Member Info for Takayama

Great news on LEAP!

My condolences OD. Take care buddy.

Eric - no I'm not invested. But I'm still interested in the concession (so yes, I'm on the wings). I'm not sure why posting 'something of value' means that I should only post things 'to protect the investment'. There are all sorts of people that look at this board and from where I'm sitting, the value of these boards go up when they are more honest about the company. I'm afraid that may include putting up things which some people deem negative. Just posting things that are positive is misleading. AIM companies rely on so many factors. News of drilling in Kosovo for a small exploration company, is, I'm guessing, unlikely to move the SP. There were four trades today on AIM for BEM. That should tell you a lot about how interested people are. Getting a new stellar CEO with a track record of bringing mines to production and profit, however, is (in my experience) likely to move the SP. We know that AGMs are pretty passive affairs.

Sometimes the story is about the company and sometimes it is about the people who have invested in the company. I'm happy to bare all and say I've lost money in the past investing. 'Keeping the faith' is great on bulletin boards like this, especially when a share price drifts down and down, but sometimes you need to look at reality. There was the expectation on this board that there'd be some value added to the company when it got the licence, and well, the markets didn't agree. And why didn't they? Because of risk. The risk the company doesn't deliver. That's the bottom line. This isn't Anglo American with hundreds of millions in the bank. It's a small exploration company hanging by a thread. And when the thread is just about to snap, a big company steps in and buys it all for a song. Seen it before and will see it again. There's no doubting Kurt's mining credentials. And the value of the asset. But those don't make a world beating mining company. It's being able to play the politics of the square mile, to get people on board, to mitigate risks of the whole thing being turned over in an appeal court a few months down the line by getting the opposition on board. The potential HAS been priced in. Don't kid yourselves that you're smart and have spotted something that others haven't. BEM's a nice company and you're nice people (on the whole, I'm sure I'd buy you a drink down the golf club), but you're going to be waiting some time for the mine to come. It will, but not many people think Kurt is the guy that's going to deliver it. Unfortunately. And that's why the SP is low. Anyway, good luck guys.

I hope you're all correct! I tend to expect the worst. That way I'm pleasantly pleased when the minimal happens. But as you say, a sale makes sense

I'd imagine the LEAP IPO will be delayed because of events in Ukraine. We've moved from crisis management to a long term strategy vis a vis Ukraine, so that'll settle things a lot, but it was the crisis management period that I expect will have caused the delay. I'd expect perhaps October.

I don't know if anyone else has been following the CBX debacle over its selling of "ingestible" products? I have to admit it doesn't look like a well run company in the least. I'm glad we're a little distanced from the risk players in this new industry are exposed to via the experts running SEED. It's good to have people like Alfredo on board to filter out those risks on our behalf. I'd have never spotted that compliance risk that CBX exposed themselves to. And neither did they!

Midas - I presume that by 'steady returns', you mean a return on investment that is perhaps only two or three times the original, - or of a number of millions under ten, rather than the twenty-fifty million that is expected from LEAP?

I'm disappointed with the share price rise. I was hoping for another six weeks or so of SP in the doldrums. I'm in the process of remortgaging and had a few quid extra on the remortgage with a view of making some easy money here. With any luck, it'll retrace to 4p or so before the LEAP IPO. I'm increasingly feeling that it'll turn into a liquidity event with a decent re-rating upwards. BTW Mat78, your link doesn't work - LSE have hidden part of the link (before the dot co ).

Scanning this morning's news, I see Acceler8 Ventures have their results out today (ahem, doesn't look like anything has happened since they've launched last year as an investment company set to take stakes in high growth companies, including gaming). It's almost like FFWD but in miniature, even in name! I'm definitely not invested in there, but point it out as an amusing aside, and to say that we aren't alone!

Suzy - Does that mean you've accepted defeat?

Awesome post Doggo!

Suzy2 - apart from pointing out the issue around capital letters, you haven't explained why my comment was "unacceptable". You have attempted a rather weak insult though. Should I read something into that? Is it because you know it is entirely acceptable and I "won"? Perhaps you should stick to part time English teaching or whatever it is you used to do rather than engage here, 'defending your investment'. You're making a poor job of it. And you're rude to other posters.

It ......is.......so.........frustrating.........just .......waiting........and.......waiting......and .......waiting.
I can't make out why others PIs don't buy into this in their droves! It looks a steal to me. Low risk, high growth. What can go wrong? And regardless of what Ed does with the £30M or so we get from LEAP, it'll still stick a rocket up the a++e of the NAV here, making it look even more ridiculously underpriced. Ed may make a bad deal of LEAP, but it'll be a bit obvious if he does. The longer we wait, the more time we have to dream up what we think will be a fair valuation, and then only to be disappointed.
Was the sale of EMMAC under value too? If so, by how much?
By the way, great posts everyone. I've chosen my villa in the south of France, to which I'll invite you all for a bbq and throw in flights (easyjet I'm afraid. I'm not a large holder here).

Suzy - why is it unacceptable? Sami rights are as important to the Sami as Catholic rights are to the catholics and protestant rights are to protestants, and unionist rights to the unionists etc.

Great post TFE. As for Suzy's 'he tried and he failed', that pretty much says it all. If you give up, the failure is on you. The failure isn't on the Sami. In success, there is no such thing as giving up. You persist. You find other ways. You don't turn around and say "I gave it a go but they refuse to talk to me so I'm not going to try anymore"! Mo Mowlem never said that. Can you imagine what the world would have been like if she had turned around at 7pm in the evening and said "Ok, I've given it a go but it's never going to work, so I'm going home to watch Netflix". With Kurt's approach, what makes him think that he'll have more success in talking to the Sami now? Things have got worse for the Sami now, not better. If I was Sami, it's at this point that I'd dig in and really resist! I have nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain. At least pre-award, I knew I could have lost the argument. And all of that is going to turn off potential investors.

It would be hard NOT to be in talks at this stage. All it takes is to pick up the phone and call around a few mates. It really doesn't mean much. But I do get the impression that Kurt looks at this board, and so, good on him for listening and responding. You won't be able to raise enough with a placing to build a mine. More likely there'll be a reach out to private funding. But there will be a placing to raise funds for ongoing running costs. Hello dilution. That's why pace is important at this stage. You don't want the company to go under before it gets a chance to realise the asset. And at the very least, you need to tip your hat to Kurt for acknowledging the need for pace at this point in time. In terms of timing, even if he got the funding tomorrow, it'd still be at least 30 months before the mine is productive. AIM directors make promises about jam coming very soon all the time. Don't believe them. He'll be doing well to get a plan in place, with half the funding within 12 months. But then there are all those that still oppose the mine. . . . . . . . . . Unfortunately, Kurt was waiting for the political bosses to say yes, rather than work, work, work at the relations with the Sami. He said he's going to work at mitigating those risks starting from now, but it's later than he could have done. Again, time lost.

I don't think anyone can doubt the value of the concession. I think you can doubt whether Budge 'delivered' the concession. It felt that he was a bystander to me. And finally, I'm not sure why people think anything is going to happen before Christmas? Isn't there going to be a 'feasability' study produced then? And once fully funded (if Budge is able to organise the funding - you can't just be a bystander for that one!), it'll take at least 30 months before production starts. So all in all, nothing before 2026, and that's a best case scenario! Add on top of that the fundraising that'll be ongoing. And risk of course - the risk that it simply doesn't attract funding. It's been a really rocky road to this place. And are there going to be legal challenges, further complicating matters? What big investor is going to want to buy in before it's all cleared up? Small miners like this carry so much risk. That's why they're so cheap. It isn't because you're smarter than other investors and spotted a bargain. It's because of the risk involved before they actually pay off. I'd say this is where the trouble begins. It isn't where it's ended. Good luck if you stick at it to the end. You may make money. But of course, you may have made a lot more money elsewhere.

We're pretty close here aren't we? I bet there are five investors here with over 2 million each.

Congo is a nightmare to operate in. Political risk is stratospheric, meaning physical risk to staff stratospheric too. You'd need ultra-high reward to make it worthwhile. Morocco is quiet and stable. Great investment environment. Take a look at Morocco's neighbour's in transparency international's corruption index to get a feel for the risk. And then look at Congo! Chalk and cheese.