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Certainly agree with a lot of commentary but are we worth more than £5m? in our heyday we were worth £180m in dec 2020. Apart from the bad handling by the management and lack of risk mitigation the future looks a lot more promising in terms of real orders, given several have come in that back in Dec 2020 when Palumbo was, in retrospect, pumping thr stock like crazy with no revenues. Just questioning market value as i have been averaging down, still well under water but when Northfork lands and Idex unload on big deals this is going to rocket like crazy. If you look around for startups on AIM not many have the sales pipeline of Eqtec for £5m market cap and the IP and a sales pipeline in Europe and the US. Our 50% of just one plant in Italy should deliver 50% of £1m profit a year for next 10 years and this will be what bank was working from when they refinanced. If we hit those targets on a PE of 10 that plant is worth £10m to an investor interested in 10% yields and investing in green. I understand management have done over investors but we personally i do not see a placing for a long time as we just had one. Be interesting to see where we are after Northfork news.
Its incredible we are almost back to where we were before the refinance news on Italy which must bring in a decent amount of our loan repayment as we own 50% of the plant. Furthermore any expenditure by the Italian plant will be paid for services to Eqtec so its win win and the plant should be generating around £1m profit a year as i dont see that has been revised. once bitten twice shy is very evident today but i am expecting a lot of news over coming weeks as Northfork are nearly at the point of commissioning at Idex and Greece must surely be releasing an update.
While i think the management, especially Babar the previous CFO, have sadly not managed risks well a lot of things look to be changing for the better operationally. The recent Italy refinance gives the world a green light that the bank thinks they will get their money back on the operation of the plant. This is a big step as it proves the refinance model can work so investors can inject the cash to get a plant up and running and then extract most of it from the refinance. This will improve the investor appetite. We have Logic, who probably owe us between £2m-£4m, and that looks hard to argue from their side given we have invested the cash and they have tried to cut Eqtec out. We have NorthFork that is already stacking wood ready for the commissioning and while we do not know our stake in that project it could be easily worth $5m-$10m in time but until we know what stake we have we do bot value it , not to mention the Idex project already signed off and a few other besides in Hawii etc that all brings in cash. the other 10 projects in the US, as long as NorthFork goes live correctly wll be following up. The cashflow is finally coming in and given this type of front end work is highly profitable means we have a window where we should not have cashflow issues. I am and always been very impressed with the tech and for me where we need to be. i take the CapitalGTP partner with a pinch of salt. i just hope Eqtec invest limited time and resources into this and that CapitalGTP do the heavy lifting. The biggest question for me after the last few years is the management and Altair. Can we trust them? losing a large percent of investors money and doing a placing with Altair just at a point i think we might not have needed to is a question of trust. However we know that on news Eqtec can double as frankly £5.8m market cap today is trivial. Even a £50m market cap i doubt investors would think they are overvalued. We can recover to 50p this year on the back of the sort of news that might be possible and place a value of £58m on the company. Revenue could easily top £20-30m this year. While investors have been severely burnt there is every chance to recover a good proportion of it as all those projects delayed come to fruition. on the back on this there is a growing mountain of funds to invest in green energy and Eqtec really need to start tapping into that. i really hope 2024 and next 1-3 months are going to see us a lot further from where are today and 50p does not seem unreasonable?
I sense Eqtec have turned tge corner after the cash crunch in late 2024. So many things went against Eqtec its some credit it is still operating but much of the non existent 2023 revenue is starting to turn up in 2024 so i think doom laiden commentary is mostly, and i agree, a result of the disastrous share price. My over riding convern is now largely whether Pitcole etc are in for the long haul as their timely debt to equity conversion puts them in profit today. They might see option to sell and i think the drop down is possibly a reflection of that and not that Eqtec are likely to do well in 2024. Would be good to get some confirmation our major shareholders are not going to sell as has been part of the major issue in 2023 as major shareholders offloaded billions of shares. Would like to get confirmation on that so as not to be caught out again as Palumbo has the share register and knows exactly what is going on so can time his options packages and any director buys of susbstance with that knowledge. Great tech, great potential but a murky past that needs cleaning up.
We have not seen that level of buying for a very long time and still to this day there is no news i have seen that corresponds with that time period from any source that would support such high levels of buying for a sustained period. Something else was happening and i am sure we are about to find out.
I think all of the considerable buying activity launching share from 15p to 25p is a pretty indication something is happening. Can anyone explain that rise and the huge number of shares changing hands as there was no open information i am aware of that would trigger it. Was it Chinese investors or connected parties. It is just a waiting game.
Positive news is 2nd bank is just waiting on updated security report. odd as lead bank has already signed but this should be very soon. This will clear the path . we have £200k cash burn and only drawn £1m of loan so plenty of headroom so i cant see a placing unless we completely drop the Tk financing. Everyone in TK village is good to move and no blockers. Really nothing is holding this up except box ticking and frustratingly they still seem to be doing it. Harry has the bit between his teeth is strong so hopefully we can start to see a proper re-rate once the 2nd bank signs the credit agreement.
Reading between the lines Kefi is clearing the path for a listing on Saudi so we might get news not so long from now. As Sb says it looks our stake is valued internally at £40m. pretty decent although the market valuation of the project is likely to be many many many rimes this amount. Heads down now to listen to Harry and close TK!!!!
So turns out i was not exactly correct. this is a debt for equity. basically Zhongke Green owed us £5m and i guess CNEL understood they were not going to ever be paid. so they took a minority stake. obviously in current day £5m cash would be better than a stake in a loss making company. does not even appear they got a bargain either. what is most galling is they thought this could be done behind closed doors and never mention it to anyone. they got caught and needed to apologise. to me this is classic board approach to do as they please. we have no idea why we decided to write this debt off? seems very kind of us. if they instead talked about Zhongke Green in positive light we might have worked out it was a good deal but they have provided no information. the best spin on this is that we had no hope of getting paid from this company who might have gone bust so we hope this company wins some business and presumably CNEL will be supplier. we need to wait for final year results to see the numbers but we are almost at an alltime low so the market has rightly taken a dim view of the deal and the way CNEL handled this. I am slightly sick of waiting every 6 months for a sliver of information and have no idea what is currently going on as they simply provide no information. Great tech but terrible management. they could have been a global leader but instead squander the opportunity to line their own pockets with dubious deals behind closed doors.
With Pitcole bought out we own more than 50% of Italy so given full draw down i would expect a large part will go to loan repayment and let Italy stand on its own feet. I guess a balance will be struck but basically Eqtec decides as they have majority say. I would exepect every penny they can to pay back loan will be done but Eqtec dont know precisely. Also we do not know if anyone has priority of loan repayment or if equal. Anyway however you read cash will be inbound and probably all we need before bigger deals come in. Compact are hungry as they need to deliver, unlike other partners who seemed to be little more than charlatans. Compact have certainly spent a lot of money to date £150m+ so for their sake i hope they close a sale.
We have two companies in advanced talks so plenty of due diligence underway and MC was almost keen to announce something last month but held back. We are in a perfect storm to close a deal but that is now what is needed and make the deal happen. Management took the decision to sell so they need to respect the market and a year is plenty of time. If JM is holding out for $200m deal he probably needs to look more at what is in front of them than what money they invested. Nic miners are flying proving what a great jurisdiction it is, interest rates globally about to fall quickly so gold prices should rise significantly so its now or never and if never get the finance/JV and try and make up the lost year. Hopefully a deal in announced this month.
CompactGTL are a serious company, unlike the disastrous partners with Logic etc. My assumption is that development was already happening at the university and arguably this tech can only come to fruition with such a partner so i do not see Eqtec investing much, over and above it was already doing. I dont expect much from it but positions Eqtec in this market and maybe BA or someone else in desperation will fund the project as airlines and throwing money all over the space currently. The news on debt refinance means placement is pushed back for a considerable time but it also proves that probably the last deal with Pitcole and Altair might not have been need as this is barely a month on. At least more of what they say is happening, which has not always been the case. We need to see this back to 50p or in old money .5p to even recover its position for many investors. With a good 12 months we might recover a good deal of the lost market cap as North Fork is imminent and Italy is operating. Slowly slowly.
Long long way to go but issue is any price rise like today will get sold into. 500k trade just went through as so many disgruntled investors, and rightly so on one level. Northfork will be next RNS we need to see as we need at least 5 commercially operating plants before the floodgate of orders takes off. Italy is a step in the right direction but looks still more optimisation needed and Eqtec have not said how much of drawdown will repay any loans. I hope its enough as frankly eqtec cant do a placing for a long time or until Altair and Palimbo acccomplish their coup d’etat. We will see. I want to see 10p at least this year.
Certainly the second bank confirming financing agreed and that lead investors have signed definitive agreements or similar would make the webinar more productive. I am sure when Harry agreed the date he expected to be further than he is now so i hope he can rally the troops and deliver a little more this week. Plenty of potential news but just when is the question.
Well i am sure Calibre would not consider any offer under $600m or more if they put themselves up for sale in reality but they are happy to bank the $100ms in the meantime while the sun is out. Condor is on the block to the highest bidder and we have probably got more gold in our district than Calibre and we have a minimum 8 years ready to go at 150k ounces a year. Anyway we should hear before end of month or it is starting to become a little ridiculous given strong tweeting on sales update going back to the early summer. I understand not all deals proceed as expected but there is an opportunity cost of a company doing very little in 14 months and they need to accept the highest bidder or another type of deal to get momentum moving. I feel confident we are closer than ever.
Nice to see Kefi limbering up as the recent news confirmed Harry and EG and banks are working towards the $390m funding package and could be days from next update. Also with this confirmation in the bag it means Harry knows that the end of the tunnel is in sight and will use the short-term borrowing if needed. Harry must get trigger those 1.6 warrants and once we do we have cash for Saudi. As Kefi will be technically debt free but have a 80% stake it should be far easier to borrow as Kefi should be able to enter the debt markets. Hopefully .7 and .8 will fly past in coming days.
Calibre are showing how it is supposed to be done in Nic with record production and profits released a few days ago. They recently merged and invested $40m to buy Marathan and finding the mine build but they have in the meantime still doubled their cash to $84m. Simply incredible and goes to show just how much cash gold miners are driving at $2000 gold and literally drowning in cash. While condor appear to be in advanced talks to sell the mine with 2 parties that probably does not include Calibre but they have the cashflow easily to gobble up Condor and not even know they bought them and the payback just 1 year from production start. Looking forward to an update in coming week or weeks to put Condor to bed and shame they did not join the gravy train themselves.
This is top down financing so we now have the lead bank agreeing to the finance and taking the lions share of the risk and now they have provided their agreement all other members will sign in the same way. Harry will be knocking on the doors of local people with a suitcase of cash each and jobs for the locals and this will be all moving swiftly forward in a matter of weeks. We will now get update RNS for further steps but the syndicate members to sign is now a formality as they have not been able to get any funds out of Ethiopia for decades so have $100ms looking for a way to be repatriated abroad and the Ethiopian government will be very keen to get some dollars sloshing around Ethiopia to help them smooth over their own minor issues with repaying debts in dollars. Certainly a much better place than where last week and the market just needs a little more re-asssurance, which is really just a waiting a week or so. gla
As expected buyers took opportunity to carry on buying last few days with some good buys going through. Now those exiting have gone we can push onwards back to 25p. Will we get news next week as we should get something before the end of the month to confirm if these advanced bidders are going to hit the price JM wants to agree the sale. Hopefully it all comes together as any deal would double share price at least based on lowest takeout valuation. Gla
News will build this month but key is we have RNS confirming debt finance in place subject to some details so lawyers, as i suggested, would take a view and make funding subject to these small details, that arguably cant happen until bank has formally agreed. Now lead bank has confirmed funding all other parties can fall into place. This RNS is far better because it confirms what we have been told anecdotally but now we presumably have a formal letter from bank allowing this to go through an RNS. Yes its a major pain this is not done years ago and certainly prior to Christmas but we have made a significant step forward and now other parties should quickly follow given the lead lender moves the whole party forward. This share will start to creep up today and into the following weeks as the news and subsequent news unfolds. As to placing we have short-term lending that csn last us easily 3-6 months and Harry knows importance of warrants being triggered so i i see that being the way forward.