TON (ASX) Ann: AGM Presentation

Originally posted by ozpolarbear ↑

Below is my best interpretation of some of the events at today’s meeting. Please note that it could be subject to errors, personal subjective opinion, etc and should not be relied upon to make any decision about TON. It is just my best and very humble understanding of some stuff that took place. DYOR and IMO has to be emphasized. I’m generally better focused when reading stuff than at a meeting but I’ll try to give my best understanding .

1/ Attendees –

Michael Ji, Max, Peter Canterbury (PC) , Patrick Burke and David Edwards from company’s side who were in front. Paula was overseas.
There were around 20 people present including from the auditor’s side, and Lisa Park from company’s side, who chose to sit along with the shareholders. Other 5 were in front

2/ General matters

Resolutions went through pretty quick. Burke was acting Chairman of meeting. Meeting started at around 2:30 and resolutions and such formal stuff ended within 10-15 minutes after which the presentation was discussed. Burke spoke during the resolutions while Canterbury spoke during the presentation. After the presentation, there was a question session which was generally answered by PC. Meeting ended by 3:20

PC was generally polite and detailed in answering all questions.

In such general matters, it was very similar to the December meeting

3/ Resolution 5 (placement capacity)

Point was raised whether the placement capacity should have some sort of restriction with respect to limit on discount to volume weighted average price at time of issue. I think 25% discount is maximum limit. So the point raised was whether we could specify that it would be say at a maximum discount of 10-15% or something similar
I agree with point raised as we would not want too much dilution.

Burke said that it was not feasible to restrict TON with regards to how much discount they can offer in placement. To a certain extent, I also agree with company point of view but IMO, company must realize now that shareholders are a little tired of dilution, and even if it was not feasible to mention a limit to discount, this should ideally be followed in spirit if a placement was being offered. Company also did not seem to commit as to whether we shareholders would get any participation in the same. I agree with the shareholder point raised and am not all that happy with company response here but it is still early stages right now.

I shall discuss points from presentation now and will mention page numbers of presentation in bullet point header

4/ Ancuabe

There was a high emphasis on Ancuabe again. Talk was almost entirely on Ancuabe. As we know the focus has been on Ancuabe since quite some time.

5/ Progress over last 6 months (Pg 6-8)

PC highlighted that we have progressed and a fresh team is seeing things with new eyes. Progress as listed on Pg 6 and 7 was discussed. There is not much new here and we are already familiar with most of stuff. In this regard, I think company has done a decent job with updating us with all stuff in past few months

T16 is the intial priority

6/ Experienced people for feasibility study (Pg 8)

PC highlighted experience of all the people in charge of various aspects of feasibility study, and mentioned target for year end. PC seemed to emphasize that they are very experienced, and spoke a little about them individually. So it is good to know that he is up to date with all that stuff.

7/ Logistical Benefits of Ancuabe (Pg 9 and 10)

PC was all praise for the logistics benefits of Ancuabe – close to sealed road, voltage power, access to port, water supply etc. and called it one of the most friendly graphite projects in East Africa in this regard

8/ Large flake and purity (Pg 11-14)

PC mentioned that many Chinese mines have around 80% purity, and then used acid to get to 95%, while Ancuabe had purity from flotation alone of upto 98.5%TGC. Also flake size distribution is one of the best among peers as seen on Page 12.

Pg 14 also mentions some comments of independent German consultants talking about large flake and easy purification.

9/ Site layout (PG 16)

Good to see proposed site layout and other such stuff being discussed. I just remember getting the feeling that “hey, we are finally going to get to production” when this was being discussed But anyway, yeah based on past experience, I'm not counting any chickens yet.

10/ Project pipeline (PG 18)

Note that Nicanda West and Nicanda Hill are mentioned as project pipeline. PC mentioned that Ancuabe is first priority right now and these would be considered later on as feasible.

11/ Expandable graphite (Pg 23, 24)

PC mentioned how expandable graphite was going to be useful to comply with Chinese building regulations
Other high value items – 2000 to 4000 dollars per tonne was also discussed.
Ancuabe graphite is suitable for all this.
So, the basic gist is that our "magical Ancuabe graphite" is suitable for a lot of high value stuff. I guess we'll have to wait for the feasibility study for more confirmation.

12/ Spherical graphite and batteries (Pg 25, 26)

PC mentioned on his visit to China, he noted that one company had an agreement to produce 100,000 tonnes of speherical graphite a year (70000 coated and 30000 coated) for which 200,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate would be needed and mentioned how spherical graphite demand will pick up over time

Pg 26 mentions how China is leading this charge

I’ll now try to cover some of the questions from the Q&A session

13/ Debt funding

Talks are on, and TON would aim to get a strategic partner. Combination of debt and equity would be aimed for. PC mentioned that based on experience of other graphite companies, just getting offtakes was not fruitful in getting funding and hence a strategic partner was needed. I was quite happy to see PC take debt funding seriously and agree with him that some sort of strategic partner was needed to take it all the way. I was wondering whether he was referring to Minjar itself. Don’t know for sure.

I cant remember whether it was with regards to this point or generally but he did mention that the AMG association helps in recognition

14/ Selloff in shares

Question was raised about some large transactions in recent trading. PC mentioned that they are monitoring share price daily and there has been no major change in top 20.
In this regard, I just want to mention that it is disappointing that the company is not publishing top 20.
Also I’m not sure what exactly he meant by no major changes to top 20. Does that mean there were minor changes? Either way, it is all speculation and if company wants to instill general shareholder confidence, then they should IMO start publishing top 20 again

15/ Bulk sampling

Question was raised whether bulk sampling would be done. PC mentioned that it was not done as of now

16/ Timeframe for mining

Mentioned that a time frame cannot be given and these things take time

17 Nicanda

Question was raised about Nicanda. PC once again mentioned that Ancuabe is top priority but Nicanda would be considered as feasible. Incidentally, PC barely spoke about Nicanda Hill at all.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, I’m generally not too happy that company has completely ignored Nicanda Hill which barely gets a mention. I can understand the focus on Ancuabe but the market also needs a good story, and periodically mentioning that we still have Nicanda as a backup when graphite and battery demand picks up, adds to our story.
Share price is not just based on fundamentals but on a good story. IMO, and this is just my opinion - the company is wasting an opportunity by completely ignoring the Nicanda story

18/ Mining license

Mentioned that it takes time but it generally expected to come

19/ Tenements renewal

2 are up for renewal but not where our deposit is there

20/ Conclusions

Apologies if my comment looks far less precise than usual and as mentioned, I concentrate far better when reading than when attending meetings.

No major surprises and main talk was about Ancuabe. I think shareholders are already aware of most of what I’ve mentioned above. I'm not really sure if anything really critical and new has come about.

As was the case in December, I was generally impressed with the polite, detailed tone of PC

I’d like to see Nicanda being highlighted as a backup from time to time.

Company seems to be ticking boxes from time to time; so can’t really find any fault on that ground.

Can’t understand the logic of still not disclosing top 20 periodically

I would be able to read comments during the day tomorrow but won't be able to respond. In any case, I don't think there was anything else major discussed.

I’ve got no complaints overall but TON is still what it has always been - a high risk/ high reward stock.
Cheers

Expand

Hi Oz, You got your T20 finally. I'm not impressed, no wonder they kept it from us. Any thoughts, haven't heard from you on it.

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Last 1.0¢		Change 0.000(0.00%)		Mkt cap ! $15.68M

Open	High	Low	Value	Volume
1.0¢	1.0¢	1.0¢	$1K	100K

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0.011	387852	2
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