Member Info for SquirtyFlower

On the one hand I'm not sure how easy it is for the average Joe Public investor in the US to access AIM shares. On the other, once they wake up to both the potential SPAC arbitrage opportunities and, if they engage their brains, the strong likelihood that the Maginito US project will follow suit with NASDAQ listing then they will pile in.

Obviously there's also a less optimistic interpretation of MKA only retaining majority control and that is that there isn't much interest in the SPAC and they've had to cede more control to get someone to invest. However in the current RE world too little interest seems less likely than a lot of interest so I'm optimistic of a good outcome for MKA and it's shareholders here.

Owlman, I agree that the use of the words 'may not complete by May 11th' are indicative that the agreement is very close. The fact that CPTK have left it this late to seek approval to extend their date also suggests to me they thought it would be done within the existing mandate period which again indicates it's close (as do MKAs comments in the RNS last week). It's also worth saying the May 11 date was set long before MKA came on the scene so it's completely a CPTK date not a date commitment made by MKA which they have then missed.

Given the massive current global focus on REs, some of the deal complexity may be because other investment parties are wanting a bigger slice of the SPAC. Myles McNulty previously stated that he thought MKA would retain control of about 75% of the new entity, but interestingly last week's MKA RNS just said majority control. Purely speculative, but perhaps other players are wanting to get involved and MKA are going to end up with smaller majority control but of a much larger entity.

It may not be Microsoft and WD, but it's clear that very soon (if not already happening behind the scenes) some very big players in the tech and automotive/aeronautical business are going to be beating a path to MKA and Cotec's door. My strong preference is that we can strike licensing deals with these folks that allow MKA/Cotec to stay independent and grow rapidly into a widely recognised world leader and a billion quid plus mcap company - and, even more, reward the University of Birmingham and the really smart people there so they can benefit too. My fear is that we'll get taken out at a price that is underwhelming for shareholders, the MKA board who have got us to the cusp of being a world leader, and for the people at Birmingham and elsewhere in the UK who have contributed hugely to getting to this point. I just hope the BOD and Talaxis can resist the pressure to sell until true fair value is realised.

Think you're probably right Biffa. Vitol/Talaxis would need another 30% (approx) to takeover. With 330m shares in issue this means they'd need to acquire another 100m shares or so. Even if they had to go as high as 100p a share this would still be an absolute bargain given the potential rewards on offer.....and I suspect they wouldn't need to go that high on average unless things got very competitive with multiple bids on the table.

Thanks for posting this. Interesting that Mountain Pass are hoping to produce magnets in Fort Worth by end of 2025 and that Lynas are also setting up a RE facility in Texas. Along with Cotec/MKA it seems like this area is going to become a hub of the RE processing industry in the US so great to know we're going to be a major player right at the heart of this (as well as in Europe and Japan with scope for other countries/regions too).

China also said this would be their last retaliatory tariff increase....the implication being they will resort to other measures if (when!) the US increases their tariff again. I imagine further controls on rare earths would be one of these other measures.

We also don't have any US customers (in fact, at the moment we don't have any customers) so the tariffs don't affect us at the moment.

Don't think the spac listing will be completed in the next 3 months when last week's RNS included a target of year end. The other 2 targets are in line with known plans so I struggle to see why the BOD would give themselves a 6 month buffer if they expected the listing within the next 3 months.

Talaxis own over 20% of shares, the bod over 10%, 4 others each with 2-3% are on the company list of main shareholders so this means over 40% are in very few hands. Add in a few others with 0.5% or so holdings. All of these folks know just how valuable a company we are sitting on and while everyone has a price in the end, I doubt they are thinking of accepting a t/o any time soon and certainly not for less than many multiples of the current share price (I'm talking 10+ multiples not 2 or 3). Therefore it's hard to see how anyone making an offer would get to 50% out of the 55% or so remainder of the shares in order to succeed.

Bandwidth is important here. Getting the first listing complete will be taking a lot of management time. It is also important that they learn what went well and not so well so the second listing goes even better.

Getting the Birmingham plant into production over the next 2 months and lining up contracts will also be taking management time.

The battle for rare earth's just went up another notch as China responded to Trump's tariffs with....

Separately, China’s Commerce Ministry and its Customs Administration said the country is imposing export controls on tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium-related items to “safeguard national security interests”.

Worth remembering the following from the Sept placing RNS. I expect Jub will want to realise their in the money warrants sooner rather than later (they are financiers and have no real interest in MKA) so likely to be less sticky holders of their warrants than others.

In addition to the Subscription Shares and Warrants, the Company has issued an aggregate of 1,250,000 warrants ("Broker Warrants") to Jub Capital Management LLP ("Jub Capital"). Each Broker Warrant is exercisable for a period of three years with an exercise price of 5p per Broker Warrant. The Warrants and Broker Warrants (and the underlying shares) are subject to a statutory hold period in Canada expiring on January 5, 2025

Let's hope they walk the talk.....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/24/uk-less-dependent-china-critical-minerals-thinktank

Merry Christmas.

If you look at Asian Metal then every single V price is down today.

Very thorough summary, faramog. Many thanks for doing this and so promptly.

The $7m will come from a mix of.....$12.5m equity from SPR, the proceeds from sale of 50% of Vanchem, sale of Belco, plus any cash they manage to generate in the meantime (though I suspect this final one is unlikely given current state of production and V prices). Orion would not have refinanced if they didn't think BMN had a credible plan for repaying the first installment in 5 months time.

The 27 Nov Orion refinance was explicitly conditional on BMN raising $12.5m from elsewhere. The fact that Orion have now completed even though they know about the SPR issue means they must be very confident that the SPR finance is positively resolved even if it hasn't been announced yet. No way would they have committed their deal if one of their key conditions wasn't met or if they thought BMN was a gonna by the end of Feb.

The issue is whether SPR can find the money. If they can't then BMN will rapidly run out of cash. Arguing they could sue SPR is pointless as BMN will have long gone under by the time any legal case bears fruit (even if BMN had the money to finance a legal case... which they wouldn't).

Depends on whether they have the money to pay for the maintenance.

FFS If I wanted to read about politics I'd look in a newspaper or go elsewhere on the internet. This is a BMN discussion board so stop wasting space here with amateur politics.