There is little advantage buying at 6c via an SPP when the on-market SP is below 5c. Management probably had no interest in retail investors taking up shares, or not, and the SPP was probably to avoid criticism of Management obtaining a larger share of the ownership of WAK for peanuts.
If the two air classifiers on order allow WAK to produce K99F with a lower than 1% test residual at a particle-size distribution (PSD) ≤ 45 microns at a viable price, WAK's short-term plans may get back on track. I assume that WAK's top management were initially confident that K99F would, via the STANCO off-take agreement, give WAK the funding to develop other business for other sectors over time. Kaolin is a sticky business, and it takes years to build up customer relationships. That non K99F business includes precursors for ceramics and paper sectors for further beneficiation in China.
I have without success tried to get an idea of the extra COGS (cost of goods sold) that an air-classification step would add to producing K99F. It should not be too demanding, because air classifiers are efficient when the PSD of the input is close to the PSD of the output. Also, many kaolin products, including precursors, are not demanding in respect to PSD, so WAK can rebalance its K99 separation technology to make it more efficient, and where required, shift the PSD task of meeting a tighter test residue (perhaps > 0.5%) at ≤ 45 microns to the classifiers. Classifiers are designed to be efficient at sharp cut-point accuracy, which K99 technology is not designed to do efficiently - K99 was designed to achieve high throughput efficiently, and to a degree, the two efficiencies are mutually exclusive.
On a question of terminology, to be pedantic, "separators" separate different types of material (for example, silica sand from kaolin), and "classifiers" separate one material (kaolin) to meet desired PSD specifications. That the K99 separator technology achieves its degritting by size discrimination is incidental, it is the purpose that counts, not the method. In WAK's case both steps, degritting (separating) and reducing the test residue percentage of a PSD ≤ 43 microns (classifying) are based on particle-size discrimination. Written material, including WAK's announcements tend to use "classify" and "separate" ambiguously.
Time will tell if my optimism is misplaced, or not. Being in my 80s, I do not have as much time as I would like to have as a holder of WAK shares.
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