MNS (ASX) Ann: Change in substantial holding-MNS.AX

Originally posted by ozpolarbear ↑

I haven’t read all of the recent comments and don’t know if this has been discussed but would just like to highlight something on my mind recently, and which I pointed out recently about MNS on the TON forum, while we were discussing capital raisings there.

I mentioned that MNS has been absolutely soaring and obviously cash is important and what does MNS do now is a difficult decision – go in for a capital raising now itself or wait until later. I also mentioned how “companies have to have the foresight to take advantage of booming conditions.”

This topic now assumes more significance in light of SYR’s decision to go in for another mega capital raising, which somewhat guarantees that it will be a longer term sustainable company.

IMO, this is one of the most critical times for MNS management and their decision within the current graphite boom now is of the utmost importance.

IMO, MNS would do very well to at least have some capital raising to at least ensure its medium term survival. Market cap is a huge 374 million at current trading price (diluted market cap is probably over 600 million) and MNS can easily raise few tens of millions at least, without affecting the share price too much, especially considering that SYR is at a bloated 1.5 billion and more, with so much more scope for MNS to catch up.

With regards to an even bigger capital raising (SYR style – they’ve now had two 200 million raisings in 1 year), that would obviously cause dilution and a bigger hit to the share price (and a lot of pain to the long termers) but will guarantee MNS coming into production, and that is where the focus should lie in the longer term. Of course, instos need to be convinced of this too.

MNS obviously has a top quality product and there is no doubt about it but it should never come to the stage where there is not enough cash to keep the lights on as another graphite company experienced.
Also IMO cash is the most critical and strangely most underrated issue in the graphite sector with debt financing seemingly very hard to obtain.

IMO, cash and not graphite is where the battle ultimately lies. I hope MNS makes the right decision and there are very difficult decisions to be made, but I believe that they must be made somewhere in the very near future, and IMO MNS would do very well to take advantage of the current booming conditions in at least some form.
Good luck and all the best.

Expand

Hi Oz,

With the recent 25M options converted plus the other conversions over the past few months I would estimate Magnis cash position today to be about $6-7M. The last quarterly I looked at had a burn rate of around $1M per month so we are likely good till the end of the year for working capital.

Obviously Magnis is going for debt funding which would probably include an equity component. I think the question is when do they raise this equity component?
Before a Western off-take (soon), straight after the first one, after the final one (assuming more than one) or after the finance deal is announced? The share price (and dilution) will be different at each stage so where do you do it?

The good part of this story is that we have Blue Ocean Equities on our side who recently carried out a CR for PLS for $100M. This was apparently heavily oversubscribed and they could have raised $300M if they wanted to.

My wild guess would be raise funds after the first Western off-take is announced when the share price is around $1.50 in a month or two.