Member Info for schlemiel

is very odd. Are we being shorted? The prices isn't pushing on like I thought it would. In fact, it looks weak.

BHP is a hard commodity producer and explorer. BHP is not an investment trust fund. It doesn't buy stakes in companies to turn a profit. It buys stakes in companies because it wants the company and its assets for mining purposes

BHP want copper assets. Newcrest is a gold focused company. It's an incongruous mix. And Newcrest's spending around $250m in Lundin in Ecuador for gold purposes.

thanks to pob69 on t'other site

'pob69
3 Oct '18 - 07:55 - 13283 of 13283
0 0 0
Excellent news which should provide an immediate uptick.

UK broker (and Joint broker to $SOLG #ecuador) Liberum has just initiated coverage with a 49 page broker note "Benchmarking Alpala" with a cover of a shoal of sharks circulating (sadly not Solly the monster dinasaur, but just as appropraite).

SUMMMARY
...SolGold’s Alpala discovery in Ecuador is emerging as one of the largest and highest grade greenfield copper discoveries in the world.

...With Newcrest and now BHP on the register, SolGold should be valued by its utility to an acquirer.

...we derive an $1.5bn valuation and initiate with a target price of 69p

...Upside could stem from a larger than modelled increase in the December 2018 MRE (we model +50%), a larger overall resource number and/or confirmation of further discoveries at one of SolGold’s porphyry or gold targets, which will likely be tested in 2019.'

Q

It's no big deal fella. I enjoy it

BHP HQ is in Melbourne. Newcrest HQ is in Melbourne. Melbourne Mining Club is in, erm, Melbourne. A small place and lots of chatter

Barry Fitzgerald is a committee member of the Melbourne Mining Club (MMC). The BHP CEO, Andrew Mackenize, spoke in Dec 2017 at the MMC. I suspect Barry's a pretty switched on fella and well connected in the Aussie mining industry

'the longer term trend is still down.' Opinion presented as fact deserves suspicion. I am always cautious of those who present opinion as though it were a fact. The price will continue to fluctuate, of that I am certain

BHP and Newcrest in Ecuador shootout

BHP is not the type to spend US$36 million acquiring a 6.1% stake in a copper-gold explorer and then sit pat, writes Barry FitzGerald.

03 October 2018

'And having earlier assembled a 14.54% stake in the same company at a cost of $63 million, Newcrest isn't the type to sit pat either.

The explorer in question is the Brisbane-based and London and Toronto-listed SolGold, led by industry stalwart Nick Mather.

Expectations are that SolGold will soon become a takeover target for BHP or Newcrest, or perhaps on a joint basis. It is an usual situation. Rarely are major Australian miners at 10 paces over the same prey.'

rest on subscription

https://www.miningnews.net/barry-fitzgerald/opinion/1347895/bhp-and-newcrest-in-ecuador-shootout

President of Rosseau Asset Management, which owns just over 3 per cent of Solgold. -

excerpt -

'But Mr Mather said those rights would not be enough to stymie a rival bid for the company.

"Newcrest can't under the terms of the agreement block a deal with anybody else and they don't control us now," he said.

With copper prices firming over the past 10 months and a host of companies, including BHP and Rio, keen to add to the copper assets they own in nearby Chile and Peru, Mr Irwin believes a gold-focused Australian company like Newcrest is not the natural owner of Solgold.

"I believe Newcrest wants the asset, but I believe there is a lot bigger and more powerful fish out there that want Solgold, and I don't think there is a very good chance this will end up in Newcrest's hands at the end of the day," he said.

"I believe there would be two types of buyers, the large mining conglomerates that are playing the copper cycle and secondly the large [North American] gold producers that want large gold assets with copper credits."

Despite Solgold shares more than halving in recent months, Mr Mather insists he won't allow the company to be taken cheaply.

"It won't be cheap because we can paddle our own canoe. We are resourced with plenty of cash, a project which has not yet revealed its riches and a globally acclaimed team to deliver a world-class result for this project," he said.

https://www.afr.com/business/mining/solgold-opportunity-knocks-for-newcrest-20180212-h0vyoq

Come on RIO, you know you want SOLG badly. Get that chequebook out..You buy SOLG and you'll get PRIME ECUADOR

June 29 (Reuters) - 'Rio Tinto wants copper badly, and it’s ready to pay top-dollar. '

'The banker declined to be named as the matter is confidential. Companies that hold prime copper projects can be worth anything in the region of $1 billion to $10 billion, depending on the size of their reserves, according to analysts.'

A facile question bordering on the preposterous.

Let's not forget the most important stakeholder in all of this, the government of Ecuador and by extension the people of Ecuador, though at times the disconnect between the two can be alarmingly wide

typo - 'but a huge amount of cash'

A more pertinent is why did NM create 5 different holding companies (ENSA etal) to secure legal ownership over various licences-tenements? All of them come under the SOLG umbrella so if BHP wants all of SOLG they will try to secure 51% of its shares to gain majority control of the company. If BHP simply want ownership over ENSA and its tenements then some form of agreement will surely have to be discussed between NM, other major shareholders and BHP with ownership remaining with we, the shareholders, minus ENSA and its assets buy a huge amount of cash on SOLG's balance sheet. If this does happen how does that amount of cash find its way into YOUR trading account? A special dividend? A share buyback? No doubt the most tax efficient method will be used though I'm not sure what form that would take

just my naive and ill-informed musings

an eerie symmetry

Is this based on the assumption that the time-frame used in your analysis will be news free? If for example, BHP, increase their stake in, for example, the next 60 days does this invalidate your analysis?

I do like your work. Very interesting indeed and thanks for taking the time to share it

AKG - Got it

Obliged - cheers

AKG

'I think NM and Jason are presenting in London later this month.' How do you know that?

Thanks

I am assuming that someone's updated NM's Linkedin profile in the last few days then? The question is who's updated Mather's Linkedin profile and why? Is it Nick himself or a company employee with Nick's permission or indeed at Nick's instigation?

Are these figures resource numbers for Cascabel or Alpala? I am assuming they're for the entire Cascabel tenement?

I was looking at Newcrest's annual report for 2018 on Friday. They have debts totalling around $US1.5bn with net debt of around $US1bn. They also employ a conservative balance sheet policy which usually means debt repayment rather than debt accumulation.

Solgold gets only a cursory mention in the report. They've spent around $US250m thrown at Lundin in Ecuador.

Newcrest is a gold oriented company with copper being a minority asset for them. I am not convinced that Newcrest have the resources to be able to take full advantnage of the size of Cascabel

A few articles last week making reference to Mather's desire to seek independence (high grades allow company independence article) looks like a 'defence strategy' against a hostile takeover from BHP. It's almost as if Mather's putting some defence and stating SOLG can go it alone. Now, he knows that's tosh.

Nick's other comment about the BHP-Guyana share sale was telling. He said BHP didn't 'speak to us'. Now, a hostile takeover is a takeover of a target company without the owners consent or agreement. The predator doesn't even have to make contact with the prey company. If the predator can persuade 51% of a company's shareholders to accept a certain price then a takeover will happen irrespective of the views of a company's management. Mather was effectively inferring hostility on the part of BHP. I believe he wants to BHP to go hostile. I also believe that Mather still enjoys the backing of important shareholders, at the moment.

I believe BHP (with maybe RIO as partner or AA) will try and buy Cascabel and other tenements for a price allowing SOLG to explore other parts of Ecuador. If Mather believes SOLG's other projects offer equally prospectivity to Cascabel then the leverage for massive gains is enhanced

Don't shoot me down, just throwing ideas around. We all want a rising share price and we all want to profit from our holding. Just because I would like to see SOLG maintain its explorer function rather than venturing into unknown territory ie actual mining, does not mean I am deramping.