Madagascar has taken US$200m from the world bank, and taken the piss, simply put. Typical for this part of the world unfortunately, lip service vs action vs outcomes vs self-serving power struggles and cronyism. Beggars belief the President can keep his hand out for aid across a spectrum of world charities to pay for disaster relief and famines etc, while making precious little progress developing mining activities to actually help themselves... Actually retracted, simply typical for this part of the world.
Meanwhile, i hope for shareholders sake this situation has been so thoroughly leaked by the company and major holders like Regal who can afford to pay for the right advice in-country back when, instead of listening to management's guidance, it's all now priced into the market. For the last 18 months or so Toliara approval/deal looked dependant on the mining code being sorted to define the terms of such a deal. Of course we wanted to believe a deal was always very close, but at the same time we all saw the mining code negotiations and industry consultation dragging out in snippets of public newsflow.
On what basis management understood this mining code pre-requisite, lack of intent on the President's behalf to front-run the mining code on BSE's behalf, yet kept up the charade of "good news soon" I'd love to know. I sold out completely around last August after the whole local community PR campaign to pressure the government into a deal, all while shelling out free cash as divi's because those actions clashed so badly with guidance. History has proven I was right to call BS, wrong to get back in low 20's too early because the carrot of good news soon, and bait of not missing out one morning if the deal got done looked too good to ignore.
Oh well, win some you lose some. PS... note to management, stop spending ~$2M per quarter on whatever largess is being logged against a dead idle Toliara project and monazite desktop study that's already older than religion.
GLTAH
BSE Price at posting:
16.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)