Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Dilution is the enemy of the AIM investor, always at a discount and limited to certain shareholders. Here though I take comfort in the size of the placing, i.e. just the amount needed for Redmoor. Whilst the price opened down, it is all buys today, so everyone seems to agree that it has created an opportunity to pick up some more at a good price. I have to admit to adding a few myself as under 1.6p looks cheap.
Hopefully 1.5p should be the floor now and continued newsflow over the coming months should see this rise to the levels that we all believe are realistic and possible.
Someone posted this on the Cornerstone forum at CEO.CA, so thought I would share. Requires google translate:
https://lahora.com.ec/imbabura/noticia/1102252991/comuneros-de-zonas-mineras-reaccionan-al-fallo-de-la-corte-constitucional
Seems like Solgold are out there trying to engage with the local communities and do what they can to get them onside. Still some negative sentiment from locals though.
New article in mining.com. Doesn't really say anything new but thought I would share:
https://www.mining.com/solgold-shares-soar-after-ecuador-court-dismisses-call-for-referendum-on-mining/
Hopefully this is somewhat of a balanced view. We have 3 options here, either (a) court overrules, full steam ahead, (b) court back referendum and govt eventually deals with it, then full steam ahead, or (c) court backs referendum and cascabel is dead.
The government does not want to stop mining and are probably extremely worried that the majors will be put off investing in Ecuador. Some in power are probably worried about the loss of facilitation payments too...we have to accept the level of corruption that exists. Mining is massively important to them and the country. As a result they cannot allow a negative result to stand, but obviously they cannot stop the court offering a judgement before they can do anything. The constannt posts and articles suggest pressure is being applied to force the judge to 'do the right thing'. The fact they are doing this suggests they do not have confidence that the judge will. Their will to push this means this ending in no mining is extremely unlikely, but who can be 100% sure.
Given this, I'd say my gut feel is (a) judge rules against our illegal miner 40%, (b) judge rules for it, but govt eventually shut this down and mining is fine 59%, (c) referendum, mining stopped 1%. We all have our own percentages I'm sure.
For me this is a simple choice of accept it will be (a) or (b). If you are happy with either you hold and see immediate gain or buy more on the fall. It is then just a case of how long before you are hopefully making the profit you want. I am working on this basis, am holding and happy that I might see a painful hit in the short term. Longer term I expect all to be good as the government is not going to scare off the majors so will be working to resolve as quickly as possible once they have the chance. It will take time to build trust with the majors though, they will not like this at all.
All we should be really worried about is option c, which is extremely unlikely, but as ever nothing is impossible. Other than that, I see nothing else worth discussing until we get the result in a week or so.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here, there is a major trust issue with DS. Ever since I came across AAOG I've heard DS tell a good story, state the company has a conservative approach, issue bullish statements and hint at great things. He does a good job of positive spin on the future.
Instead we have the classic jam tomorrow, dilition after dilution for PIs, big talk, then silence. 3-4 months ago we had... Into production in April, CPR end May, probable increase in Tilapia from current 56%... then we hit mid June and the share price understandibly has continued to slide.
I am still invested hear, somewhat painful to look at paper losses, but will continue to do so. Whilst I appreciate not everything can be shared the share price reflects that promises keep getting broken, the market has little confidence in DS and maybe the great story is just that, a story. I really hope the company turns things round, offers more transparency, provides realistic timelines and is proactive in communicating when they are not going to achieve them.
As a LTH of SOLG and long time lurker on this board and others, I have finally made the effort to register on LSE.
Despite some of the usual issues you get with open boards, I have found much of the information and debate in this forum really useful and helpful over the past few days/weeks, so thank you. As investors in this stock we are all obviously nervous, maybe scared and wondering how best to manage our investment. Personally, I work in financial services meaning I can't actively trade (i.e. if I sell I can't buy back for at least 60 days), so somewhat forced to take a long term view.
The government in Ecuador is obviously desperate to push mining, but I still see their tone as somewhat defensive and covering themselves as they would not be surprised at all with a result against the national interests. In a country known for problems with corruption, who knows what goes on behind closed doors and how this impacts decisions made.
We all have our own decisions to make and zoros has nicely laid out the options. Although a hit compared to prices a few weeks ago I am personally considering selling down some of my holding on the basis that I am nervous, see this as a coin toss right now and fear this could well drag on for many months. I like the SOLG story, believe this will work out long term, but don't trust how things work in Ecuador enough to have 100% faith short term. It would be lovely to see some directors of SOLG adding to their holdings to show they have faith and are buying on weakness... the fact they aren't says a lot to me.