Member Info for OofyProsser

MPO818: the Lenders want to milk the company, not to own it, otherwise they would have taken it over last summer when Angus was unable to meet its hedge obligations. Instead, they bailed Angus out for another nine months. They’ll only take it over once Angus has exhausted investors’ appetite for giving the company free money in the shape of payment for yet more share issues. The interest rate on the latest loans are very likely to rise well above 20% later this year, by the way, if they’re not repaid.

HITS: I don’t think you can now rely on the wording of the recent announcement of the proposed £6mm. bridge financing. If the lenders are jibbing about the constant need for more money, it can mean only more expensive terms or an equity element, surely? If there’s a share issue, Lord Lucan will have to resign, I should think.

Bowlers12: you were the victim of a massive fraud, simple as that. I’ve always suspected that Shetty and his pals used Finablr to send their money overseas and that the ransom ware outage at the end of 2019 and consequent data loss covered their tracks. Very bad luck for small shareholders. There was a warning in the Muddy Waters report summary but not many people seem to have accessed this. You can’t really blame yourself, the auditors missed it all, it’s just a total scandal.

Robday: “Its also great to see the two idiots buzzing about again today spouting the same narative as usual with both guys having zero investment in ANGS ”

This kind of comment is not only rather rude, it’s a bit thick too. What do you expect people who are bearish of a share to do, buy loads? WG818 has already expressed his reasons for posting here. People with exposure to Angus shares may not like them, but they seem to me perfectly valid. And there seem to be plenty of company shills on here posting constantly in Angus’s support. How many shares do you suppose they own?

WG818: it’s difficult, being in a small minority on these chat boards, even when you’re posting honest research. Many small investors already holding shares in this understandably prefer a 100% bullish board. It’s not good for the undecided though, nor for the more thoughtful small shareholders.

I’ve found bubblepoint’s technical input very informative. I’m not expert at all in these aspects. I think it benefits all shareholders, except for day traders and other out-and-out speculators, to read both side of the argument. I wish the conversation could be held in a more cordial way but I suppose passions run high when money is at stake.

Bubblepoint: there are two sides to a company’s net asset value: assets and liabilities. Risks and rewards. You and other posters who are knowledgeable about the fundamentals of gas drilling etc. concentrate all your attention and comments on those aspects. HITS, WG818 and others know more about the financial liabilities and their impact on the prospects of Angus actually making a profit out of its assets. This involves analysing the various debts (interest and repayment schedules), the hedges, the structure of the balance sheet including the impact of recent share and warrant issues on the prospects for the supply and demand for Angus shares in the market, etc.., balanced against expected net cash flows from the gas and condensate sales, and what this all means in terms of the likelihood that the company may soon need to raise yet more money. All these things may affect the share price. Surely it’s advisable to understand both the potential rewards and risks before arriving at a value judgment? To denigrate people who seem to have expertise in the financial aspects of a company and who are willing to share their views here is illogical.

There’s three big issues overhanging Vast now: first, the debt, which they’re still in negotiations about with their lenders; second, the diamonds, about which the statement this morning seemed to me extremely conciliatory - as if they’re desperate not to offend; third, the very large share overhang now, following the placing at 0.35p. The proceeds of the share issue are quoted gross in the statement, there’s no mention that I can see about fees, charges etc., which may have been quite large in order to get such a big issue away.

So, the first issue is to conclude the debt re-negotiations on non- punitive terms. The second is to pursue the diamonds, which appear to the unbiased observer to be a lost cause. The third is to manage the share price such that further share placings will be possible later this year. The management have got their hands full.

WG818: I think that people also forget that this is already a heavily depleted gas field and the gas is likely to flow at decreasing rates, by 10% p.a. Also that Angus cannot sell any assets without the express approval of the lenders to whom they owe the outstanding balance of c.£9.5mm. If a buyer agreed to pay off the loan, they’d also presumably have to pay a lump sum to Mercuria for the value of the outstanding forward contracts and for the 8% royalty once the loan is repaid. People also forget that the plant was expected to close for regular maintenance for 10% of the year: this estimate, by the previous owners, was based on simple wells and pipework, not on a full gas production plant. This doesn’t include shutdowns for repairs to faults in second hand equipment. A buyer would also have to absorb the cost of Mr. Forrest’s £6mm.+ remaining payout. I dare say that your reservations plus the above, added to the potential liability for decommissioning in the late 2020’s, explain why an orderly queue of potential bidders has not yet lined up.,

On Wednesday evening, I posted this: “Today’s large late-reported trades, if sales, are typical of market action on AIM immediately before a share placing, aren't they?

I’m pretty impressed that they got such a high price for the placing, in view of their inability to access their diamonds and the pressing need to repay their loans. The rest is quite irrelevant at this point. The placing proceeds will enable them to limp on for a very few more months. This is a pure speculation on the existence and accessibility of the diamonds. I wish shareholders good luck with it but the odds on this are clearly longer than the share price, even now, suggests they are.

A number of people posting here have suggested that the diamonds are insured or that, in the event that the diamonds can’t be found, Vast will be able to sue the Reserve Bank for restitution.

Re insurance, I should be surprised if such insurance is available. Re legal action against an agency of the Zimbabwe government, they’re immune from prosecution. An order of the High Court is valid for 30 years. If the Government says it can’t afford to pay Vast the value of the diamonds, Vast may have a long wait, since it has no recourse. It’s difficult to enforce a Court judgment against a Zimbabwe Government body.

Vast therefore needs the diamond packet to be present on that shelf in the RBZ vault. Rather than in the wall safes of one or more Zimbabwe citizens currently residing in Dubai.

Today’s large late-reported trades, if sales, are typical of market action on AIM immediately before a share placing, aren't they?

I believe that Lord Lucan originally said that the hedges had been set at a conservative 70% of expected production. The CPR and the old Wingas reports suggest that the field will deplete by 10% per annum. So it’s not quite such a simple equation. The £12mm. loan is an amortising loan, so repayable in instalments over its life, not in a lump sum. Once it’s repaid in full (31 December 2024, according to the CPR) the 8% of turnover royalty in favour of the lenders kicks in. That’s before the hedges expire. Costs generally will be rising by then, as a third generator will be required and plant downtime will still be 10% p.a. or so, and production will have been falling for at least eighteen months, and continuing to decline. Remaining cash flow may have to be used up in drilling further wells. A sharp, sustained rise in gas prices this winter would be very useful.

I’ve watched the Sarah Lowther interview and Mr. Prelea says less in that than is contained in the RNS’s of yesterday and today. He certainly doesn’t say he’s seen the diamonds or that a firm agreement has been reached over extensions to the debt.

As for the lawyers, the Court and the RBZ all confirming that the diamonds are there, where does it say this? The RBZ, if quoted correctly, is giving them the bureaucratic foxtrot, simple as that. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. Two steps forward, two steps back, finishing where you started. It’s an art.

.....It reads as if it came from the pen of Malcy.

Has there been an interview today? If so, where is it to be found?

RIck123: where is that from? It reads as if it comes from the pen of

Here’s what it says in today’s “News”

“During the visit to the RBZ, in consultation with the bank's internal legal counsel, the deputy sheriff and Vast Resources reached an agreement.

The firm said the RBZ committed to providing written confirmation of the process that would govern the orderly and secure handover of the parcel to the company, which would encompass the procedures for valuation for royalty purposes, obtaining export permits, and adhering to the Kimberly Process Certification requirements.

Following that development, Vast Resources and the RBZ would then proceed to establish the necessary logistics for the removal of the parcel, which was previously attached by the deputy sheriff under the writ of execution.

Vast Resources said it remained committed to a transparent and lawful resolution to the handover process.

The company notes that until the process has been finalised and implemented there is no certainty as to the precise timing for the recovery of the parcel, and will update the market as soon as there is a material development in this respect," the board said in its statement.”

An “orderly and secure handover” of the diamonds, to which the RBZ has committed, means, to me, that a clerk and a guard nip down to the vault with a chit, which they give to the security guard. The vault is opened, the clerk locates the diamonds, Vast check them and sign a receipt, put them in a strong box, and take a Humvee to Harare airport, where an aircraft should be waiting under armed guard with its engines running. Not too hard, is it?

This can’t go on and on. Vast needs the money from the sale of the diamonds as soon as possible. Otherwise shareholders are likely, at best, to see a bit of a dilution in their equity interest.

Rick123: no, I’m afraid not, just the one. What explanations can you offer for years and years of ducking and diving by the RBZ? They’ve now had High Court judgments and a visit by the Deputy Sheriff, presumably to enforce the Court order. Still can’t seem to find them. Why would they not want the rightful owners to have them?

RE the RNS (if that’s what it is): this news doesn’t seem to move the process along any further at all. The blockage is the RBZ. They clearly don’t own the diamonds, so why are delaying their release to Vast, who do own them? I can think of only one reason.

PTMS: re Angus and Mercuria/ banks, Lord Lucan said in an IQ in September 2020 that he had gone to the big banks at the end of 2019 and was ready to sign a loan agreement with one of them but that at the last hurdle was told that the bank’s credit committee had a loan minimum of $20mm. This was just after he announced any need at all for a £12mm. loan, in the September bombshell. Another nine months later, he signed the loan agreement with Mercuria/Aleph (privately-owned commodity traders, not banks). It soon became obvious that even the $20mm. that he said he was offered by the bank would have been insufficient to cover the cost of building the plant. The bank finance would have carried a lower interest rate and there would have been no question of hedges or royalties. And Angus would have received the revenues from the vastly inflated gas prices in 2022. I share your view on the banks but you can’t hang this one on them.

HITS: "The Company has the option to repay the junior loan in shares at a 25% discount to the 30 day VWAP, subject to a floor at 1p and this same option is also available to the lender but only in the event of default."

To me, this is ambiguous, as so often with Angus: does this mean that 1p is the minimum price at which Angus can convert the short term loans into shares, or is it 75% of 1p that is the minimum price?,

Bubblepoint: I’m asking questions really, don’t know enough about drilling to argue with someone who does. But the SFO7y sidetrack in 2003 had a problem with water and the water at Saltfleetby comes, as I understand it, from the Namurian. I know Angus took greater pains than did their predecessors on their sidetrack but the absence of explanations about what’s currently happening surely makes you wonder?

Bubblepoint: there doesn’t seem to be anything exceptional about the SF7 well and sidetracks. Most or all the Saltfleetby wells seem to have drilled into the Namurian, though they produce(d) from the Westphalian. What am I missing?