Member Info for slowlyslowly

Mr Badger - that's standard wording for an issue of shares like this. They'll enter trading at 8am tomorrow.

However the fact they issue them to Crest then doesn't mean that holders through platforms will instantly have them showing. Each platform will receive the distribution via Crest and need to assign them to individual accounts. I'd expect the speed and efficiency with which this is done to vary from platform to platform.

Nobody has to bother reading through all the scheme documents. (Although, if you hold shares in a company, you'd want to read their official documents before you get to all the bulletin board posts, I'd have thought).

But here's from Monday's short RNS:

It is anticipated that the Effective Date of the Scheme will be 15 January 2025, being the date on which delivery of a copy of the Court Order (together with a copy of the Scheme and all documents required to be annexed thereto (if any)) to the Registrar of Companies is expected to occur.

Admission of New MTL Shares

Pursuant to the Acquisition, application has been made for 830,145,842 New MTL Shares to be issued to Scheme Shareholders, in consideration for the transfer of their Scheme Shares pursuant to the Scheme, to be admitted to trading on AIM and, subject to the Scheme becoming Effective, it is expected that such admission will become effective at 8.00 a.m. on or around 16 January 2025 ("Admission").

What a cracking post with a warm and honest tone that is realistic about the journey to this point. I'm coming over from CNR. Yes, I think we should have been given more shares in MTL to value La India better. But that ship has sailed and everything I've read about this company makes me positive for its prospects.

If we can have more posting like the one you've just written, I'll be positive about this discussion board too.

Good to be on board

You don't get them "at a price". On 15th (if that's the effective date), your Condor shares leave your account, and in their place you get 9.9p for every share you held, and 4.0526 shares in Metals for every Condor share you held. There's no price, because the Condor shares will vanish and in their place you'd hold shares in Metals Exploration.

Or have I misunderstood your question? What exactly are you wanting to ask?

We'll all be MTL shareholders anyway - true. But former CNR shareholders won't hold as many MTL shares as they should to reflect the value of La India. So the argument (that a bad deal for CNR means a good deal for MTL, so is really a good deal for CNR) doesn't work.

Nah, Scott. I get the frustration. But people need to see that the current market climate is such that the single biggest challenge for any metals explorer is not jurisdiction, geology, permits or any of the other challenges they nevertheless need to work through. It's access to capital. Exploration costs money before you get a return, and without cash to deploy you won't find anything no matter how prospective your ground.

Sure, the dilution hurts. But I'd rather own a reduced percentage of a company that has the finance to develop its assets meaningfully, than a larger percentage of a company that will never go anywhere.

This is the kind of cornerstone deal that will set FCM apart from its peers for 2025. 79th Group don't only bring their existing funding. They have extensive contacts and a marketing machine amongst those with far deeper pockets than what counts as HNW in the UK. They are launching their own company onto the stage and will want First Class to succeed as a flagship of theirs. So they will bring awareness of First Class, and contacts of others who can invest as well.

Today's RNS backs all this up.

It's vote FOR - and set them on a new trajectory

Or vote AGAINST - and set them on a path where they just rejected the means to succeed and will spend 2025 faffing around and achieving nothing.

Those who advocate voting against either don't understand this, or they do understand this and want the company to fail for reasons of their own.

Barnard, as broom has just said.

Basically, anyone who owns 1% or more in either the target or the acquirer needs to declare their holdings initially, and then every time their positon changes even by a small amount.

So in the early days of being in a formal takeover period we'll get loads of RNS as people declare their initial position, then they'll keep coming as different holders nudge up and down. So this is completely different from a TR1. That today wasn't saying we had a new holder, but just declaring a holding that was already there. Under TR1 rules anyone with 3% should already have declared. But when it moves to just 1% then that's a whole load more notifications due.

It just becomes noise and I filter them out of my RNS notifications. But I've seen people develop some very elaborate theories based on such and such a bank buying more / selling / whatever - almost entirely just reading too much into what is just noise.

You guys need to read up the purpose of a Form 8.3 during takeover period.

Agreed - the only situation where it's sane to vote against it is if another bid has been put up before the vote on this one. Then we can reject this one, knowing we'll get another vote for an alternative. With no alternative on the table, voting against this one leaves us with nothing.

What is the most recent mention of Minerales Morazan by Condor? The website directory has a staff member responsible for exploration in Nicaragua and El Salvador, but no further mention of El Salvador anywhere. The annual report doesn't list the country anywhere - no carrying value, no subsidiary, nothing.

MTL are buying the company (Condor Gold) not the asset (La India).

Subject to the first gold pour occurring within the five-year period

I think the interview is very positive in terms of Metals being in a position to get the mine into production with Condor shareholders benefiting from the upside.

Where he's plain disingenuous is in selling this as offering a premium to the undisturbed Condor share price. 33p is only a premium if you look at the dire share price it's had more recently, and as two of you have already said here the share price was much higher in the 30s-40s, so a 60% premium of the Condor share price when they started negotiating a sale would be 40-50p.

Perhaps we all refrain from calling people clowns, be that other investors or those in positions of responsibility at Condor / Metals Exploration. Sure, there's lots to be frustrating, and it's good to voice it, but not if it becomes "He's a clown. No, you're a clown. Now you're the one being a clown"

Broomtree - you have read this bit of the RNS, I take it:

In addition, it is intended that shortly following the Effective Date, Jim Mellon will be appointed to the board of MTL as a non-executive director, subject to satisfactory completion of the usual due diligence process required by the AIM Rules. He will be paid a director's fee in line with market rates and on similar terms to MTL's existing non-executive directors.

We've been told Jim will have a seat on the MTL board. That's in the RNS.

Not to mention the costs of the borrow eroding much of the profits

Given the gap between the Condor price and the equivalent once the deal goes through, if this was definitely going through wouldn't you expect hedge funds to be making the arbitrage trade. For every long share of Condor bought, short 4 shares of Metals. Make just over 10%

Why does here have to be a price? Your Condor shares disappear and your new ones arrive, free. The every prize is the what you paid for your Condor

Barnard, you don't get a price. You get the shares. In your trading account, in place of your Condor shares, you'll have 4x as many MTL shares and 9.9p cash.