pulled out of Russia and in any case it's questionable whether even they have the scale and available manpower to take on such a task. All FTSE 100 audits are carried out by the big 4 because they are the only ones with the level of resources and expertise that are needed. There have been recent proposals to try to open up the ftse100 to smaller players but those proposals involve those smaller firms being shadowed by one of the big 4, to oversee the process and bolster resources, precisely because they don't have the capability to go it alone. So the whole thing is a bit more difficult than just picking up the phone and getting a new auditor.

The FT is saying it will be challenging to find an auditor and they know a lot more about that sort of thing than I do, so I'm happy to give some credence to their view of it. Dismissing those concerns out of hand is just confirmation bias.