I'm a well known contrarian bear, but some bears are real...

I'm a well known contrarian bear, but some bears are real country boys without any sense of decency or decorum.

I traded half out into the MRE worried LIN would juts head south into a mini-Lassonde profit taking period through to 2024, sold another lot at my buy price low 30's, unfortunately held onto a few in case I was wrong and because I like investing in good projects even though on balance they have proven investment losers. LIN was always at risk of a sell down simply because so many were sitting on great profits, and still are at 16c. Being in Malawi and ran by Asimwe (from the little I hear) is not conducive to funds buying in for long term exposure either... so with lots of sellers, traders, manipulators who also read the tealeaves with a plan to get set later cheaper, it was always downhill Lassonde Orphan style without a RE bull market developing (which has demonstrably not).

Todays announcement clearly completes the pivot from marketing Stage 1 demo plant as some sort of cheap, we have the capital for it with some off-take prepayment credit, no feasibility study required just build it and make cash, prove the process etc, etc. I was howled down for saying it looked like cum-raise Lassonde purgatory when I turned up after last CR, and to be fair management communications suggested they were not in the feasibility cum-raise period, but proves they are. Rightly so, it will cost a lot more than the US20M balloon originally floated, they cannot afford to F-it up, won;t raise the capital without a study that accurately estimates the costs and outcome so funds and serious investors will actually get behind LIN with confidence.

I still believe Kanga is a cracking, world class monazite deposit and the met work will prove reliable at very cheap opex. Capex will also be very modest coamperd to many peers, off-take to downstream western monazite processors remains a problematic bottleneck as for all other hard rock wannabe developers. $200M is still not 'cheap' for any undeveloped project whose commodity is in a bear market 9maybe permanent bear market), but Kanga is also one of the very few non-Asian ionic clay insitu mines that can be profitable at these prices. In Australia Kanga would be worth a lot more than $200M even developer cum-raise imo... so what is the Malawi and Asimwe discount?

The best peer analogy I see is SVM, who has a rutile-graphite development project of world class but much higher capex in Malawi, currently in an early stage JV with RIO which may end up with a TO or RIO walking, who knows? SVM has a MC of A$250M with a recent PFS in September and now working towards a DFS which will no doubt drag out and include some pilot plant mine. Under $200M LIN starts looking attractive, especially if you believe RE prices will rise into higher, more sustainable long-term levels.

GLTAH