Alex / BaltasarG / Francis51 / DallasCowboys asked:
“hi all, does anyone know if participants in the current SPP are likely to be scaled back? ”It’s a funny question to ask when you run the place?
To answer the question, based on the evidence, I can pretty much guarantee that Barton will take every cent anyone offers them, for the following reasons:
1. As others have noted, the recent cap raise to instos flopped, with Barton only able to raise $3m, which is not enough to keep the company running for 3 months. Then it’s back to yet another cap raise.
2. This is already the second Barton SPP in 8 months, already in breach of the ASX rules that allow 1 per year.
3. Their last SPP was a dud, only raised $1m when they hoped for vastly more, and they took every cent they got then too.
4. Three of the TOP 5 Barton shareholders — each of whom have MILLIONS of shares — are all selling, and they are all Barton insiders closely linked to Alex. One of them was responsible for the company’s resource estimation. All 3 have filed selling notices during the SPP.
5. The ASX has already quizzed the company about its expenditure, and not having enough money in the kitty to keep operating for another quarter. The raise of $3m puts that off for another quarter, and then it's groundhog day again.
6. The ever increasing high-pitched frequency and verbosity of BaltarsarG’s postings, and replies to himself (Francis51 and DallasCowboys) … mean the clock is ticking, and Alex is looking increasingly desperate.
7. Because Barton is a lifestyle company:
--- a tiny proportion of money raised goes into the ground in real drilling, and the rest goes down the drain on marketing (sunk costs) to try bring new people in to take out the insiders who are selling, and flying Alex around the world and paying for fat exec fees and freebie shares — all sunk costs paid by shareholders that is just wasted and unrecoverable. Someone else posted the company's assets cost $350K in cash and some shares to total $1m. Do the maths.
Have a look at the so-called program underway at Tarcoola - it’s a program of 1100m - seriously - 1100m? 12 holes. That’s what a $2m market cap penny company spends on drilling to pretend to the market that they are doing something. Particularly when every other program Barton has tried at Tarcoola has flopped. It’s the pretence of drilling. Then they find a few metres at 1g/t at 150m below surface: you'd go bankrupt just getting down there. Then they announce a new JORC resource at some grade that is so embarrassingly low other companies wouldn’t even bother, and then never drill another hole nearby because they know it’s just more money thrown away, and they need the rest to keep the boat afloat for another few months.
Then they put out an announcement that they have found mineralisation over 2km (alas none of it economic -- aka dud).
So yes - Barton will take every cent anyone offers them.
And as soon as the SPP is over and the new shares issued, watch the share price drop back to 24c (the SPP price), and the fake bids disappear.
Watch and see.
(20min delay)