Member Info for SickOfTheRatRace

On the subject of dividends anyone who has been reading my posts over the years will know that I am in favour of these as a means of share price appreciation. There can be no doubt that Vanadium pricing is exceeding expectations right now which in turn means unexpected profits that may not be needed short term for already costed projects.

Of course I am in favour only if the company can afford to do so therefore dividend coverage is a very important consideration so dividends within our means are essential. What a dividend will mean is we then join the list of payers on AIM (which proactive states is about 25%) which will bring fresh eyes to the company.

Assuming 1bn shares and 20p a share a 1p dividend represents a healthy 5% dividend and costs the company £10m plus distribution costs. I don't expect we will get 1p straight away and we would hope to be a long way north of 20p by the time BMN formulate their policy so is just an example, but a 5% paying stock would certainly attract new attention. If following September results we reach say 50p, a 1p dividend still represents a 2% return.

Of course there is the argument that the company should keep all funds to use for expansion but I see no reason they can't do both with the level of income they are currently enjoying. One thing I do know is given how responsible and prudent our board has been they wouldn't be suggesting this now unless they knew it was the right time to do so and indeed affordable by the company.

I look forward to the outcome!

I am not sure the funding has really been explained. It is just repeating what was said at the time. They are still not saying it is Sojitz but clearly if you are raising a particular amount of capital for a particular deal you will already know what that deal is going to cost you so if it is Sojitz that would imply that the cost of the deal was already agreed at the time. It will be interesting to see what transpires and if the cash consideration is close to this figure.

I remain somewhat confused with the final item which is partially at odds with other statements that have been made:

"Support Bushveld's vanadium expansion programme: Expansion of the vanadium reserves and resources at the Vametco mine and Brits Project for future production and support Vametco's expansion plans to increase production to more than 5,000mtV and beyond (US$5.6m) (£4.0 million)."

The first part is obvious with funds being used for drilling and resource scopings. "Support Vametco's expansion plans to increase production" following on is either badly worded as a whole paragraph or a contradiction to other statements. If the intention is to say that the drilling and scoping/resource confirmation works will support Vametco's expansion by confirming lower cost additional feedstock then OK, but it reads as some of the funds being used to support expansion as in the three phase expansion already underway. That contradicts statements made that the expansion plan is self funding through Vametco cash flows.

pb940 I hope so too. However in the structure there are several layers of subsidaries/associations between BMN and Vametco which could potentially be removed/tidied up also. How dormant some of these ownerships are I don't know.

Libero I think our position is the same. Whilst others have been talking about Sojitz as effectively a done deal I have maintained the same position throughout which is that it is only speculation until confirmed by the company. That way I have nothing to be disappointed about if the actual result is just removal of some company layers/subsidiaries instead or terms for Sojexit cannot be agreed.

Until more recently BMN has been an incredibly tight ship and we didn't hear about anything the company didn't want us to. Was the Sojitz slip deliberate? Who knows. Certainly the RNS regarding corporate simplification didn't mention Sojitz by name, as usual some have joined the dots which historically is something that BMN investors have done very well - I seem to remember even Fortune picked up on it.

The wait until those H1 profit results is becoming agonising. I can't imagine how I will feel by September - probably on an andrenaline drip.

Absolutely Pdub. It's also the day traders that watch the RNS service like a hawk which are very important for our momentum rises. Although many will buy early and sell in the afternoon those more lumpy rises also bring other fresh eyes to us when they see the trend which help fuel demand.

Regardless of what protectionism Trump is trying to implement the key point for us is that if US steel production goes up so will demand from there for Vanadium - don't forget that the USA is our biggest Nitrovan customer so should be a positive for BMN.

I don't believe the last "Vanadium Operation Update" had anything to do with the rise to 24p. When it was released (somewhat later than we expected) we were already on a steep upward curve and had already reached 20p from a starting position of 7 - 8p.

In terms of news, of course you can have news every other week if there is news to release and some companies do work on this basis. If there isn't, then you can't. The key question is whether the RNS service is being used effectively or whether snippets of information are being released via other means such as third party interviews. With BMN I get the impression that the latter is the preference, often a quote will be seized on and dissected on this board. The house broker is also in on the act apparently quoting information that should really be on an RNS (like the Sojitz slip, if indeed it turns out to be true).

I have no problem with the RNS service being used only when necessary rather than being used as a ramping device but feel that at the moment the bias is too far one way.

One thing we can all agree on is that the news today is fantastic and based on measurable achievement rather than hot air which can only ever be a positive thing. Looking forward to the annual report next.

LSE not showing any trades since 13:28 so looks like the feed is broken again.

London Stock Exchange concurs with 17.30 / 17.80 so another lse.co.uk issue.

McMuff although you have received the standard rebuttals the number of recommendations of your posts indicate there is a largely silent group who agree with you. Personally I have never been happy with periods of radio silence and I have to question what benefits our dedicated PR officer is actually bringing to the table. The situation with the last fundraise is unlike what we have seen before and I am sure the vast majority here expected more news on those items by now. The delay to the last operational update was also strange but can be inferred to be because an expected outcome was not achieved by the desired time - most likely the Sojitz deal (which I maintain remains speculation until confirmed by the company regardless of what John Meyer may have said in an interview).

I know it won't be a popular view amongst many LTH's here but one of the roles of the board of a public listed company is to protect the interests of shareholders and there have been missed opportunities in that regard to nip drift in the bud. It is just accepted that share price falls in a period of rapid commodity appreciation are normal! This will of course be countered with the view that the board is too busy on building the business to inform us of every piece of ramptastic information each week which is fair enough, so in which case why are we bothering with a PR position?

I believe there is some middle ground here which is somewhat more communicative than we have seen but not as communicative as many jam tomorrow outfits.

We have the issue of 2017 results which we know are not going to reflect the true picture of the company today and those results are due this week and falls before these results are not helpful as they lay out a foundation for further falls. I just hope there is sufficient forward guidance to counter this.

My expectation for the results red dot is 11am Thursday.

Projections are regularly posted, in particular see Nickderby/Pdub postings.

It's the primary consequence of structural deficit. If customer demand could be met by all suppliers in a market without stockpiles then there wouldn't be a deficit. Stockpiles are gone. Clearly suppliers are trying to respond by increasing production (including us) but it just won't be enough - particularly as our increased production is not earmarked for steel plants but for electrolyte production. Soon enough the demands for stable supply will increase and larger consumers will be looking to producers for guaranteed supply contracts - of course there won't be enough to go around. Fortune mentioned putting supply contracts in place previously. New mines will not be coming online for several years with the possible exception of oooohh, Mokopane! There will be extra pressure to obtain the mining right. Then as I have said before, the Chinese will be circling as one thing they hate is uncertainty of supply and are willing to pay handsomely to guarantee it. In my opinion the chance of an offer for Mokopane is very high.

Pdub that opinion is no doubt shared by the majority. The FOMO (fear of missing out) factor has been previously mentioned by some posters here where they have sold out of shares early. Of course there will also be cases where people sold out of things at exactly the right time, before bad news/crash/credit crunch etc.

Of course I cannot comment for everyone else and if someone needs to sell some shares because they need the money that is entirely down to them. If needs must then needs must. Personally all I can say is that as I have needed some funds I have sacrificed other shares and BMN is absolutely bottom of the list in terms of shares to sell to get over a hurdle. I 100% agree that BMN is one of those ultra rare opportunities that people will look back on in years to come as one of the top AIM success stories of all time.

Let's get the 2017 results out of the way and start clock watching the H1 results. Once H1 lands all doubt will be erased and the real re-rate can start.

BMN what is your take on the constant disconnect between FeV market fluctuations and the BMN share price. The usual situation for a commodity miner is (ignoring all other influencing factors in terms of what the company is doing) that when a commodity price rises this is quickly reflected in the share price, when the price falls this is also quickly reflected in the price. This can be seen across sectors as a whole particularly when there is a market shock.

In the case of BMN, there seems little correlation between what is happening with the mined product market price and the share price of the company. Whilst Vanadium prices are rising the BMN price is falling. I am sure we could forgive the market if we started mining yesterday, but we are already more than a year down the line.

Do you see this as a continuing problem or do you feel it will change once we start posting positive results?

faramog I assume you mean H1 for the realisation to slap muppet brokers in the face, although of course H2 is going to be even better!

I believe someone on here quoted Fortune saying that they wouldn't consider looking at Iron Ore again until it was $100 tonne. However if you are digging anyway why not give consideration to minimal processing and shipping? Wasn't there also phosphate so easy to retrieve you could potentially do it with a spoon? So much of BMN is focused on Vametco but scratch the surface and it's a feast of forgotten riches beneath.

If they want investors to see SA mining as stable it's exactly the kind of clause they need. To be applauded.

If it is being suggested that CVC want a controlling stake in Recordati because of Fortacin I think that's a bit of stretch.

Excellent, always nice to see a company keeping investors informed of progress.

It's all doom and gloom today! Well the good news is that assuming a production level of 3700mt and costs of $20,000 per mt that 3700mt costs $74m to produce. So even if Vametco didn't sell a single piece of Vanadium for a whole year they could fund the entire production cost including mining, wages, plant etc for less than half their expected 2018 EBITDA. Obviously that in itself is a ridiculous scenario but even at that level of extremity I really wouldn't worry about the operation going bust.