Member Info for SquirtyFlower

The other thing which mitigates against a low-ball takeover is the share ownership structure. PIs hold at least 40% and perhaps up to 44.5% if Jose Borremeo's shareholding hasn't been transferred to a nominee holder (which I doubt, just can't see why he would do this now). Acacia and Yellow Dragon hold 12.5% between them (in Nov 2018 it was approx 15%), Golden Summit just under 6% and the BoD 3%. JoseB, Acacia and YD have all reduced their reported holdings over recent months but, apart from GS, there's no evidence of another major II buyer (i.e. someone sniffing around for a takeover).

Given this split of holdings, it is appears difficult for anyone to get hold of enough shares to easily mount a takeover. Less than 20% is held by the 3 largest holders outside PIs, so any buyer is going to have to pay a very, very significant premium to get hold of the 50.01% shares they'd need (and even if GS are predatory then it's still a huge hike from 6% to get where they would need to get to). We're unlike a lot of companies that have a large proportion of their shares held by a bunch of IIs who would sell their granny for a 20% premium, we've got no activist investors, and we've got no debt + huge profits/cash-flow so there's no bank pressure to agree anything we don't want to.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but imho it is highly unlikely and, even if it did, would take a huge premium (multiples) on the current share price to succeed.

I suspect the BE work - Eskom contracts/IDC/electrolyte facility - may also be a significant impediment to a takeover at the moment. We know the SA govt are keen to create a new SA energy storage industry here and appear to be working alongside BMN/BE to make this happen, so I don't think they'd be best pleased (and may well look to block) any attempted takeover which puts such activity into foreign hands after all the work and support they've put in. In time they may be more amenable to a JV that retains a large SA element, but not until the industry is more established.

Nail on head, Ophidian. I fully appreciate your posts.

Agreed. Contrast with BMN which according to the SP Angel presentation on the BMN website is estimated to have generated free cash flow of $69.8m for 2018 and estimated FCF of $106.9m for 2019 for its share of Vametco. It is unfortunate for those who have seen the value of their holdings in those companies fall significantly today but, yet again, it just reinforces the message that when looking to invest in small/junior companies it is no good looking at pretty patterns on charts; you have to be really, really clear and focused on the revenue, profit, debt and, above all for small companies, the cash flow situation. That is why BMN is a staggeringly good investment proposition - especially so at the current share price/mcap level.

Now crystal clear from the price movements and trade sizes that the recent downtrend/shorting phase has run its course and that the shorters/traders have closed or are in the process of closing their positions and the pound-shop amateurs that joined in a couple of days ago will get a nasty burn or two as their fail to get out fast enough. The knuckle-draggers vacating this board this morning is just more evidence of this. There might be one final, desperate attempt to restart the game for another brief period (hours at most), though more likely this will just be the MMs trying to shovel the last remaining slow-learner lemmings over the cliff edge before the game ends for good.

Wonder if we'll see a lively last 30 mins as the shorters increasingly close their positions..........

DBB - the various Golden Summit RNS tell you there is a major buyer as well as seller. There's been plenty of focus on the selling, but folks shouldn't lose sight of GS buying 65m shares in recent months through to their last RNS...and they may well have bought more since (though clearly not more than about 5m or they would reach their next TR1 threshold).

Last week one of our short-lived furry friends arrived with a nickname that was some place/thing in Scotland (I can't remember the name now but did look it up at the time as I'd initially thought it was to do with cycling). Sure enough, the nickname was exterminated from LSE shortly afterwards. Anyway, looking up RGK I see it is a song by Deacon Blue - now that's a name from my teenage past and one I assume many people know is a band from Scotland.......wonder whether Scotland has now displaced cycling in capa's grey matter.....

Endion - there was a 605K sell yesterday at 36.6p so there have definitely been large sells below the price range you suggest. However, I do get the impression that the drip-drip-drip of sells has increasingly dried up so it may be be that we're at or very close to the end of the major offload e.g. this morning's blatant attempt to trigger stop-losses was a different pattern and might have been the MMs having one final fling because the know the selling game is all but done. Wouldn't surprise me at all if we end the week well above 40p again.

It wouldn't surprise me if it suits both Bushveld and our major buyers to have contracts in place that smooth the pricing so that both parties benefit over the longer term. Bushveld may be prepared to operate some level of price capping to smooth out high price spikes with buyers prepared to pay some premium over price troughs in order to preserve supply. Obviously neither party is a charity, nor is each totally immune from market forces, but perhaps pricing based on rolling averages rather than spot rate fluctuations allows a win-win for both parties over the medium to long-term and this is what we are seeing.

As it went through at 36.6p (jut 0.1p above the low of the day) and the share price was struggling all day, then it is difficult to see it could be anything other than a sell.

A bit of a mixed bag as far as I can see....as is usually the case with BMN operational updates :

- great news on the revenue and EBITDA.
- good news on further drilling results at both Vametco and Brits - likely more resource than previously thought
- production issues identified and plans in place to address

On the other hand, the comments about issues with Phase 2 meaning only 90% of nameplate capacity can be achieved without further investment, Phase 3 needing building work in 2020 implies 5000mtV won't be achieved until 2021 at the earliest, and the very weak statement that they will only guide 2019 production as being higher than 2018 are not such good news. 2019 should still be a good year but it is now crystal clear there won't be stellar production performance, and while 2020 should be better assuming the building work doesn't hamper production, it may well be 2021 or even 2022 before production is really flying towards the sorts of number we've talked about on here. Of course, Mokopane licence/offtakes and purchase of another processor would help enormously on this....though I also have a sneaking suspicion that any further brownfield acquisition will come with its own plant maintenance and production issues (especially if it is currently a mothballed plant).

BMN remains an outstanding investment proposition with the strong probability of multi-bagging again from here over the next 12 months and then doubling again over the following 12-18 months, but there will continue to be quite a few bumps on the road.

You should also ask the reverse silly question. Why would a company buy 65m shares (at a cost of something around £25m) as evidenced by the recent Golden Summit TR1s?

- They bought over 10m shares between 19th Oct and 9th Nov (see 02 Nov and 16 Nov RNS).
- They bought a further 10m shares between 9th Nov and 18th Jan (as per 25 Jan RNS).

No, but not sure how much it is relevant. A total investment so far of approx £25m is pretty serious money for even a major player.....and this is on an AIM company.

As we now have confirmed, Golden Summit have accumulated over 10m more shares in the last couple of months. The current share price is close to the bottom of the range over this period so it stands to reason that GS have been accumulating at a higher average price than the current one - probably around 40p. In other words, they have stumped up another £4m on top of the £20m or so it must have cost them to acquire their previous 55m shares. This is serious money and so they clearly still see the current share price as a very good entry point. In turn, this should give strong reassurance to new and existing PIs that this is also a very good entry price for them as well.

So sorry to read this, Pdub, and my very best wishes to you. You've fought hard for BMN and this board and I know you'll fight this new battle with just as fiercely. All the very best.

Jagadish - I think a number of people will have the same question - I did when completing my 2017-18 tax form. I believe it is classed as demerger within the broader category of a share reorganisation and it falls into the CGT side of things not income. HMRC document HS285 covers share reorgs and you should read it. It gives worked examples of how to calculate the relative proportions of the capital gains on your ATM and BMN shares. A link is provided below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/share-reorganisations-company-takeovers-and-capital-gains-tax-hs285-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs285-share-reorganisations-company-takeovers-and-capital-gains-tax-2018

FastMoney/Roscon - as others have said, the LSE moderation policy is very simple. If there is a comment that needs removing then they remove the entire thread. It does not matter about whether the other posts in the thread are within the rules, they all get removed.

To others - how do I see the discussion on twitter? I've gone to the Bushveld Perspective twitter site but there's little there for today other than alfa's latest trade analysis.

If it is YD offloading, then it is also quite interesting to speculate as to why they are doing so via this method of drip-drip-drip into the market (though it seems like splosh-splosh-splosh at times given the volume of sales) rather than, say, working via BMN/Fortune to sell directly to II's or other potential major investors at an agreed price. Recent RNS show Golden Summit have been major buyers (and, in fact, some have speculated that there may be some loose tie-up between GS and YD e.g via Thomas Chan), BMO have just come on-board and will have lots of contacts, and Fortune has previously said there's II interest. I completely agree that there's at least one bigger seller and it may well by YD (though it would be a recent effort as the most recent shareholder info showed their holding to be stable over the previous info....so perhaps there's more than one seller), but I guess I'm a little surprised they've decided this is the most effective offload method available. I know Erongo did this, but we're 12 months further down the line now in terms company devt and investment.

Geng - perhaps you should go back and review the very obvious and very large hole in your maths. Hint - PE ratios are calculated on annual EPS not quarterly or half-yearly EPS.