Stephan Bernstein, CEO of GreenRoc, details the PFS results for the new graphite processing plant. Watch the video here.
What timing! Andrea Leadsom - Secretary of State for Business (2019 to 2020) - giving her speech now in Parliament reviewing her (illustrious - in her mind) ministerial career. I wonder whether she will remember to point out how she fecked-over 85,000 private investors by not supporting Sirius Minerals when she had the chance!
A somewhat surreal gathering, which included the usual suspects - the BoD with the facial expressions usually associated with a wake with many twitching nervously hoping that no questions were going to be directed to them individually. CF demeanor was set to default - defiant mode, while Thomas Staley appeared like a obtuse 6th former (Year-12) who had wandered into the wrong class room trying not to draw attention to himself in case a question was fielded in his direction. Srimshaw, master of ceremonies, did his best to reduce the palpable tension in the room.
Extra security had been laid on because of "threats to the person of CF and the BoD", which included a friendly sniffer dog and some burly 'Secret-service' lookalikes with ear-pieces and marine style hair cuts. Just as well - as three were tasked to surround the self publicist blowhard with the unmemorable name who had recently bought shares with the aim of disrespecting CF, the chairman, the Year-12 kid and the BoD. As the BH droned on and on. One had to wonder whether this was a cunning ploy on behalf of Sirius, who had hired the fellow to distract the LT shareholders but without the entertainment value of a circulating magician performing card tricks. After BH had run out of insults more reasoned questions were raised by LT shareholders who wanted to understand in the same way a pathologist conducts a postmortem trying to understand how the company had arrived at this point. These included reasoned questions from the fundsirius.com co-founders and a representative of sharesoc. There were many other reasoned questions from other private investors but sadly none of the questions or comments resulted in any illuminating responses from the executive or the BoD, who stonewalled everything very effectively as ?per plan. At no time was any other suggestion of alternative funding received as possible by the BoD - it was take 5.5p/share or almost immediate administration. It was indirectly proposed that the main reason Sirius arrived in terminal street was because no government guarantee had been offered despite regular and intense dialogue - meaning that Boris Johnson and his "leveling-up" promise to the North is complete BS and BJ would rather see 85,000 retail investors loose their savings while BJ's mates make a packet out of shorting the company into the hands of AAL or administration. After some repetitive interventions from the floor including that of a well meaning retired builder (who was not going to loose his shirt - his avg was 4p), who voted for Priti Patel and was off to tell his story to the Sunday Times - the voting for the scheme of arrangement took place. Hard to call how the vote went in the room - ones impression that even those who wanted to vote 'no' very likely voted 'yes' but that is no indication of the outcome as the meeting room would have easily held 5 to 6 times the number of attendees.
Following the Court meeting vote the General meeting was over with a whimper.
For Chaos theorists - the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the markets may have an unexpected beneficial effect for Sirius - the alleged machiavellian behaviour of the BOD, JPM and AAL would have been based on certain market assumptions, which Covid-19 has turned upside down.
Instead of hoarding the cash extracted from the markets as a result of Covid-19 and getting little or no return - wouldn't the Sirius original fund raising plan look like a better prospect ($500m bonds to trigger the $2.5bn revolving credit facility) in the current environment? - even with the bonds paying a lower interest rate. Covid-19 will still be affecting the global economy for the next 10-24 months.
A huge effort was required to get Barclays Smart Investor to provide a Corporate letter of representation to allow attendance and voting at the meeting on 3 March 2020. On the other hand there were no difficulties with Halifax who provided letters without any difficulties whatsoever. One has to wonder why Barclays found it so difficult vs. Halifax.