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Hi Myo
I wrote to my MP on 19th May in relation to the foot dragging of the IPA. He wrote to the department on my behalf to ask the question. This was on 24th May and I have a copy of his written question. I've heard nothing since. I've emailed my MP twice since about it but received no reply from him either.
Very disappointing. Ignorant even.
Regards
RealSicilian
LITC, I said geological catastrophe, not astronomical! If there is a 1 in 7000 chance of the latter I'll take those odds. I don't think it would really make much difference to me where my investment was if a 1km wide asteroid hit Whitby!
DGR and John, I bought in March 2012 at just under 24p. My average is a little lower now but spoiled by some purchases in the 30s when I thought the upslope of the infamous J had arrived.
I do agree that it was an upbeat article though. I think only a geological catastrophe will stop the mine being built but I still worry that us LTHs may end up an insignificant or no part of it. I think there were 1.7bn shares in existence when I first bought. If only..........
John, I think the article was quite scandalous to be honest and I wondered where the reporter got his information from about the 'thousands who have become rich'. I've been here for most of the 9 years that were mentioned and I'm down about 30%. I'm still hoping I'll be comfortable one day but I'm considerably less rich at the moment than if I had never heard of Sirius.
Perhaps he was referring to the City boys?
Bellers, I would absolutely hope what you say to be what transpires. However, I've lost count of the number of times I have thought 'this is it now' and that I would never see the sp below a certain figure again. I can barely believe I bought in at nearly 24p and over 7 years later we are at less than 15p. Fair enough if it pays off in the end. But after all the risks I've been through it seems unjust that others can buy in now and get 50% more shares than me.
I really hope that once it is announced the bonds are away we will have a sharp uplift to get me back in the black and then a nice steady rise to production and beyond. But this has never yet been the case.
Incidentally, I am still waiting for my reply from the government about the IPA involvement, or lack of. I emailed my MP agsin yesterday to chase it up. I will post when I get a reply.
My MP is the Deputy Chief Whip. I emailed him about the tardiness and lack of support from the IPA on 19th May. He has written on my behalf to the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse, Jake Berry MP, asking for his thoughts and comments on Government support for Woodsmith Mine and Sirius Minerals and any information he has as to why the expected assistance from the IPA was not provided.
His letter was sent on 23rd May. I am still awaiting a reply. I have written to my MP on many occasions and he never fails to reply so I am assuming the delay is that of a lack of reply to that letter, not to my email.
I will post any reply should I receive one.
Funnily enough I've just finished a webchat with 'Victoria' who didn't have a clue. I've raised a complaint. The delay is ridiculous.
OR, you are correct in what you say about the remit of the IPA. But it begs the question why the backing of the IPA was being discussed for so very long when there were clearly some much more expensive routes to finance to follow. It seems perverse that the last resort option was being discussed as the preferred option and that we would have been better off as a result.
Funnily enough I wrote to my MP last night about the failure of the IPA to support this. However, I don't think the government would step in at any point now. This mine will be built but the City boys will get fat at the expense of those of us who have been here since the time of TrooperMerlin and Borolad.
The posts this morning from Myo and Casa show just how complex the funding is now and we LTHs don't know how many shares there are going to be or what price will be paid for them. It wouldn't have been this way if there had been genuine support from the IPA.
I'm still hoping it will turn out good for us. The project would never have got off the ground without private investors and is all but guaranteed to generate many billions in export revenue. Yes, we invested to make money for ourselves and our families, but in doing so we invested on behalf of the UK and it would therefore have been nice for UK IPA to have supported us in return.
This share is very different to others for very many of us because it has been a journey and not just an investment. Because of that many of us have a lot more invested here than we really should have. All those of us to whom the names TrooperMerlin and Borolad have meaning will understand what I mean.
I'm in a similar position to LacrosseNut and for the first time I fear we will be thrown to the wolves. This is despite having sat through the planning, though my investment was less at the time. I will be happy now to see my investment break even again.
It didn't have to be this way. But this government has been terrible. Though the next one will be infinitely worse.
Peeblian
'Be your interest in SP level or dividends, I think those that got in early enough will reap the benefits in the years to come.'
I've been in for over 7 years now and paid 24p. Never did I think for a moment that after all the risks of planning etc I would have to endure that others would be able to 'get in' 7 years later for 15p supposedly on the back of a still viable project.
The term J Curve has featured in my mind on very many occasions over those years and I've bought more shares when I thought that curve was beginning. It is a term I wish I had never heard and which should never have been uttered.
Even 2 days ago I hoped for an early retirement I desperately need on the back of a successful ST2 but my hopes are shattered.
RealSicilian
Hi Brad I'm not sure what you are saying in your most recent post. The correct value to the question posed Is, as several others have pointed out, 162,238. This was clearly only taking into account days when the markets are open. I've got an honours degree in physics which did involve quite a lot of maths! I don't post on here often but a couple of my previous posts related to the astonishing impact of compound interest rates. Regards RealSicilian
In March I will have been a shareholder for 7 years having first bought at 23.98p. My average is now a bit lower but a fairly recent buy at 35p hasn't helped. It's fair to say my hair is greyer now than it was when I first bought!
On Sunday my wife (the actual real Sicilian even if born in Solihull) and I and our 14 year old daughter (also a shareholder) are coming up to Whitby and Scarborough for 3 days. Apart from doing some rock pooling to remind me of my biology field trip 38 years ago we also intend to have a look at where our money is invested.
Do any of you locals, Sheps8 maybe, have any suggestions for what we can do to get the best out of our 3 days, where best to view parts of Sirius, where to get our fish and chips from and the best spot for rock pooling etc. I seem to recall we went to Robin Hood's Bay. We've already got the hotel sorted. I also seem to recall there is a Sirius display somewhere in the town.
Best wishes to all.
RealSicilian
So if we did manage to build it for 3 billion and no contingency were needed only 2.4 billion of that would be the 'debt' we had hoped for and the rest covered covered by equity or the options mentioned by Scotman?
I haven't heard the conference call but if the $4-600 million has to be used first then surely 600 million will have to be raised? If this involves dilution in any way it indicates maximum dilution of this part. Could it also effectively mean that the IPA backed part is the contingency?
The poltical situation with the miners wasn't straightforward. My uncle worked at Bolsover Colliery and he voted to strike. However, it wasn't a national vote and Derbyshire NUM, of which he was a member, voted very narrowly to carry on working. The leadership of Derbyshire NUM overturned the vote but my uncle worked every day, initially one of very few but joined by more and more as each day went on. I lived nearly 2 miles away but could hear the chants of the massed pickets each morning trying to stop him and others from exercising their democratic right (and obligation as my uncle saw it) to work. It's a shame we now have no coal mines. The coal itself was essentially free and many people had well paid (though many of us would not want to work in those conditons) jobs digging it out. We now import coal and the entire cost of it goes abroad.
Northerisler Was it Wieliczka saltmine you went down in Poland? I've been down that one too. I also went down Shirebrook Colliery in about 1980 when my mother worked in the wages office. I echo your experience. I also remember the tremendous breeze in the main ventilation tunnels. I had to lean into it to make progress. To get an early hat trick visit the Black Country Museum near Dudley to see what the earliest coal mining was like. That was a real eye opener. Like me, Woodsmith could then be your fourth if we ever get the chance.
Eurofox, I've just read your post from 17.46 yesterday. In Stage 1 funding we were offered an even greater discount on the prevailing share price st the time. What happened was that the share price fell to match (and even later went below) the offer price. Anyone could have bought any number of shares on the open market and the losers were the incumbent shareholders. In the scale of things 2p is neither here nor there at this point but I really don't want any further dilution at all
Wow. It's probably been discussed before but I've just logged in and seen the share price at £3458. If only!!! I know there have been issues with website over the past couple of days but I would be a billionaire!!!
NoEasy, AscotMatt. laurenlouise.......I've got the bathroom fitters in upstairs so I've had 10 minutes downstairs on the internet to have a quick look at some of the issues you raised and I've found this...... A pound sterling is originally derived from a troy pound of sterling silver-current value apparently �148 (I thought it would have been more!). A Roman soldier was paid 1 gold auriei every month. This was equivalent to 25 silver denarii and there were 84 of these to the pound of silver. So a pound was about 3 months pay. Apparently now a top quality donkey costs about �2000 (one can get them much cheaper but this is top quality) which is about an average month's pay now. So the pound then would be equivalent to 3 donkeys. (And sounds about the same in the 18th century?) I've not had time or inclination to research the financial crash of AD14! Laurenlouise, Mohammed was born in 570 so his pound would only have had 75% of the time to grow as you have intimated. However, his accumulated wealth in that account would be a million, million, million, million times less. That's the value of compounding and illustrates why I thought that continued growth of 9% for the endowment mortgage those years ago was unrealistic! I've been invested here for over 6 years now and my return is less than that though like all of us I'm expecting the return to be much greater over the next 6 to 10 years. Best wishes to all. RealSicilian
"I ran a few numbers a while back and came to the conclusion that if you can get a return of 10% + per annum then you are better off renting then buying a house outright when you have the cash. Of course it would take iron discipline to stick to it! And yet nobody tells us this and we encouraged to get ourselves a mortgage soon as. Scary stuff." I agree with the above but I also ran a few numbers as I used to dispute the illustrated return figures when I was offered an endowment mortgage many years ago with a 9% return. Consider if when the three wise men brought gifts to Jesus one of them, instead of the Frankincense, had opened a building society account with a pound in it and had obtained a perpetual fixed interest rate of 10% and given that to Jesus. If still invested that pound would now be worth �340000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 which is 34 and 82 zeros. This is about 30000 times more pounds than there are atoms in the known universe. 2000 years seems a long time but as it is only 20 times as long as the lifetime of our mine it isn't really that long and yet a 10% compound growth produces such a massive number. I got a repayment mortgage instead and paid it off in 14 years. Most of us will know what happened to the endowment mortgages.