Member Info for SandyShore459

There is that occasional sort of poster who repeatedly likes to look clever *just after* the fact.

They tell you *just after* it's risen that they bought back.

They tell you *just after* it's fallen that they sold.

Some do it over and over.

On the other hand, we could discuss the facts of the company's situation - upside/downside as the case might be.

ASI: yes, keeping well, thanks. Hope you are too.

Hopefully T. S. Eliot's line about April being the cruellest month doesn't apply to Vast. Mercifully, Eliot was not talking about investing!

We'll shortly need an update on the debt. And one wonders how Q1 went at BPPM.

Trafigura have been content to work with Vast. Seems to me unlikely they'd bother signing contracts lately if their due diligence suggested that Vast was about to sink beneath the waves. With or without the 'historic parcel', I'm intrigued to see what form the next resurrection takes.

Pecten: re your question to Stockportedd about what he thinks is involved in getting Blueberry open - a question he never answers, I notice - I presume he expects Mary Poppins to blow in on a gust of wind and make it happen by clicking her fingers. As she sang:

'In every job that must be done

There is an element of fun

You find the fun and ... snap!

The job's a game.

'And every task you undertake

Becomes a piece of cake

A lark! A spree!

It's very clear to see'.

Mary Poppins for CEO!

AP got the votes out and now continues his seventh year as CEO with two consolidations to his name. Whoop! Whoop!

What's the AIM CEO record for consolidations in a single company? I wonder.

This was on the cards as a downside risk in autumn 2022, before the 'historic parcel' court win, and has been looming again more recently, so this is anything but a surprise - particularly after such a disappointing Q4 BPPM report.

Two questions in my mind: (1) will the company actually secure the votes it needs? And (2) how will things pan out if it does?

My own view is that I hope the company does get the votes because a measure like this is needed - but the last headroom vote barely got past 75%, so I don't think it's a shoo-in, actually.

As to what happens after, a lot will depend from a retail point of view on what terms are struck with the PGM-related party. Pecten rightly notes the possibility of a CLN structure; but (a) that isn't definite here, and (b) not all CLN's are horrible spirals. This party is looking to a potential long-term working relationship with Vast and an equity interest in the company's growth, so it's quite possible that the terms will be tolerable.

Separately, AP and the Board are of course woefully culpable for failing to deliver on their projections - but they have behaved this way since forever. The latest letter is a shopping list of the company's fireside yarns. Can it go on like this in perpetuity - always jam tomorrow - or does there come a point where the numbers need to add up? We are into AP's seventh year as CEO, plus longer if one goes back to include his earlier time leading the Romanian operations, and the only claim to 'success' so far is that the lights are still on. It's something but not much.

I see from OofyProsser's 22:33 post yesterday that he was unable to cope with being specifically called out on some of his falsehoods.

He opted to mischaracterize me as rude, abusive, irrational, ignorant and insulting. I think plenty of other posters here know that that does not reflect me.

In reality, and at his own request, I identified three falsehoods in just one very typical post of his - and he simply couldn't bear it.

To troll a BB with falsehoods and then wilt on being challenged for peddling garbage: what a life.

In the meantime, others here with a more genuine interest in the company - and the upside/downside opportunity and risk - can hopefully get on with the discussion without his distraction.

Oofy: "Sandy: where’s the falsehood?"

Let's go back just ONE post of yours, for a start. Your post at 13:05 today was MOSTLY falsehood. I quote you:

Falsehood 1: "Possession of a High Court order doesn’t mean much, does it? There’s no means of enforcing it."

Yes, there is. Vast and the Deputy Sheriff went to RBZ. The fact that RBZ and the Deputy Sheriff agreed a way forward does not mean, and in fact contradicts the idea, that there's "no means of enforcing it".

But you knew that.

Falsehood 2: "the Reserve Bank enjoys sovereign immunity. "

No, it doesn't. This is a line you like to spout but the very fact that a Deputy Sheriff walked into the place with a writ and then got RBZ to agree a way forward shows that, while politics apply, your bogus BS concept of "sovereign immunity" does not.

But you knew that too.

Falsehood 3: "Even if the diamonds haven't accompanied Mrs. Mugabe to her Hong Kong diamond cutting business, and they’re still on the shelf at the Reserve Bank, if the latter doesn’t want to part with them or with their monetary equivalent, there’s nothing any foreign business or individual, or any Zimbabwe lawyer, can do about it. "

Repeat of above but in different words. Zimbabwe law is currently operating at the enforcement stage. The legal system has issued a ruing and ZimGov is required to comply. YOUR inexperience and ignorance about how long it can take governments to do so is only a reflection on YOU. I have said numerous times that it took RomGov about 5 years to follow through on a final court judgment in Vast's favour. But you ignore that. Facts don't fit your BS landscape.

Again though, you knew that.

So, I went ONE message back and found THREE very manifest falsehoods.

I'll pause now. There's a smell of scum on the sole of my shoe, that I'd like to wash away. We can continue another time as needs be.

Firwood: to be absolutely clear, Oofy is a troll whose behaviour is obviously calculated. His behaviour here has been a relentless drip-drip of poison. He speculates almost entirely negatively, typically asserts his speculations as if they're obvious facts, slips in falsehoods along the way, and uses his articulacy in writing to lend his poison a pseudo-authoritative air. It's a bad use of what was probably a good education, and shows a yawning absence of any integrity. There is no balance and a startlingly under-researched failure to know basic facts on occasion. Certainly not deserving of any credit as a poster about Vast.

IMO.

Well that was a pitiful report.

Production basically flat-lined, whereas the best months to date should have pointed to a quarter's production range of 600-700 dry metric tons as an easy outcome.

Grade went significantly backwards.

And the reports have now been gutted of almost all meaningful information, in a giant eff you from the company to the market.

The production level is barely above breakeven for the mine opex alone and the sales data has been excluded. You know that if it was good, they'd have been crowing. They're hiding, so it's bad.

The usual fireside yarns by way of excuse. There's always an excuse.

Shoddy. Shoddy, shoddy, shoddy.

IMO.

Onaplate: in or out hasn't mattered to me for a long time. I don't lose here. It's just great fun to watch and/or play. I mean, at this SP, you either think the Vast world is imploding or you think there's a really good punt. I'm not going to sit here and try to call it for people. That would be very wrong IMO. But I find it very interesting. Popcorn?

Straight gamble today between the SP going up vs a consolidation. Either outcome is near term.

Sweet. Vast is one of the only shares that delivers this much fun over and over. Roulette: red or black?

Good luck to those I respect here.

IMO.

ASI: essentially, yes.

I haven't noticed the BB commentary making the faintest difference to the market response. Years ago, if I remember rightly, I talked to AP about this. I believe he said they'd actually studied it. If I recall rightly, the analysis was that the chatter accounts for 10% or less of trading, even at its maximum. I've seen academic research that similarly shows a disconnect. Essentially, a BB is a bubble. It makes negligible difference. So the whole ramp/de-ramp pantomime is a pitiful, navel-gazing waste of life, while the real drivers in the market are happening beyond. You might as well do nothing while relaxing over a pina colada.

Oofy: "You may in any case take the view prevalent on these AIM chat boards that you haven’t got a loss until you sell your shares."

As a 'PS', I don't take that view, as it happens. But I'm not on a loss here, if that was your implication.

Oofy: I don't see what point you think I'm missing but I'll reply to the rest very briefly.

1. "What difference does it make whether the real estate asset was put up by a Vast shareholder?"

Good research has been done as to who this most probably is and, if correct, the party is in a strong position to make enforcement by a creditor very arduous.

2. "As far as I’m aware, the offtake agreement with Mercuria ended in April 2022."

I'm sorry but this is just lamentable lack of research. Mercuria remains the offtake partner.

3. Agreed the sums are currently de minimis but they can be projected to grow as mine performance improves. Mercuria has a long history of being patient with the debt - well before the most recent piecemeal extensions - and, being the ongoing offtake partner, is likely to continue to work productively with the company, particularly now that BPPM has at long last shifted to being a going concern as regards normal opex.

4. Entitlement to enforcement of covenants begins on 1 March 2024, not before, though this is likely superseded in Mercuria's case if an ongoing payment plan is satisfied. But your fixation on Mercuria is in any case predicated on having completely misconstrued their relationship to Vast by being unaware that they are still the off-taker.

5. Yes, Alpha's loan is indeed a bullet loan. And, not having a commercial interest in the mine, they are less incentivized to be patient with the company. The pattern of short-term extensions since May 2023 was never Mercuria's past practice, who previously did 1-year rollovers for a flat fee. The change smacks very firmly of Alpha.

Oofy: "Sandy: you’re pretty rude, you need to read what I write."

My tone is carefully calibrated to match the persistence of your (sometimes deliberate, sometimes ignorant but opinionated) errors and omissions, and your repeated presentation of your negative speculations as if they're obvious fact.

So I'd say that I'm being quite polite to you, all told.

Next: I did not simply repeat what you said. You said "Someone has put up a valuable real estate asset" but missed the point that the party acted as a Vast shareholder - a detail I provided in reply.

You also seemed to be blissfully unaware that Mercuria is the offtake partner, which I also kindly brought to your attention.

Furthermore, you remain muddled over the collateral arrangements, having fibbed about already being familiar with the RNS to which I helpfully pointed you, even though recent prior posts of yours made it obvious that you were unaware.

Next: "And the “payment plan” appears to have been missed so far." This is a flatly without foundation - but characteristically doesn't stop you. There is no evidence for that. If you knew the RNSs properly, you would know that the plan is for payment from BPPM concentrate shipments - and there is absolutely no foundation to suggest that these have not been happening in Q4. In short, you preferred up another lie.

And: "I’m not going to keep answering these unpleasant posts of yours". Well, the sooner you stop trolling the BB with falsehoods, the sooner I can stop calling you out for it.

Oofy: you obviously still don't get it - or have no interest in the facts.

Seniority of security over BPPM goes to the shareholder who provided the Bucharest real estate collateral in the first place.

Mercuria (those "very smart" people) only have secondary security over BPPM. And Mercuria's finance is the offtake finance because it's Mercuria who are doing the shipping for Vast. They get revenue from the mine from their offtake cut. Plus they now have a payment plan for their part of the finance itself.

You might like to consider not making a complete prat of yourself in your comments.

PS. re your comment: "More likely, perhaps, is something like the imposition of big royalties on Vast’s future turnover from its mines, such that existing shareholders will be looking a very long way into the future for a return on their investment. The lenders have got Vast over a barrel, it’s they who will make the decisions next month."

That's not how a commercial debt restructuring works. There is no agreement unless the company signs it. Anything that comes by "imposition" would be court-ordered. Courts will consider all stakeholder interests: creditors and shareholders.

* does NOT always report ...

Oofy: I'm happy to disagree.

But while you're here, I recall that you had overlooked the most important and relevant RNS on finance, which is why you've been in a muddle over the creditors. Unfortunately, this website does always report every RNS. I don't know why. A glitch, perhaps, somewhere. So it's best to go the official London Stock Exchange site.

The RNS you need is here:

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/VAST/repayment-of-atlas-special-opportunities-completed/15453624

It should help you to understand things a great deal better.