Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
The new management is doing so far so good - everything is right. With the share price falling, most analysts turned their back on the name since. the overpriced Toro Gold merger took place. They filled the pocket of the private equity guys and all left the sinking boat like rats.
They cleaned the balance sheet with year-end results (31. December 2021) and the balance sheet should be clean now. The impairments were on the sale of the Bibiani gold mine in Ghana and general adjustments on the carried value of capitalised development costs as assets. Yes, old management left without being made responsible for that mess. In my view, they delivered two excellent quarters, with costs under control. It would be nice to see a strong quarter (end June 22) & gold forwards (63,000 ounces at $1,788 June 2022 & 60,000 ounces at $1,803 September 2022) maturing.
I don't know what investors want to see, good mineralisation at Syma North, look for the updated mineral resource estimate.
We talk here always about the same issues of the stock.
A recent report shows the Templeton Emerging Market fund trades at a 13 per cent discount to NAV, Molten Ventures, a 600 million £ venture capital fund with a 66 per cent discount.
Your choice of two, where to put MAFL!
There would be no difference if MAFL would pay a dividend or buy back its own shares, it is an illiquid stock and it will be the same till it can grow its business up severalfold and attack one capital raise after the next. The company did not issue new shares for several years and therefore has no active coverage from any broker.
The current shareholder base is the same, just changes from the optimistic ones (increasing their holdings), the others who give up and liquidate and the third (undecided to increase or to liquidate).
Only new investors, by the way of the issuance of new shares, can broaden the trading liquidity in the stock and increase the attraction to the story.
The field of independent fragrance and ingredients specialists getting tight with the merger of the privately held Firmenich with DSM. Two years ago, Firmenich acquired a 22 per cent stake in Robertet, followed by Givaudan with a 5 per cent stake. The majority of the shares are held by the Maubert family.
Firmenich was valued at 22 x EV/EBITDA or 4,3 revenues. With 2/3 fragrances and 1/3 flavours business, a bit lower than Givaudan's current valuation of 25x times EV/EBITDA and Symrise's at 19x.
This should give with a more broad portfolio a value to Robertet between 1.285 and 1.585 Euros per share if the company would be acquired.
cones to standstill trading as most diamonds in inventory are from Russia. India supplies close to half of diamonds to the US market. Lucara produces high class, higher valued stones, expanding production. Should do fine as diamond buyers look to find other sources to get the stones.
I know this company for years and they just burn shareholders' money. If this story does not work anymore, i.e. India, Germany, you start a new one, Africa. Didn't they spin out the African exploration portfolio a few years ago as Aforo Gold which went bust a bit later as shareholders were not willing to hand out more cash to pay management salaries?
I completely missed posting the excellent news on the trading update on 6th May:
"2021 Results - Full year results in respect of the year to 31st December 2021, which are in line with the guidance
issued in December 2021, are expected to be announced in late May. Outlook for 2022 - Revenues and profits for the year to date are ahead of the same period of 2021 and for the full year are expected to be significantly ahead of that of 2021 and ahead of market expectations. This reflects improved trading conditions in all markets for tea, higher production of macadamia, significantly improved soya prices and our expectation that 2022 will be an “on year” for Hass avocado."
The stock reacted briefly and traded up to 62£, back now to 60£ - probably still good value here, strong balance sheet. Cost inflation, i.e. like UK wage-inflation 13% is everywhere an issue and should be compensated with higher selling prices.
Ideon is just a paper gain and you can book the gain when it is quoted & you can sell it. The same happened with CAP Energy, once valued at 2$, then at 0.80$, and you can read on the website of JP Jenkins "CAP Energy PLC has now withdrawn from trading on the JP Jenkins platform" - valued at??? As long you do not get an exit possibility, everything is just a paper gain and investors should include/calculate a mark-down....and all the other issues on trading liquidity/market makers.
16.000 metres is expensive work, and the ore has to be tested on which kind of treatment you can extract all the metals without the backing of substantial financing or partner (out of Asia?), hard to archive.
All valid points!
Currently, ASND has 25%; if payments & exploration work are done by the end of June, they move to 50%. If they fail with the remaining part of the agreement, they will stick with 49% of the project, MAFL 36% and EDM 15% - a messy combination - it will go nowhere!
The NAV is one thing, the LS project another. For non-liquid investments, you have to accept a discount on the book value of the investment. For example, CAP Energy which was valued at a high of $2 per share, is now probably only at $0.80. It does not help to write up the value of an investment when you can't get out of it. Same with Ideon, yes, it is nice to have another round of capital raising at a higher price & MAFL can write up the investment, but the final windfall will be only when the shares trade at a stock exchange, i.e.Cerrado Gold.
Additionally, you have to add a discount on the trading liquidity of the MAFL stock. If one of the more significant shareholders wants to exit, the share price will fall even lower, as we have seen recently. At 11 Pence, there is a seller; you can see it on the offered size of 20.000 shares and on the bid side, only 10.000 shares. No buyer around; the MM is just putting in the minimum he has to show.
In these uncertain times, a stock like MAFL is penalized with all the above. There is no reason why the share should trade at NAV or even a premium. Further out, it will take at least three years till LS can be operational, counting on financing in place and an agreement with the government on the 15 per cent stake. Who knows then where the price of copper or zinc will trade?