Member Info for slowlyslowly

Hi Junior

In brief, which is what you asked for:

Projects in Zimbabwe and Botswana.

The Zim projects are producing, funded to scale up that production in tonnes per day etc, and as they drill (while continuing to pilot-mine) they keep discovering the assets are more prospective than they'd realised - grade, strike, depth. Zim was once a major gold producer, but just before modern mining methods kicked off the country became a no-go because of political trouble. Whereas western Australia then developed lots of effective methods (such as spiral decline for efficient bulk mining), Zim got stuck. The geology of the two is very similar, and the Kav team in Zim are the first mover to bring all those modern methods to work in the largely untapped Zim greenstone belts. Just off Zim, the company should soon be profitable at the Plc level, and increasingly so. KAV has the world expert on those greenstone belts working for them.

Botswana has a priority project in the Kalahari Copper Belt (Google it). Their land there is the only remaining parcel not currently owned by a major operator. They're currently pausing drilling, to interpret the drill results and geophysics as carefully as they can, to make sure each hole is as useful as it could possibly be. KAV also has the world expert on the KCB working for them. A major (2m oz +) discovery there is not impossible.

The operational profits from Zim will fund continued exploration in Bots. They also have the backing of the Kansagra family, the wealthiest Asian family in Britain, via their vehicle Purebond. Capital markets are still really struggling, and companies struggle to raise; Kavango has access to funds if they should need it. But following their recent raise, their recent launch on the Vic Falls Stock Exchange (enabling Zimbabwean pension funds to invest), and their fully funded exercise of the Nara Project in Zimbabwe (even bigger than the Hillside one they're already working), they shouldn't really need much more if any.

A combination of a few failed explorations on other, much more geologically more difficult, ground, and a lack of awareness of the state of Zimbabwe today, all means that the wider market continues to be suspicious, creating the opportunity.

That's my summary, but now please use those pointers to do your own research.

Investing companies need to make follow-on investments into their portfolio, and have corporate overheads to cover. Tern have cut those overheads substantially over the past 18 months, but they still exist. Eventually, one of their investees will be sold, and as long as they've kept those follow-on going to maintain their proportion then there would be a substantial windfall. That's the business model here. That's not to say everyone needs to like the business model; those that don't would invest elsewhere. Those that are invested here have hopefully understood that and are not worried by it.

If you read the RNS, the bridging loan is because the placing funds haven't arrived yet, so it's to give them cash to use more quickly than the placing lands. To be more exact, they haven't just done a placing, but an open offer. That's a result of shareholders voting against one of the resolutions at the AGM. Open offers take longer to run and close than a placing, so the bridging loan is a way to solve the problem shareholders created for them by voting the way they did.

Charging a total of £150 interest. Sorry to those not invited to lend them £45k to benefit from that £150.

@Dcat80 - maybe this is that deal

"The Market just does not believe unlike others"

And there lies the opportunity.

We just have been.

And given it happened last night, and was presumably by invitation only, what's the issue here?

The news this morning is surely not the presentation but the progress on the ground, progressing faster than expected.

More than *going into* production. They are in production, and about to build the plant to scale that up significantly

I think all the platforms that (for reasons best known to them) have restricted buying TIR online still let you do so over the phone (hopefully at web commission rates too).

I'd agree with what Fourprinces said. "material" and "transformational". Obviously there's a ceiling (nothing has no limit), but that kind of language says that the sums would exceed what people would expect.

If you mean "what 79 group were prepared to pay" for the small non-core projects they bought, if this was one of the flagships then that comparison goes out of the window.

As for not naming the buyer, that's normal is it not during commercial investigations. The buyer has their own newsflow and reputation to manage, so they may not wish to give their plan until it's confirmed. There could also be NDA in place, and sometimes announcing a deal before it's confirmed can jeopardise it. Not in the least worried that they haven't said which one.

Zedy,

The two most common reasons why a trade appears as "unknown" are: (a) it went through at exactly the mid-price at the time, and (b) it was printed late, which means the bid / offer at the time the trade was printed may not be the ones that were at the time the trade went through, so they can't reliably calculate whether it was a buy or sell.

It is, it's always sad when one of these stalward investment trusts sells out and shrinks the sector - fewer solid infrastructure trusts around now.

"However, if they don’t place again into this raise I will happily eat my words"

They've exhausted their headroom, and raised as recently as 3 weeks ago.

"if the deal didn't go through"

The offer was declared unconditional on 20th May. Last day of trading is 17th June.

Acceptance level was 93%, and the remaining 7% would (IMO) be smart to accept pronto, as I suspect any who don't will be left with something worth far less and that is hard to sell.

What are you talking about? The last one was 3 weeks ago.

"Why bother commenting"

You tell us?

None whatsoever, and I suspect Martin doesn't have a personal CREST account but is having to wait for his platform to allocate their new shares around their various clients, and is then confusing that with a problem at Tern's end.

Bernie, seeing as you never came back to explain the 750% drop (after I put the calculations in here), and seeing as Donkey never replied to my question, ...: Perhaps you could offer an answer, seeing as you seem to have the same views as each other.

If you were CEO of First Class, what would you have done differently that would have had the share price at multiples of its current levels (without the benefit of hindsight)?

Entertain us all, Mr Donkey

If you were CEO of First Class, what would you have done differently that would have had the share price at multiples of its current levels.

Oh dear, Bernie. (Not sure why you named your LSE account after a known scammer - this doesn't inspire trust)

When Ayub left the board on 2nd Feb 2024, the share price was 3.85p. At this moment, the midprice is 1.05p. That's a drop of 73%. A drop of 750% would have taken the share price to minus 25p.

Yes, that share price drop is disappointing, of course. But you can't reduce the value that the board (and, more importantly, the executive) have added to a company to its share price alone. The share price is a measure of how the market currently sees the value. But no company trades at exactly its true value, and much has been done since February 2024 to add to the actual value of the mineral rights the company holds. The annual report that's just been published runs through that in quite some detail.