Share prophet29 Mar 2019 08:30
URU Metals (URU) seems to have this RNS lark cracked – if the market hates the first one that you issue, then just word it slightly differently and release news about the same project again the following day. You really couldn’t make it up!
This is a company that I have watched with interest as it has been pumped to high heaven by all and sundry, but it came down to earth with a bit of a bump when it released an update on its Zebediela nickel project in South Africa. The RNS mentioned that it was carrying out acid leaching on existing drill cores and that once that had been completed it would carry out a revised drilling programme. The market hated the update and at one point the share price was down by over 30%.
That drop was partly due to high expectations before this news came as the company had announced a couple of days prior that it had set up an investor presentation at short notice, so many – myself included – were expecting some major news to warrant that.
The company has now had another go by releasing the same news, but this time stating that results are expected within ten days, and so far it seems to have gone down better with investors as the shares have bounced back a little.
The company talks about the potential size of the project and resource it contains – a preliminary economic assessment in 2012 showed inferred and indicated resources of 1.5 billion tonnes and a net present value of over $300 million, yet despite having the licence for several years now not a lot of progress has been made. This despite nickel prices having been much higher during that period – at the time it acquired the project from Umnex Minerals nickel was trading at over $8/lb compared to under $5/lb currently.
The company also has other projects, but given that none of them are likely to be producing for a number of years – if ever – there is little point in spending too much time going into possible values of resources in the ground, when so little is known at this point.
What I find more interesting is the way that the share price has moved since the placing at 0.45p in early January, when 171 million odd shares were issued to raise £770,000, and then just a month later, with no real news at all in-between other than talk of assessing lithium opportunities, a further £535,000 was raised at 4.5p.
A fair chunk of these shares were placed with an existing large shareholder, Niketo, which is also a related party, plus with directors of URU, including CEO John Zorbas, who bought 1.1 million or so.
Now you can’t help but wonder what is going on in the background and whether the main purpose of that placing was to push the share price higher – given that the highest it has reached in open trading is 4.38p (subsequent to the placing), and it closed at 2.5p the previous day to the premium placing. Only 11.8 million shares were issued and typical daily volumes have often