The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
This sounds like price-sensitive information that hasn't been released before: "("Steelmin"), a company Red Rock financed so that it could complete the refurbishment and recommissioning of a ferrosilicon smelter in Jajce, Bosnia, has signed a Structuring and Placing Agreement ("Agreement") with a Luxembourg investment vehicle under which Steelmin intends to repay in full the amounts outstanding to Red Rock ("Loan"). " And zumore, to go from a position of saying that Steelmin won't get repaid and RRR will have to issue confetti to now saying (in effect) "yeah we always knew Steelmin loan would be repaid, nothing to see here" is rich, to put it mildly! The bridging loan is on track to be repaid as expected (by everyone except yourself it seems) and RRR will own 22% of Steelmin and have a wad of cash from the transaction. You know, just every now and again Andrew DOES pull a decent deal off (most recently the HHDL / UKOG killing that Regency made)!
"I had previously thought Steelmin had sufficient money to complete work at the plant" Yeah Steelmin took out a big loan just for the hell of it, they didn't need the money (holds head in hands and starts to weep)
Ok I've just asked re Spencer. Nothing untoward, he's still with them but is mainly doing Saffron stuff at moment and will do more stuff for PERE on an as-needed piecemeal basis. He has certain skills that they'll call upon. New guy expands their capabilities as they look to close the deal and move to the next phase.
The ASM Commission enviro violations have been going on since at least 2010 and appear to be relatively minor - none are ones that required production to halt. ASMC do a site visit every now and again that throws up an issue (e.g. the iron levels in the discharge water are 3.6g/l as opposed to a limit of 3g/l, or whatever) and they're told to sort it out. The most recent infractions are that one of the fines ponds is now at 50% capacity (and is thus due for an empty), and there is a 1 metre cube sized container with some oil in it that has a leak into the patch of soil next to it. ASMC has been running with this level of low level infraction since 2010 (or more, I haven't bothered to look back further) with no sign of wanting to escalate the issue. It's a slightly scruffy operation that gets told to tidy its bedroom every now and again. What it needs is a bit of love and a decent operator to get it running efficiently both environmentally and profitably.
The opportunity with Rosa is that the current licence holder (MCOAL / SM) is cash-strapped, to put it bluntly. If you follow the GEM Holdings v Cobalt Coal case, you'll see that the former (the US vehicle for the BIA IPO) wasn't able to keep up the initial vendor payments once the BIA IPO was aborted. I think what SM was hoping for was a corporate domino effect, where cash coming in via the IPO would sort GEM / Clinchco out, and that would then let him re-circulate cash into other assets. RGM got into Rosa at the right time when SM was really against the wall money-wise. That was the opportunity for transactional value. Where things went wrong was the knock-on effect of the BIA IPO, which pulled the plug on SM's cash-flow. You'll notice that a whole slew of SM's US vehicles filed for Chapter 11 protection on 4/10/17 as a consequence. If things were an opportunity a year ago I'd say there were doubly so now, as SM is even further with his back against the wall and now with RGM having mobilised an active operator partner (Legacy Hill) as opposed to being the passive "we bring cash to the table" partner. Andrew saw a weak partner, got 20% foot in the door, the partner has weakened further so now it's time to go in for the kill. All wonderfully cat-and-mouse, but at the end of the day that's how RGM tries to generate value. This has a long way to run and the main event is still to come with the US coal I suspect.
Here's the rub. I could buy a stake in a well-run, profitable mine tomorrow. There are plenty. And as a result I'd pay fair value. Where's my opportunity for transactional uplift (ie being able to buy the asset cheaply such as due to a distressed seller)? Where's my opp for transformational uplift? It's already well run, there's little I add to the mix. All I get is a nice dividend payer and leverage on the coal price. There is no point in RGM doing such a deal. The opps to add value aren't there. Instead they need to roll up their sleeves and swim in somewhat murkier water. And yes Rosa IS murky water - that is literally the whole point!
Buying assets from a forced seller is often the source of outsized returns. And SM is clearly that. Excellent news!
With a SPAV you don't, until the deal is done. You have the cash and management track record before, and the RTOed new company afterwards It's standard shell roadmap and yes you won't be getting a running commentary on the deal under negotiation, you never do until the RNS lands.
This really is two bald blokes fighting over a comb ...
Spencer was there for the paperwork for the transfer to the standard list - he'd done a similar job at Saffron. The next stage of PERE is a different thing and requires different skill sets, so hence the swap in people. As with any company you ideally have the right people at the right time. It's a clear sign a deal is imminent I would have thought - ducks being lined up for the next stage. As as someone has commented it seems to point to Canada as the jurisdiction (no great surprise given the team's expertise and the logic of being able to get great assets in great jurisdictions at the moment).
I was specifically referring to the OP's comments about today's warrants. They're at 1p and thus aren't going to be exercised until well north of there. Two reasons: a) it takes time to get the stock and then sell, so in a volatile small cap you don't want to exercise close to the SP or else a small dip could mean you lose money b) If you exercise at 1.5p as opposed to 1.1p then you also increase your net profit by 5x. Yes there are some 0.8p warrants and again the SP will need to be typically 30-50% above that to encourage any exercising. In both scenarios I don't see any significant exercising of the warrants (0.8 and 1p) until we are at least double the current SP.
akramms - slight correction to the warrants. With a 1p exercise (you pay 1p to get a share) it isn't economic to do so unless the SP is stably above 1p by quite a bit. If someone has �10k of placing stock and the equivalent of warrants, you don't exercise then sell at 1.1p as that only nets you �1000. So don't expect to see any warrant pressure until we are well north of 1.5p. And in fact, as judged by GGP and LION of late, warrants seem to be supportive of the SP as MMs know there is extra stock and they are more willing to make a market. LION and GGP have both done well at the same time as warrants being exercised - no coincidence in my mind. the 3.5p is an accelerator - the company can REQUIRE exercise once it reaches that point ... if a holder chooses not to exercise then the warrants lapse. Just a slight difference from what you said.
Another world-class asset in PNG is Wafi-Golpu http://www.newcrest.com.au/our-business/advanced-projects/wafi-golpu-png/ It's 65km inland on the top of a hill as well. Clearly the CEO at Newcrest wasn't scared off by watching a black-and-white episode of The Naked Ape ... these places don't scare the majors, they know they have to go into those locations to find the Next Big Asset. All the low-hanging fruit were picked ages ago. What they need is scale, to make the set-up effort worthwhile. So if this was a teeny wee asset with a six year life-of-mine then no, they wouldn't bother. It's very big, and that means once set up (the hard thing) it can just sit there producing cash-flow for decades and decades and decades. That's worthwhile and that's why the majors go for the really big Tier 1 assets.
So do we now own 100% of Mambare? great news!!!!
Mambare is just by Kokoda which is 115km on metalled road to Oro Pay deepwater port (see google maps). That's probably a lot easier than 135km of slurry pipe that Ramu use! For an asset that size, access is just fine. There's way more in accessible porphyries in that neck of the wood that major don't blink an eye at. It's just a civil engineering task. I appreciate PNG sounds like a scary far-off location seen only in David Attenborough documentaries to us in the UK, but it's not, it's just next to Australia and I've been several times (in fact off again this autumn). Oro Bay is just a bit up the coast from the dive resort at Tufi, with Milne Bay being much diving critter heaven.
booboo - Ramu isn't "by the sea". It's a long way inland and on the top of a hill at over 600m elevation. They make a slurry at the mine site and then pipe it 135km downhill to be processed further and then exported. "The world class Ramu Nickel project that integrates mining, beneficiation and refining is located in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. It is composed of laterite open-pit mining, 135km slurry pipeline, high pressure acid leaching, deep sea tailings placement (DSTP) as well as a number of supporting facilities. The Project produces nickel/cobalt intermediate product, in which the aggregate nickel metal accounts for 31,000 tones per year and cobalt 3,000 tones per year. " http://www.ramunico.com/plus/list.php?tid=240
You're getting your compounds confused booboo. Shipping of MHP isn't illegal. MHP = mixed hydroxide product, which is chemically different to nickel oxide. https://www.multiplex.global/projects/yabulu-nickel-refinery-qld-australia/ "The major expansion of the nickel and cobalt refining sections was undertaken from 2004 to 2007, increasing the production capacity of Yabulu Refinery to process a Mixed (nickel-cobalt) Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP) from the Ravensthorpe Nickel project in southwest Western Australia. It allowed the MHP, containerised at Ravensthorpe, to be shipped from the port at Esperance to Townsville Port and then railed to the plant." So clearly you can transport MHP by both rail and ship.
Do you just pluck random numbers out of the air booboo? May I suggest that you try reading the RNS with regard to the share issuance and the TVR, the numbers (...I appreciate they are long ...) are in there.
There's quite a bit of discussion out there on the shift from sulphide to laterite mines to make up the shortfall. A reasonable starting point is the 'geology for investors' website, but a bit of deeper googling hits a rich seam. "Nickel Laterites: The World�s Largest Source of Nickel Nickel is found in two types of deposits; Nickel laterites and magmatic sulfide deposits. Although nickel Laterites make up 70% of the world�s nickel reserves, few of them become producing mines. Over the last 60 years magmatic sulfide nickel deposits produced 60% of the world�s nickel. In the last 10 years, the production of nickel from magmatic sulfide deposits has slowly decreased and begun to plateau. With the global consumption of nickel growing at a rate of 4% per year (and increasing), it has now become apparent that new sources of nickel need to be found." https://www.geologyforinvestors.com/nickel-laterites/