All companies would have to decide on the correct time to raise...

All companies would have to decide on the correct time to raise money and i assume they thought the better option was to wait.

Hindsight tells us that they should have raised and Leapzig was suggesting it. They most probably aren't going to Hotcopper for advice though.

I think when you look at the management team, they ran Alkane for many years and kept the issue of shares to a minimum except when they needed money to build Tomingley. That was a good decision to raise at that point as the income from Tomingley is now greatly supporting Alkane as they expand the mine and explore the NMPP. The money also helped ASM into its demerger.

That experience would have been used with ASM but the rise and fall of the share price was very quick and it seems it caught a lot of people off guard.

They would have always known they needed to raise money for the DZP but Australian Govt. money is promised, they are expecting to sell a portion of the project and they may be able to extract money from offtake partners, foreign Govt's and then there is the equity market.

They have been looking at this for years but as can be seen from their competitors it takes time. From what i know only Lynas, Arafura and Iluka are funded or currently running a mine. I think Hastings might be on the way to being funded but not sure.

ASM seem to have a unique project with a diversity of metals and it appears from the quarterly a lot of interest in a few of the products. They have also developed a titanium product line which seems like a good move at this time.

My main worry right from demerger was that they had a risk of product supply for the metal plant. They did a deal with Komir which was for KOMIR to supply raw material for the plant. Not sure what is happening there but obviously management is trying to secure supplies. We will see how that develops.