Talk of insolvency/VA is premature. With the cessation of...

Talk of insolvency/VA is premature.

With the cessation of operations and firing of staff, there's enough money to last a fair while. JZ, Pablo and family will want to be collecting their wages for years, and they'll mostly likely be able to. With fewer mouths at the trough and greatly reduced cash burn, they won't even require a CR until well into next calendar year now.

RIO obviously paid too much, given what everyone knows now. It was a bad move, but that's in the past. It's difficult to say how much they overpaid by, but with the benefit of hindsight I think everyone would agree that it was far too much.

The plant is probably worth approximately zero, and certainly not much more. It doesn't work, the people who designed and understood it best couldn't do anything useful with it. Now that it has been shut down, there's no point in someone else trying to make it work. RIO has their own methods and plans, they don't need to pick up someone else's failed backyard project, this is not at all RIO's style.

The land is worth very little, AGY just picked up more for free. RIO could buy AGY out for an affordable amount, but why would they? Why does RIO want some piddly little expansion, especially if they have to deal with Puna, all the contract nonsense organised by AGY, etc? They already have their own large project, why all the hassle for a little bit more worthless land, with a huge amount of hassle and complication?

If they wanted to buy AGY today they'd have to pay over $100M, which would be a non trivial amount even to them, for... basically nothing. The ponds aren't worth anything like that much, and there's little else of value. If they wait 6-12 months they can pick up AGY for a fraction of that. It's conceivable, but very unlikely.