The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Ultimately following director buys potentially just before a deal might be announced in the New Year or before from the current market cap well below NAV is probably not a bad entry point in all honesty. I suspect most buyers will hold to its sold as the deal could be worth 45-60p but who knows but we know that Mellon is looking for a fair price.
Day trading Condor that is very brave! I think the odds are probably stacked a little more favorably in the case of Condor because at the very least you are buying in close to our billionaire investor and Chairman who perhaps has a good idea of where this is going. We have the cash runway, we have the bidders, we just need to get this OTL at an acceptable price to JM that must be above $100m at least. The recent video from MC on his visit to the Chinese embassy to advance 2 parties were quite animated and i think there was hesitation about when he thought it might sign but went for safe option of early in New Year. We will see as it might be sooner than we think. The share should start to tick up as we move towards the New Year anyway as there is plenty of value as we trade below our NAV by a good margin. gla
I sense this might be a monday 18th rns drop. Happened before as things get tied up over weekend but its not an understatement that it will be transformational for the company and for shareholders. There is a clear $100m sweat equity gain and investors will finally be able to size up market value of Hawiah and JQ and i hope we get green light for a Saudi listing and raise in the New Year.
We have 5 non binding bids, 2 advanced discussions and MC was out in Nic at Chinese embassy so go figure what is going on. I think something is brewing and the outcome is going to be a lot higher than todays market cap as soon as early New Year. JM and bod just topped up £1.8m and we have a bare bones $400m NPV, excluding all the good stuff and 5m ounce gold district. We are a ridiculous £30m market csp company with a billionaire investor owning a sizeable chunk. Not a bad set of vital statistics and delay is simply JM ability to hold out and not get pushed around. He can match any possible buyer. Anyway dyor.
Seller is out in force. For how long i dont know. Market cap is unhinged from company value but if you have a forced seller or someone exciting for other reason it is what it is sadly. tide will turn at some point.
And today it looks one of his recent investors continue to dump stock below .03. When will it end as market cap is now £4m. that is madness but what can you if someone is dumping stock at any cost. Certainly need to be wary of this in the future and hope that seller exits. Contrarians will rubbing hands but the disconnect is now depressing.
All coming together. Events like this are normally after the informal sign off so its a good sign news is coming once its all signed. The day we convert our $95m in sweat equity into equity will be great day for shareholdings, triple todays shareprice and that really does not account for all the major assets we own. Exciting times possibly this week if the 2 week extension is correct, which with these events held with government and banks is a pretty good sign but we are talking $390m funding so given we are worth sub £30m there is plenty of upside, not least Kefi will be invoicing TKGM for its services going forward and generating some revenue for first time since inception. Gla
Todays market cap £28m. NPV is $400m and conservative. Any bod will to take 75% discount is giving asset away but call it $100m. In sterling thats £80m. That is best part of s triple bag. This is also at the very lowest valuation Mark was talking. Crazy but if we get the signature in next few weeks/ months we should see 3x rise. I hope for more as i think JM would have a higher valuation in mind and he has ability to match or hold out for as long as necessaary but i think most investors are tired of their lack of action and want to conclude and move on. Obviously Mellon continues to lower his average so he will get his profit in the end. Company must however conclude the deal and if necessary take it on the chin as a consequence of their lack of execution at the 11th hour to back out of JVing this into production. We will see but hope the deal is inked while MC is in Nic currently.
Just a recap on 3 quotes from recent update
“Sales process advanced considerably”
“Follow on meeting at chinese embassy from previous meetings“
“Very advanced discussions with 2 particular parties“
This is all from latest update and while he said nothing in next 2 weeks he talked about New Year so we could get some key news in January. We never know if it might be before as Chinese might want to tie this ip by Chinese New Year but MC would not be flying out to Nic to entertain low offers. These bidders must be close to take out price. Just seems this has been a deal in the making for a year and is moving along, albeit at glacial speed.
I am assuming we are in advanced discussions with the same Chinese companies who originally did the site visits as this is all happening in the Chinese embassy. I would hope that within the last 12 months MC has sorted all issues (bought land and Condor name etc) and advanced discussions i hope is close. He certainly wanted to say it will be tied up prior to christmas on the webinar but held himself back. I agree if we can get any binding deal or MOU i dont mind if they make the payment middle of next year but for 12 months of negotiation you would hope something is closing in. Whatever price the buyer pays they will be getting an absolute bargain and shareholders will be lucky to cover their investment over last 12 years. I am sure it is not exactly what JM and MC wanted.
Monday could be earliest with some positive update but knowing Kefi it will be next friday, or even following monday. Everything is on track as far as we have not heard to the contrary and anecdotal update coming from TW it is all on track. Frankly these credit meetings are ceremonial because it would have already been agreed at the government level. We are now just making sure all the admin ticks all the boxes and this 2 week period would appear to be a considerable time period to achieve that. Looking forward to next week and hopefully change the record to Saudi and plans for listing etc. If we convert the $100m of sweat equity into capital would be very happy day!
When you look back now at the directors purchases, that were tokenistic, they knew what was coming. They probably hoped to suck in some investors to prop the share price up but since the placing, that i suspect could and should have been avoided, it has since more than halved but since they only invested very small amounts they have lost very little. We need to see the board properly explain what is gong on and who is selling stock. They should be open and DP will know fully who is selling, probably Altair but could easily to be one of the suppliers for working capital. I have seen this before in other stocks where they pay some providers in stock and leads to a downward spiral in the price. I also suspect todays news was in the hope that investors would be sucked in so the investors they gave shares to can offload into that as appears to be the case today as selling continued through the day. The question is how many shares are being offloaded and for how long. Altair was offloading hidden from sight for 12 months until they had collected the cash ready for the next placing at .03 so they would have more than recovered their stake for a fraction of the cost. clever really but looks a little to much of DP and Altair colluding.
We had several people state 2 weeks extra on the end of November. Harry and team are all meeting this week the syndicate, and we are told credit sign off by the 15th as that is maximum 2 weeks. There has been no change to that timeline and actually the timeline has been pretty robust, notably all of the regulatory changes being sorted very quickly a few months ago by the government who came out of their bunker and started to espouse positive things about Kefi in Australia and PM meeting Harry. The government are now the ones driving to get this deal done so we should hear positive updates next week. I believe this deal is already done but we just need signatures and then we are off to becoming a major player in two of the most exciting mining areas of the world. The market does not yet agree but if we can get some update monday to set this up then it would the monumental re-rate. As some investors have pointed out GGP went from .5p to 36p and while i cant see that happening i do consider Kefi to be just as exciting given its Saudi assets and the speed to get to production and a DFS penciled in for early 2024. The news flow should be considerable and the institutions and high net worth investors will pile in on signing.
I understand the past but i am sure MC had interest from China after Shanta gold was pushing off deals and i think at time of change of direction he thought a sale was not going to last long but Chinese are very smart in mining and MC was played well but only JM kept us out of trouble. The strategic pivot should have been a JV or merger with another miner to spread risk but keep value. I think the sale in hindsight was 2nd or 3rd best option as surely at time of change of heart JV or some other deal must have been explored but was persuaded by Chinese interest to go down the sale route. China probably offered a carrot and once they shifted China changed tack to hopefully bleed them into submission or for shareholders to get fed up. It certainly worked. We have last gasp now to finish the deal and close this book. i am sure Chinese have also grinded down MC and JM in this time with their games but if we clear $100-$150m some of us might walk away breakeven. Lucky late arrivals might make 300% from this price today.
The key is 2 advanced buyers. This makes a market to firm price and get a deal finally and hopefully closer to 60p. Buyers will anyway get an absolute bargain as even worst case scenario now from production at $2000 an ounze will be over $120m positive cashflow to pay off the purchase price in 1 year or so from production. Then investors can pocket in excess of that for eternity and be sitting on a $300m asset. Madness to sell La India for such a shockingly low price if it is around $120m but we stand at £30m today so triple bag is very likely in as little as 1-2 months if deal is being signed now for January release. Just a shambles to have not JV’d this project from the start and allowed pis to keep 50% of the company. We would be well over 60p by now going into gold production but we live and learn. MC told investors he was going into gold production by buying mill and so on but then pulled the rug, seemingly because he had big offers to buy the mine but now turns out he did not. Now after 12 months we might conclude a deal but had they gone ahead with gold price today we would have buyers circling and paying closer to NPV. Mellon has played a blinder using the year to lower his average so he walks away with a profit. Pis if lucky might walk away with the investment they originally made as i suspect averages overall are closer to 40p but we will see. We might get a bigger price and who knows if the low ball offers were around $100m.
Totally agree. This was all known before the disastrous dead with Altair and Pitcole. Pis have been royally done over. We now have a big seller in the background selling into news. I suspect we see a rise today but sold into. Maybe DP has a deal with Altair to help them out or Pitcole. Their last debt to equity deal wad a sham based on all these deals pouring in with cash for basic engineering work. All great news but it stinks of something. We will see.
For Northfox there are different steps to commissioning just like Italy so different teams come in for commissioning. Italy while commissioned earlier this year is still largely in commissioning phase with optimisation. I do not know what Phoenix mean by commissioning as it will mean something different to other teams. Anything coming on stream in January/February will be a huge step in the right direction but will optimisation could take us well into 2024 but i hope we have a plant operational as a further 50 deals will come in after this. We first need to see out big seller finish as we are at an all time low while this happens. At same time Altair has tightened its grip on company with a large slice and Pitcole is now a big investor who might have nefarious plans. DP and Babar (useful idiot) has brought havoc to the finances and decimated an incredible company that has so much potential and i only hope pis are able to recover thier losses. I do not doubt one day the company will be £500m company but Eqtec is controlled and on a short leash by a small number of investors. Once seller has gone and steady the ship completely i hope the company can be reborn. I hope David Saint can replace DP in the new year as DPs gung ho attitude is great at times of plenty but has come unstuck lending North Fork cash with no security, advancing Logic cash with no levers to get back if things dont go to plan. Babar was nowhere to be seen and his exit was far too late. The damage limitation has been good but we probably will not come out the other end until february or march 2024 when we get resolutions on so many things.