Member Info for TigerByTheTail

Vast have just issued an RNS re: the possible rights to part of the Marange diamond fields.
Very exciting for Vast, which originally discovered the Marange fields, and which once had a market cap of 500m quid based on that discovery - before the fields were then taken away by Mugabe after a quite farcical legal process.
I'm not quite sure how BOD fit in here, but obviously they already have a JV with Vast.

For those who don't know...
Vast (then called African Consolidated Resources) discovered the huge Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe in the 2000s. At the time Vast's market cap was over 500m pounds - compared to the 30m it is today. The fields were then seized by Mugabe after a farcical legal process.
This RNS is only the first news. There is also almost certainly a lot more to come. Congratulations to Vast and the team for pulling off this deal. And also respect to the new Zimbabwean authorities for starting to right a historic wrong.

Not quite, nginv - 15.45 is buying, 15.00 is selling at the moment. Computer is registering them both as sells as they are below midpoint of spread, though.
Nonetheless, it IS pretty quiet round here...

Hi Moneyhawk!
Thanks for posting the link to the BMR statement - very interesting reading.
Thank God I'm not a BMR shareholder!

I finally watched the IG interview.
I agree that it is mostly mood music intended to reassure the battered confidence of investors. It's certainly a vast improvement over the Mining Journal article, and I welcome the cautious and more "responsible" tone.
I don't think the troubles with the share price are entirely to do with the gold price, but the gold price makes for an easy excuse. I don't blame Dan Betts for taking it.
As for Bunker Hill, I remain convinced it would be a disastrous investment. If anybody wants to know why, I can give my reasons.
All in all, better. But I'd still welcome a takeover (or a change in management).

I'm expecting the BP licence to land either this week or next (it's impossible to be more precise than that). Not only should that set off a rerate in itself, as BP is a cash cow of a mine, but it should also increase market confidence that Vast's other Romanian development assets (Remin, Zagra, Blueberry etc.) can be successfully advanced to actual production.
Also, I'm hoping for news from Romania regarding a new diamond policy. I'm not expecting the full return of the Marange diamond fields, but I do think that Vast will receive some kind of restitution for their loss. In particular, I'm looking out for the involvement of Russian diamond miner Alrosa (with whom Vast's own partner BOD already have a joint venture). Zimbabwean diamond mining desperately needs an injection of foreign capital and expertise, and I think that's where it will come from.
As for a share consolidation, it's really just a book-keeping exercise. It needs to be done eventually, but IMO right now it's a bit of a waste of management time.

My crystal ball says the SP will be blue today. It's such an obvious thing for a trader to do - buy in now in the fairly reasonable expectation that the BP licence will drop sometime next week (though not Monday morning first thing).

I agree that Blueberry looks interesting. But impossible to make a proper judgment without at least some numbers. All we can do is wait. I am tempted to become a client of broker SVS in order to get in to such things at the subsidiary level early on! Could be very lucrative.

Yes, the SP is disappointing, to put it mildly.
I think it's a combination of BMR selling down, PGM price weakness, and general commodity price weakness (fuelled by fear of the Chinese economy slowing down). Zinc and lead both plunged yesterday.

I must admit fear got the better of me and I sold half my holding yesterday afternoon.
Nothing to do with Vast, as such. I believe they will get the BP licence fairly soon, and that in general management here is excellent.
But, finally, Vast are mining gold, copper, and zinc. And they are all falling into bear markets, and I just couldn't go on ignoring that awkward fact. Most other mining stocks plunged yesterday.

Yes, I agree. But really that's how it is.
Management performance here has been pretty pathetic, culminating in that absolutely juvenile interview that Dan Betts gave to Mining Journal about a week ago.
It's time they were gone.

I don't think the BOD are in any position to refuse any reasonable takeover offer - say at 40p. That's a 50% premium to today's share price, which is still trending downwards.
The BOD really need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves what have they done to support the share price over the last eight months. The answer is very little. A fair few of their actions (trusting Beaufort to act as company broker in the first place, the AGG fiasco, the 1p options, the Bunker Hill misadventure, the dreadful communications, the lack of promotional activity) have been positively harmful. So the BOD can only blame themselves.
Ultimately, we (the shareholders) own this company. And it's high time it was run in our interests, and not just the BOD's. And, IMO, our interests are best served by a takeover and new management, because Hummingbird's assets are most definitely worth more than the current market capitalisation.
For me, Dan Betts & Co. - through a mix of arrogance, irresponsibility, immaturity, and naked greed - have failed to earn the market's confidence.They've had their chance and failed, and now it's time to move on.

The historical results are soil samples, not drill holes, so not quite comparable. I agree, the drill results should be good, under usual circumstances. But there's a difference between "should be" and "are" - and the market will discount that difference heavily.

It was exactly the same when the Eureka deal - objectively one of the best gold deals I've ever seen done - was announced.
Today's RNS is quite possibly great news for Vast in the long term. (Only quite possibly because we need to see the drill results first).
But if you're hoping to see share price movement here, it's all about the BP license.

FWIW, I think Hummingbird will get taken over. And quite soon. I don't see how the company can stay independent for long with the share price languishing at these levels.
However, I'd stake money that the buyer won't be Randgold. Mark Bristow (their CEO) has been quite clear that he is looking for "elephants" - mines with 500,000 ounce per year potential. That's not Hummingbird.
If I had to make a bet, I'd go with Endeavour as our buyer. Possibly Avesoro. Possibly B2 or Iamgold. Possibly EQX as well.
I

I've been trying to find a website for Blueberry, without any luck. Has anybody done any better than me?
This is the full name of the company, I think:
BLUEBERRY RIDGE MINERALS SRL - CUI 29319114
The company has been registered since 2011, since then always loss-making (naturally, it's an exploration company!). Annual losses have narrowed in the last couple of years, probably because there was no more money left to spend.
I'm assuming that Blueberry got into a mess, with no money to pay for the required drilling and time running out on their exploration licence. So, Vast stepped in, at a cost to Blueberry of 30% of their project.

FWIW, it's actually an old Germanic word, originally meaning "to destroy".
The correct Anglo-Saxon verb for copulation is "to swive".
(That's all I've got to show for learning Anglo-Saxon at college!)

Yes, good interims and HOC's overall financial position now far stronger. But gold and silver sentiment are determining the price here, and all we can do is wait for that to improve.

Hi Ian!
I agree, and that's why I just added a few more shares at .557.
This is a really good deal for Vast - obviously Blueberry had run out of money and they were running out of time, and Andrew Prelea has seized the opportunity. Excellent!
But I learnt my lesson after the announcement of the Eureka deal. That was a quite extraordinary piece of business - a share of a mothballed gold mine for less than $10 per ounce of gold in the ground. And what happened? Vast's SP briefly spiked and then dropped.
My conclusion? Rightly or wrongly, AIM is obsessed with the BP licence. Until that issue is resolved, nothing will move this share price up for long.

IMO, in market terms, this is going to be a rerun of the initial Eureka RNS. That announced a great long term deal for the company, but it was almost totally ignored by the market due to the all-subsuming obsession with the BP licence. I think this RNS is going to be received in much the same way. Wrong, and a pity, but that's how it is!