Ann: Wintime Cooperation Agreement, page-37

SMR, when they bought BMC, did an equity raise... and took on Asian debt because the majority shareholder had connections.
As for their last acquisition, that one was small enough to fund themselves. But the company-making acquisition was not because they saved cash.

WHC saved over a billion from the spike of 2022, and BMA vendor finance helped, and they still had to take on debt to make their acquisition happen. And even then, they need to sell down a bit to breath easier.

In short, SMR and WHC got lucky in different ways.

I am very doubtful whether TER could've saved enough cash and convinced a big lender to help them. The acquisitions going around are just too big. Even the current Anglo one is too big, because they want to sell all mines as a group.

What I'm saying is yes, TER management should've thought carefully and done better with capital management. But the reality is they were too small and didn't know the right people to have a chance of getting lucky. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making excuses for management. As I said earlier, the peers that have done well have gotten lucky.