The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
My thoughts exactly FTJNY. Rather than openly collaborate over that option, with hindsight, Mather appears to have shut it down and instead tried to turn Alpala into an un-meetable obligation for CGB, presumably to squeeze them into accepting a takeover. Good plan, .. had it worked.
Well I think we are owed a presentation and a proper strategy reset. Certainly looks like the CEO-elect is clearing the decks so it’s all attributable to the last watch. A paucity of news, a risky strategy, under delivery and U turns. Not writing this off but increasingly comfortable with the baton change. This was all a bit too cozy with hindsight.
I doubt we could ever have built Alpala even if we found lenders, streamers and turnkey project deliverers. It’s a colossal jigsaw to assemble. The main reason against taking it on is that if anything didn’t go to plan, we would be soooooo vulnerable to predators. Borrowed, mortgaged, no income stream and with no wriggle room. And frankly, nothing goes exactly to plan in this game.
Developing Alpala as a largely (but not completely) derisked entity suitable for majors to bid on is completely rational. The sale price will reflect the residual risk as well as the resource. Success for me is selling Alpala whilst retaining the Solg pipeline and enough liquidity to prove up some more. I’m hoping the board agrees. If we try to be too greedy over Alpala, I suspect we will lose the lot.
If we sold most of ENSA but retained some, we might get an income stream from Alpala eventually but I’m sceptical unless our contribution to the mine development cost is most of the resource as contribution in kind. So, let’s await a strategy refresh and see if the new CEO has ambitions to be more than just a caretaker.
Well it’s an I’ll wind and all that. I’ve rebuilt my modest reserves again and so will be topping up if it drops much further. Can’t promise to turn it around lol, but it feels like something fairly seismic is going to happen by the summer. Based on a hunch, some tea leaves, a groundhog and a fir cone.
If I were running down the street with a 14 juicy bones from the butcher, and found myself being chased by some big slavering wolves with designs on them, and me, then I would probably throw them a bone as a diversion, and run a bit faster with my lightened load.
I’d agree Ned. Once we have an income stream then we close the door on regular dilution. NM does flap around sometimes though .. there was a lot of talk about 2-3 years ago about a near surface gold find that was seen as the fast track development to create an income stream to fund alpala. Whatever happened to that?
My memory is hazy here but didn’t the original BHP holding come about in a private deal with the characters who were switching over to CGP and who held c. 10% of SOLG. I daresay BHP corporate governance could cope with investing in SOLG but not with CGP. I’ve been suspicious about that ever since it happened .. until the AGM. Had SOLG acquired CGP, then CGPs scary cash raising obligations around the Alpala development would have been off the table which might have realigned their investment thinking back onto the long game. That such a good offer didn’t happen suggests other, darker forces at work between BHP and CGP. IMHO.
Losing the confidence of 45% of the shareholders sounds awful until you think that tight knit group are after something else. Are BHP after a soaring SOLG sp or are they after the prospects. Well quite. They were always out to get us one way or another. It’s just business.
NM says he’s trying to get the best price for all shareholders and not needing to beg funds from two majors who’d like the shirt off his back seems a reasonable strategy to me. Having demonstrated that we have choices, which he and the Hoff did, it’s clearly upset the big boys. So, we now have the dirty tricks to contend with. Best value for patient shareholders isn’t going to come from surrendering to BHP et al. Stop the steal .. imho.
Anon .. you’re not the first and you won’t be the last to feel like that. I lost my nerve at 1.5p after the long decent and bought £200 instead of my usual £1000 block. I was 86% down at the time and the in house doom-monger was really getting to me. I actually wrote down how worried I felt at the time to remind me later that I wasn’t being daft, it wasn’t a cert and I was in way too deep already. Hindsight eh. 1.5p. Bu66er!!
I wonder how you tee up a JV competition. It can’t be like an auction, and yet you need to signal intent and ask for seal bids from suitors to assess maybe against some set criteria. Not a clue as I’m sure someone will point out to me. But interesting if we did put an ‘invitation to parter’ advert in the classified ads.
Only thought for today. Since peeps are harping on about the margin of the vote still, well, I’ve had to put up with us leaving the EU on the back of a 4% margin so NMs 10% is to my eyes a win by a country mile. I’m happy for him to royally pi55 off the losing side by doing right by all shareholders whenever he feels the need. There. Said it.
Aye BN.c. Baffles me but so do many things. I did enjoy how my subject “This will go on and on ..”’ actually did go on and on earlier today, Folks were too busy debating increasingly unrelated points hours later to stop and retitle it. Ah the irony. happy days.