Oh trust me, I held, but got out once the story changed around when management sold a large chunck of their shares (for tax reasons, whereas they were structured in a way there would be no tax payable imho - and also the timing did not add up), and fairly soon thereafter out of the blue capex blew out, and yes that was when SMS 'committed' to invest.
On the turnkey price, From 39 minutes onwards. "We are pretty confident that the price is fixed". That is legal spreak for that it is not fixed, but we hope so. If it is fixed no hesitation is needed. It has been repeated on other occasions too. Management has a terrible track record hitting projections. And if they are pretty confident that is it fixed, apparently it is not fixed. Iggy should never play poker. From minute 47 onwards I learn that the design is not even stable. So how can be EPC costs then be fixed and/or guaranteed? They have a history blowing out capex, and pre production costs.
What I don't get, if assumptions add up, and HPA looks at shortages that can't be met with extension of traditional productions methods, why Mitsubishi doesn't do a prepay of the offtake. If they are jumping for HPA to trade. Why would you turn to banks or PE then? Doesn't Mitsubishi have the greatest interest in capacity getting online? They are a trading house, when there is plenty of low priced produce to trade that is were the money for them is?
I certainly hope they get funding in place, but tell me how this cannot be severely dillutive looking at the funding they need, incl. interest during the building period, ramp-up, Whether they issue equity, or do a jv. What are your thoughts about how much equity they need to raise (note that imho any mezzanine lending they will receive will not only be high interest - but I am assuming there will be a heavy equity kicker included as well - it is either super high interest, or giving financiers an upside via convertibles/warrants etc.
On the HPA pricing side (as the NPV keeps on moving up as HPA pricing is set higher each time); what is preventing traditional HPA producers from ramping up production/explanding production? Altech would be better hedged re. feedstock begin an integrated producer, but traditional producers are will surely meet demand if all in cash costs is lower than HPA pricing. So what is preventing more capacity coming into the market place whilst Altech is strugling to get funding, and building the plant thereafter? Remember Altech went from US80mm capex projected to US298mm in a few years. The reason why the NPV holds up/grows is because of assumed higher sale prices. But what is preventing traditional HPA producers from expanding capacity. Wouldn't they have an incentive? To me it seems weird that Altech can blow out capex almost four times, but still can produce higher NPV projections. They are not operating in a vacuum, are they? How does this work? Are all other producers operating at a loss? Scanning through financials of some ot the current producers I do not get that impression?
Right now they have been trying to bits of capital raise at a time, even with the stock price at multiyear lows, that make me worried that the total of equity raise needed is so big that they deemed it the best strategy to do it piecemeal. Obviously they had to retract the plans for a CR around the annual meeting, as obviously it makes no sense if the future indeed looks so bright and financing is indeed around the corner. Why did they propose it then in the first place? What logic?
I know only happy thoughts are allowed here. And people easily forget. But I'd like to see how funding pans out, and how this affects NPV under various scenario's. If it is better than expected I might miss the first part of the upturn of the share to where we where years ago. But that is okay. I was just scanning through my notes of mid 2016. Altech was firm on first production in beginning of 2019 then.... yes, that would be now. It does make me go 'wait and see', they need to start delivering real milestones, imho.
Expand
(20min delay)