Hi
@bigfastjohn ..."
But could it be just a skillful holding of the cards very close so as not to attract unwanted suitors especially at our very low market cap"
Who knows why the reporting has been as it is, but for junior exploration companies having a high share price helps in raising capital easily. As the company has gone back to the market a few times over the last 5 years, I would have thought getting the best easily readable information into the market place would be the best approach to minimise dilution and make it harder for any takeover.
I was a holder last year, bought around 11c enjoyed the ride up to 25c based upon the drilling of a couple of conductors in September, then eventually bailed as the price was falling having given up a lot of profit. (I have a trading/investing rule of never letting a large profit turn into a loss, but I will give a good profit plenty of room).
This year when I bought back in around 12c, I decided to have a better look at all the drilling and finds, intending on being a longer term holder. What I've found, despite investing in many junior explorers over many years (decades), was that I found great difficulty in following exactly what had been found where. I have not had that trouble with any other company.
I try to determine if a junior explorer has a good enough resource to make a good mine from their discovery. I basically do my own resource calculation based upon drilling reports and filling in the gaps myself (making assumptions about how good some infill areas are likely to be etc).
I've been spending the last week or so going over old announcements, reading all the presentations etc. I just kept getting confused about where the follow up drilling was (and full results good or bad), instead of being able to build a mental picture.
My current mental picture is that we have a large 'sheet' of intrusive mafic/ultramafic fertile rocks that dip from South to North and from East to West. Within this fertile intrusion there are many 'pods' of Nickel/Copper/PGE massive sulphides, ranging in size, with a surrounding halo of blebby and disseminated Ni/Cu/PGEs.
However after 4.5 years of drilling and finding some fantastic grades, there has been no defined resource, just more studies, drilling, exciting announcements etc (and cap raising with associated share price falls). One reason I did buy back in was the upcoming resource estimate and scoping study.
The usual course of action for junior exploration companies is to define a maiden resource fairly early (giving the company some type of asset value), then doing further drill campaigns to add tonne to the resource estimates. St George have approached this differently without explaining the different methodology to the market via announcement.
As I stated last night, they have used just about every geophysical study known to man, found many targets, but choose to drill all over the place instead of firming up resource tonnes by drilling all the existing targets in one area.
Resource definition drilling in Stricklands finished in Q2. My understanding of scoping studies (meaningful ones), is that the resource estimate is an important aspect of the SS (or feasibility for that matter). Therefore it should be ready in the early stages of the study. Continuous disclosure rules mean that when the resource estimate is ready it should be released to market, not hidden until the SS is released. (Not having a resource while working on the scoping study was one of the reason I didn't buy back in earlier, it didn't make sense to me!)
This 'different' approach is just more reasoning why the share price/Mcap does not match other junior nickel exploration companies IMHO. I wonder how many other potential investors have not bought into St George based upon this different approach the company has used. Investors (and funds for that matter), are creatures of habit. There is a 'usual approach' followed in the exploration/junior mining industry. How much is this holding back the share price and will we catch up, or get taken over??
