Member Info for risehall1

Everyonesawinner you have hit the nail on the head there.

Newcrest have made a huge mistake by not building an equity stake in Greatland nor taking up the 5% at a knockdown price when they had the chance. It seems someone else is now interested in buying into Greatland's stake. So what will you next move be Mr Biswas?

They have drilled nine holes and held back drill results from the first hole for at least two months. As cores come out of the ground they can be xrf scanned. So I reckon those in the know now have some idea what is at Pepas, certainly more than us.

It is high grade, it is from surface so amenable to being mined cheaply by pit, at 150 metres that is quite a large intersection so all looking excellent. But they will need to do a lot more drilling before they know the extent of this. Why have they sat on this news when the market has clearly known about this for several days? Finally, market cap seems quite low, could multibag from here x10 x20 dependent on what they have. The neighbouring discoveries (we're in elephant country) and involvement of majors bodes well. Plus pace of drilling is picking up. Hold on to your golden tickets...

I would take anything that Biswas says with a pinch of salt, he is very shrewd and I doubt he is the type to be open about his intentions. I think Solgold is in play and will get bought out by one of the majors. Solgold has a massive exploration portfolio in Ecuador including Cascabel, one of the largest undeveloped copper/gold mines in the world. Solgold also owns the adjacent land (Helipuerto) next to Solaris' Warintza discovery which is a huge near surface discovery amenable to a super pit. That was overlooked when announced last month, but it is definitely on the radar of Rio and BHP. Ecuador has the largest untapped copper reserves in the world and Solgold, a big chunk of that.

It seems the vaccine is not 100%, I also note at least 5% of cases are asymptomatic. Demand for testing must surely rise. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/monkeypox-vaccine-silver-bullet-breakthrough-cases-emerge/story?id=88510794

My mother was getting excited at the prospect of 2.95% interest on cash savings. However, as inflation is now well over 10% the real rates of interest are worse than ever, effectively that is at least minus 7% return. Consequently, there is no point cashing in shares for a negative real rate of return. The real rate of interest should now be over 12.5%. The only reason it isn't is that the government and the country would be bankrupt if they did. So they have no way of bringing inflation under control it seems...

BHP are not the only show in town. Newcrest and Rio are also experts on block cave mining and the Chinese are very keen on dumping their dollars for strategic assets. The trouble is at the moment all the poker players are sat at the table looking at their cards and pretending to be disinterested. Expect a whole flurry of activity once one makes an offer.

I'm not surprised. But does it matter? The world needs copper, there is a looming supply crunch and Ecuador (and by implication Solgold) is sat on the world's largest untapped supply. Cascabel is a huge complex mining project that requires deep pockets and technical know how. The majors need big projects and the sudden move on OZ minerals by BHP is a sign of where things are headed. My preference has always been for a takeover because it derisks Solgold. If you want to benefit from the Ecuador assets long term just opt for shares rather than cash. I never did want a Sirius Minerals scenario with Solgold trying to fund mine development themselves, it is too risky.

At the moment there are only PCR based tests which require a swab from the lesions. If you got a rapid blood or saliva monkeypox test to market early on, there could be serious money to be made. WHY aren't they setting up a subsidiary processing tests themselves? Massive market being missed there. They sell tests for £8 or less, but the end user is being charged £120.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/29/spain-reports-first-death-in-europe-related-to-monkeypox-outbreak

I think any talk of m&a will come to nothing until the DHSC dispute is resolved and Novacyt is on a profitable footing. How can you look to acquire other businesses when your own is loss making? They need to get their house in order and get the DHSC dispute sorted. I do not trust the management. Lack of candour always blows up management but I hope as shareholders they do not take us with them.

Why wouldn't they want the remaining 25%? Most mines are 100% owned, the only time you want a JV is in a risky jurisdiction or a project with high outlay. Havieron is low risk, low cost and highly profitable. They will want 100% especially if they can get it at a fair price.

I hope he realises when he says won't be fast that the legal costs bill will be enormous.

I think one area where Novacyt had a huge business opportunity but failed to grasp it was vertical integration. At a time when people were paying over £50 for a test at an airport, to be only selling the tests wholesale for a fraction of that wasn't good business sense. There was an opportunity to set up a testing subsidiary using versalab that was missed. I can see why they might not want to be competing with their customers but business is business. They were also too slow to move on the LFT market as well, and the critical thing about that is that the future of testing lies in having simple, fast, easy to use tests as close as possible to the end user.

Well yes, it is all looking like a right Belshazzars feast. Perhaps the stockmarket won't fare so bad as there is simply no where less risky to park your money. At the moment with inflation into double digits keeping money in cash is problematic as it just quickly erodes, interest rates are still at rockbottom and may remain so as there is too much government debt. If they raise interest rates much higher the debts can't be serviced. Gold has treaded water this last year and holding physical gold is costly, then there is the margin when you come to sell. Crypto is very risky. Property is overvalued. Also, sometimes the worst thing you can do is crystalise a loss. Things do recover, but it can take years.

Nowadays you have to be very careful looking at accounts as it is so easy for them to be massaged. What was recorded last year as non covid sales now appears
to be largely machine sales which were in fact covid related. All may not be quite lost yet here but I reckon if there is a turn around in fortunes for Novacyt it will be more down to serendipity than anything management do. Covid vatiant ba2.75 is taking off and is getting closer to escaping immunity, monkeypox is also taking off, global cases having risen 77% in the last week alone. We can but hope Novacyt grab a small slice of these testing opportunities.

Markets are not rational, they are notoriously fickle and focussed on the short term. Things get over priced and under priced. That is why some investors like Warren Buffett have ended up very rich. There are several things GGP has going for it. Tier 1 asset, high grade ore, early payback, not long to first ore, existing infrastructure, low cost, just about the best mining jurisdiction in Australia, low risk, further upside potential from exploration, orebody still growing. I also reckon gold will continue to appreciate in value as the economy falters and inflation soars just as it did in the 70's and after the credit crunch. GGP is a sound buy.

The sums at stake in the dispute between Novacyt and DHSC are considerably larger than the Abingdon dispute as you well know.

Before smallpox was eradicated it was one of the biggest causes of death for centuries and was a big problem. Monkeypox is very closely related sharing over 96% of the genetic code. It needs to be taken very seriously.