Pub,
I had to laugh, it’s taken all day for you to think of a reply. I somehow knew you would. Neither you nor I are privy to the actual transactions, so to be honest we haven’t a clue if they are sells or buys, it’s just speculation. Due to your absolute conviction that this is going down your whole mindset is negative. I thought I’d provide an opposing narrative for balance. It’s obviously one you can’t handle or accept.
Neither know of each other’s qualifications or experience and haven’t seen each other’s CV, so I personally wouldn’t say anything about you personally. You maybe prove to be correct, but please don’t say that I don’t understand. The narrative I put forward is as plausible as yours.
As for whether this will be a wipeout or fly is for us on the chat only a subject of speculation. You’re squarely on the wipeout side with a crusade to save us all. I don’t mind a bit of balance to counter the fliers. Please, however, try and convince people using structured arguments for your point of view, rather than using personal attacks. I’m sure you’d get a better response.
To provide balance they are both obviously buys. The first off 400k is off exchange the second off 500k which is off book. Both would most likely have been initiated yesterday but the exchange only informed at 14:43 for the first and 16:26 for the second. The first one done at a price of 8.1 driving the price up so the second was at 8.25. That drove the ask up to 8.5 this morning.
Logically who would sell their ‘worthless’ shares at this point. That maybe okay for someone with a couple of thousand shares and willing to take a small loss, but 900k shares which were valued at £1.50 per share ten weeks ago is absurd. Selling £1.45 million for £74,000 highly unlikely. Yes, £74,000 you say is still something and most likely they didn’t pay £1.50 a share, but unless they are a distressed seller, why sell? Even if they bought at 80p that would be a staggering £650k loss about. If a seller, then why sell, as if you can right off £650k then another £74k is chicken feed.
One of the reasons I was attracted to invest here was this was to be done in the ‘right way’. I’m sure the cornerstones bought into philosophy. Why would the change tactics now? The benefit to them is still to build the mine in.
I’m in ‘till glory or the *** lady sings.
They will have the perfect template next door to copy. Dead easy really. By the time this is ready to develop they would have built next door, so just move the work force a mile or so to build this. Dead easy really. Lol
What is the value of being ethical?
I pose this question as it may be important and influential in each of the cornerstones decision making. I know some people here will say these companies are just greedy and want the lot, but, to get ahead of the game and provide value in the future tightening governmental regulations, they may want to have a company with the credentials of Horizonte. Being ethical is not something that can be cherry picked, you have to go all-in. So being ethical to shareholders and not ripping them off would be part of this. This may not be as BS as it sounds. lol
Just a thought!
Since the 2nd October all that has been on this chat is speculation. I’ve done it along with plenty of others, but that’s all it is speculation. The share price is where it is because of the perception of uncertainty and risk by the market. The only people who will know what’s happening is a select few at the top of each institution involved. Having worked on bids for large companies I would suspect that there is a war room which is secure. We were not allowed to take in any IT equipment whatsoever. Any data in or out was reviewed and authorised. That may or may not be the case here, but information flow will be tight. So to my point. What is the value of the company? If I were a Time Lord I would be able to tell you. The value of the company is only what is perceived by each individual investor and the function of time. From my perspective the current company value if I sold is 8p a share, tomorrow it maybe 0p. However the true value could be said to be the value of its assets. Which is a 65% built mine etc. once the mine is built the value is its assets plus its output. So what is the value of the mine the cornerstones will be looking at? I would suggest it’s the later, as that’s what they invested for. Each cornerstone will have different criteria for its investment but all will want to make money. This is why they will build the mine in my opinion. They will want the maximum for their company and that means squeezing the others. This is part of the nature of negotiations. Unfortunately 48% of the shareholders are not sitting at that table, us, the bottom feeders. The saving factor, maybe, for us is that there three of them with differing investment criteria. This makes negotiating more difficult and time consuming. Whatever the financial solution in my opinion to maximise their return they have to build the mine. Broadly, La Mancha and Orion will want to have share value growth whereas Glencore revenue growth. So we wait and speculate, with fear, trepidation and a tinge of optimism.
AIMOHO
I think Indonesia are playing a long game (10 plus years). They can see over time their ore grades diminishing and costs going up. So the way I believe they are playing it is that in 10 years they need high nickel prices. The way to get high prices is to have the right supply/demand ratio. They currently have a major say in the supply. By creating a surplus now and driving the price down will make companies think twice before investing in new projects. This will restrict future competition. The flaw in this argument is that if I’ve thought about it high flying corporate investors would have as well. Even so who knows. Anyway Horizonte is well placed to take advantage.
AIMOHO
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.
Rumsfeld
We PIs are just pawns in the game looking on in hope. All is possible with the pendulum swinging. It’s on the negative side at the moment, but will it stick, or will it swing back to the positive side? Where are the ‘knowns’, and where are we?
There are two elements here to consider, financial and reputation.
Firstly they have invested US$86 million of their $1.3 billion portfolio or 6.7%. Not an insignificant sum to lose, but not catastrophic.
Secondly, however, is reputation. How do you quantify that? Remember they are a fund that attracts investors and pride themselves in their expertise to get a return for those investors. You just need to look at their website to understand. https://lamancharesourcecapital.com
I believe they are better served in transforming Horizonte back to the potential we all know it has and the reason we and they invested here in the beginning. It would correct any reputation damage and even enhance it.
AIMOHO
Looking forward I thought I’d consider La Mancha’s position. As BuddhaBob rightfully highlights they have just put in their own person. They will be working out how best to get the return they wanted on their investment for the least risk. I remember it being suggested on the original financing that normally they would want a return five times their initial investment in a five year period. I don’t know how true that is but at the time it was a feasible scenario. Is it still possible? Probably not. However a good return is still possible. The option with the lowest risk with the best return must be to get the mine built and provide continuity. All that’s needed is a bit of cash. They also have a sought after commodity ‘credibility’, so will getting the cash be a problem? To maximise their return in the shortest possible time frame they will need to get back to building the mine. They cannot afford to wait too long as it will become more difficult to re mobilise the workforce and contractors. Maybe the dig deep and provide a bridging loan. Enough should be known by now that some progress can be made. By doing this it would signal their intentions. This then would give them the luxury of time to assess in detail the way forward before a full financial package is agreed. It should also improve sentiment and hence share price which in turn improve the ability to raise cash. They could even bring into the equation A2 and accelerate that. Many, many possibilities for a positive outcome.
Interesting discussion about the departure of the board underneath all the mud slinging by some. The first and only question is whether the BoD fulfilled their obligations? Their obligations being numerous and not just limited to the investors. However, for this discussion I’ll limit it to the investors. Clearly something has gone horribly wrong so unfortunately as the responsibility stops with the BoD they have departed. I use unfortunately from their perspective as I believe they were genuine people. As alluded to, maybe they took this too far and should have moved aside earlier. They had the vision but not the requisite skills for the enterprise. The mistake they’ve made is the same mistake I’ve seen on many a project, that of managing costs and scope, or lack off. I believe they were trying to do the job the ‘right’ way and in doing so allowed spend on luxury discretionary work. (Speculation I know). So when did the BoD suspect or realise? Remembering that they’ve had the major investors and lenders involved doing their the depth Due Diligence at every stage. Do you think that the BoD could pull any sort of deception off? Looking back at the construction update RNSs, the first indication for the current situation maybe contained in the August updates. They may have suspected but not had the evidence. (Speculation again). They at that time would have started to investigate. Only when the evidence was conclusive would they have been obligated to inform the major investors, lenders and market. How the BoD didn’t know what was going on you can only imagine. Not good as it’s their responsibility to know. The major investors and lenders were invited in, and would have been all over it. So did the BoD have to go? Well it was the BoD responsible so they realistically they had to fall on their sword, not withstanding the major investors and lenders would have asked them to leave. (Speculation again). The BoD would have lost the confidence of the investors and lenders so a new regime was needed.
Https://www.mining-journal.com/london-to-a-brick/opinion/4152996/glencore-backed-horizonte-minerals-rise-ashes
I don’t have access so don’t know what’s in it