The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
The SPR RNS says up to $12.5m so it's not a guaranteed $12.5m. My reading of the RNS is that they'll go to this $ amount provided it doesn't hit their 29.9% limit, but if the conversion price is so low or the Orion side of things changes such that they would go over 29.9% then it is the % figure not the $ investment that fixes the maximum they'll go to.
If and when the Orion and SPR finance deals complete KS will be significantly diluted (I'm expecting in the region of a billion new shares) and be back well under 5%. If he's going to have another change of heart then he'll need to move soon or it will be too late. Not only will he be back below 5%, but Orion and SPR (and Acacia) shareholdings will so vastly outnumber KS that he'll either have to accept their wish or sell up.
Leafie - KS did need to TR-1 his holding once he crossed the 3% threshold for declaration. It wasn't vanity or some other reason, just obeying the AIM rules.
Good to see the company actively communicating with shareholders on matters outside of results, finance or other mandatory updates. The previous BoD seemed increasingly desperate to avoid issuing any RNS they weren't legally compelled to do so this change in approach is another step in the right direction. Long may it continue.
His 4% holding today is likely to be nearer 2.5% once Orion and SPR dilution are approved so his (already minimal) influence will wane further. Once the dilution occurs then SPR will be the biggest single shareholder by far (if their conversion occurs around the current share price then they'll be getting towards their maximum stated 29.9%), Orion will be second with just over one third of whatever SPR get (so around 10% if SPR go to 29.9%) and Acacia third on the list. Collective holdings of PIs under the biggest brokers such as II may intersperse these, but SPR and Orion will call all the shots. PIs will have no effective clout despite their overall holdings as they're not a single vote (and most never vote anyway), and KS will have no effective say compared to the biggest holders.
BNP are assuming a conversion price of 3p now so this immediately doubles the number of Orion shares. Back in May they didn't know about SPR either. That's another $12.5m of dilution which represents nearly 3x the Orion conversio on top. In other words a combined total of nearly 8x what they previously assumed (and yes, it is 8x not 6x because the SPR finance is additive to Orion and takes the total to $17m of dilution). This is on top of the Mustang CLNs as well which, again, was post their previous assessment (although, in reality, I'm sure they saw this one coming as it'd been clear for many months the Mustang deal was going to fail). Once you take all this into account - never mind the write downs and the continued weak V pricing - their new valuation seems fair (and erring on the generous if anything imho).
A weakening rand increases the cost of diesel imports to SA. Whilst the electricity supply agreements are helping to mitigate many impacts of load shedding, BMN still needs diesel generators as backup and will be impacted by increasing diesel prices.
Apart from the very first post of the day on commodity prices, none of the other 27 posts today have been about Bushveld Minerals or even had any passing relevance to the company. Most have just been the same of faces airing their pet grievances about each other for the umpteenth time. The rest just a bunch of old timers banging on about football events from decades ago. It's like the Tory party conference in miniature endlessly stuck in the past. Please just give the rest of us a break.
Though it ought to be said that the total value of trades today is only £53k. Any one of use doing a full bed & ISA would show as £40k worth of trades so its not exactly a Warren Buffet liquidating his entire portfolio level of trading going on here.
The 1p share is just the nominal value of BMN ordinary shares and is not the value they actually trade at.
If, for example, Orion and SPR converted at today's price of 1.85p (ie Orion renegotiate this lower price and SPR match it as per their RNS) then together there will be approx 751m new shares of which SPR will get 550m. This will put the total BMN shares at approx 2.32bn of which SPR will own around 24%.
The 29.9% clause is to cover the potential situation where the conversion price is even lower than today's price such that SPR would end up owning more than 29.9% of BMN and, under UK rules, be required to takeover BMN. SPR don't want to end up here - nor, I suspect, do BMN or most of the other shareholders - hence the clause to set a maximum on how far SPR will go.
Although not definitive as SPR may just be covering their backsides in the worst case, the clause also strongly implies the Orion conversion will now be lower than 6p. However, it is also now possible that the SPR deal means BMNs cash position and outlook becomes sufficiently different to what was anticipated when the revised Orion deal was agreed that the whole thing is re-worked e.g. to allow BMN to pay off a chunk from the Mokopane and Vanchem sale proceeds. In this case, Orion may seek a different equity investment (or non at all) than the announced $4.5m. The SPR 29.9% clause would also cover the case where Orion took much smaller or no equity leaving SPR with equity over the takeover limit.
Obviously all of the possibilities depend on both the Orion and SPR deals being approved by the authorities and shareholders.
Pretty astonishing really that OT have maintained their holdings here alongside KS buying a notifiable stake last month, SPR making up to $75m of new investment and Orion renegotiating their ongoing $65m investment. After all, if only any of them had spent more than a few minutes picking the expert brains on here they'd have known this was a basket case of a company in a basket case of a country mining and selling a product that is going to be in the doldrums for years if not decades to come....and run for the hills instead with their money. Still what do they know eh?
Unbelievable, samval. In your first sentence you literally said to Pdub that you wanted him to stop posting on here and all other BMN boards. How is this not telling him what he can or can't do?
It is also worth remembering that China is increasingly moving towards the rebar 4 standard which requires double the vanadium content of rebar 3. Therefore even if Chinese steel demand remains flat or gently declines the demand for vanadium still goes up as the higher standard takes effect.
You are definitely doing the right thing for your own sanity given your loss of confidence in BMN and its future. Suggest you sell up tomorrow and forget all about BMN and this message board from that moment on.
If Orion and today's financing both go through then we'll get $17m of new equity ($4.5m from Orion and today's $12.5m). Using today's spot exchange rate of 1gbp = 1.25usd then this will result in 227m new shares at 6p. Conversion at 2p would bring 681m new shares (and obviously you can pick any other conversion price in between if you prefer).
Indeed, faramog. Not only is Mokopane non cash generating, it's mining licence has expired and it requires huge spend - that BMN simply doesn't have and won't conceivably have for many years if ever - so it was never going to be cash generative in BMNs hands.
Correct, Pdub. Orion would not have agreed to a re-finance deal that staged 90% of the repayments out to 2028 if they were going to pull the plug, nor agree to 6p share conversion of the remaining 10% at a price that had them out of the money at the time of the agreement. If they wanted to go down the 'wipe out BMN and take our chances getting our money back through bankruptcy sale of assets' route then would have pushed things down that route already.
In a year's time, if BMN cannot make the first scheduled repayment then things might be different, but that's the next crunch point with Orion itself. The main immediate risk is if the SA Reserve Bank unexpectedly reject the deal, but that would kill a local company and resource President Rhamaposa has mentioned as important to SA's future so I'm doubtful the bank would do this.
Orion stand to make a fortune if BMN is successful. They get their capital back with very healthy interest payments on top, their share price conversion will multi-bag over 6p over the coming years, and they'll make a shedload on the PPA payments as well. They just need to work with BMN to get through the next 9 months or so and they're massively in the money. If BMN fall short, Orion will recover via asset sales. Therefore, in reality Orion are running little risk for a high probability of major returns so they want this re-finance.
Changing subject....in one of your earlier posts today you mentioned Mokopane. As you're a stickler for accuracy then strictly speaking you should have said the mining license for this is currently being reapplied for as it's expired. The company is confident this will be successful, but clearly until we get (and keep) this approval the Mokopane project is on hold, not assured, and could end up as an asset writedown.
Agricore - thanks for posting this. The section on Cellcube was particularly illuminating as I hadn't seen this level of detail about their business before. This and Alfacomp posts yesterday provide more food for my thoughts about this side of the business. I've been sceptical so far believing it to be a financial drain with no visibility of when returns might really arrive at a time when our core V production business is struggling to get reliability or profitability, but perhaps I need to consider becoming a little less sceptical!
Sections 3-5 were also interesting, though I remain very wary of any speculation about major V price upturns as it has so frequently come to nothing in the past.
Please keep posting. The level of detail and thought supporting your/oakbloke's posts makes them a cut above most of the dross on here (my own dross included) even if people don't agree with your conclusions or regard it as too speculative.
Alfacomp - thank you for your reply. The second and third paragraphs were helpful and informative (no sarcasm implied or intended). As for the first paragraph, actually I'm in the incredibly stupid category (well, ignorant at least) about VRFB or lithium manufacturing - and many other things as well - as I've spent no time researching either. I'm certainly not trying to be deceptive, I just don't know anything much about them. I'm probably not the only one on here in that category so it is helpful when someone who knows much more explains these things.
Faramog - for BMN the 'fall back' of no deal with Orion is not 14% dilution i.e. conversion at 17p of the outstanding debt plus interest. The fall back is repayment of all the outstanding debt plus interest that had not been previously converted.
The original deal did allow BMN to request Orion convert in some circumstances (none of which have come remotely close to being met or will be met in the remaining time of the deal), but mostly it was Orion's choosing if and when to convert and obviously they were only going to do so if they saw the ability to sell these shares above 17p. However the original deal does not default to conversion at 17p at the end (which BMN would take in a heartbeat given where it is today), it defaults to full repayment by BMN (which clearly it has no chance of doing at the moment).
I agree the revised deal will go through because it is in both parties interest today. At the moment, Orion can see a path to making a lot of money here if BMN can get through the next 12 months so they'll do the deal. However, if BMN is still struggling with cash flow when the first new repayment comes around then I expect forced asset sales if BMN haven't already done this first.