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After around 3/4 years following this slow motion car crash I finally decided to sell the remainder of my shares at 10.5p. There's obvious value here (if they can get both mines running effectively) but I have absolutely zero confidence that management will do the right thing by shareholders.

Hope it works out for the collection of slightly eccentric long-term holders that post here and best of luck in your other investments.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the WeWork properties as most are in prime City Centre locations.

Haven't been close to this one but wow, interesting RNS given the total lack of additional detail. You'd think that they would at least try to reassure that there are no accounting issues etc.

@jammin - Completely agree but you won't get much sense out of the crowd here - I also invest in biotech and you have the same type of people there cheerleading all the way to zero.

Leave them to shout endless positivities into the void and continue to keep a rational mind.

I'm not able to attend the webinar this afternoon but could someone ask:

- Are you concerned about the size of the debt obligations in 2024/25? How much downward pressure on gold price or production volumes could we tolerate without requiring additional financing?

- What are the estimated costs associated with KEUG development / start-up? Is the intention to fund this with cash flow?

- Is there any exploration drilling planned in 2024/25 and if yes, what is the approximate cost / how will it be funded? If no, what is the plan for Yanfolila LOM?

The other thing that grinds on me is the continued reference to 200k production in 2024. I'll be absolutely staggered if they manage to hit that.

That's a pretty dismal update imo. Clearly pretty significant start-up issues at Kou if they've only managed to produce ~1.6k to date. The company are never transparent about these issues when they come up, it's always a vague description of multiple factors given after the fact. Weather? Recruitment? Equipment? Wrath of the gods?

Jam tomorrow is all well and good until you have significant debt maturities in the next year that leave zero margin for error.

Anyone here also a shareholder in Shanta?

Looks very cheap based on current output with minimal debt. Any concerns on LOM or ongoing change in CEO?

And @John - agree with pretty much everything you said. The shares in treasury will most likely stay there unless an attractive M&A opportunity comes up that can't be funded with cash and/or debt.

@testpack - correct, it's not the sole reason that I like the buybacks, just one of the advantages.

They're currently buying back the shares at an implied FCF yield of >20% (accepting that earnings are a bit lumpy) while still able to pay a dividend and make growth investments. If you want a bigger dividend then just sell into the SBBs in appropriate size to maintain your %holding.

@testpack

Assume the current dividend currently costs the company £100m a year. If they reduce the share count by 20% then they only need to pay £80m to maintain the same payout per share. It basically frees them up to increase the dividend in future at no additional cost.

There is no optimum number of shares. They'll keep buying them back until there's only yours and mine left!

That's the whole point, eventually the share price has to adjust upwards to reflect the stable / growing earnings against decreasing share count.

The other advantage of buybacks is that they reduce the burden of future dividend payments, as there are less shares outstanding that are due the dividend.

Share buybacks at the current price are a great use of capital, and if they paid a larger dividend I would just be reinvesting it in more shares anyway.

I can appreciate that dividends allow shareholders to decide whether to de-risk their investment or increase their relative shareholding though. Maybe it appeals to a broader base of shareholders, people that rely on dividend income etc.

You think people are short term trading an illiquid nanocap that is difficult to get in and out of in any size?

Don't think so...

Looks like only about £20k traded today but admittedly it's the most movement in a while.

@Tom78 - Share buybacks are not price neutral if the company is undervalued. Share price should increase over time if buying back below intrinsic value.

Lots of companies hold repurchased shares in treasury, I'm not sure why there is so much fear that management are going to steal them.

DB still doesn't seem to grasp that the market hates ambiguity. The main issue with the interim results was the comment about 1000 oz sold from Kouroussa, which (combined with the lack of any explanation from management) cast serious doubt over their previous estimate of delivering 30k in 2023.

Buybacks here are probably doing some pretty heavy lifting on stabilising the share price. On low volume days the repurchases look to be accounting for >25% of total trades.

Being posted on this board - anyone fancy keeping it on topic?

Gold still sliding towards 1800. Can we expect an RNS when we hit nameplate production? Market needs something (anything)...