You are kidding me right? $440,000 is not even a rounding error... I was rounding things off to the nearest $5M and possibly still way out. "in the money" options are even worse than nothing, because holders will sell shares to convert (when the day finally arrives) which also acts as a hedge against the price falling back again (ie if price falls back buy shares back, call it great trading. If price keeps rising you got those oppies going up in value). Not a big fan of oppies and not a fan of directors handing them out in non-brokered placements... wonder if any of the selling over 35c was Asimwe's friends hedging their very well-timed buy-in?
"In a few weeks time you will see which Top 20 holders if any have exited this past month"... maybe, maybe some just traded out then back in lower for not much/any change? The tell is a small change in holding from sloppy management (played well, make sure you have the same holding by the time Ann Report snapshot comes around). Not that I think this selling is driven by large LT holders as such. Someone posted a few days of broker data the other day and most of the big volumes were net buyers for a small trading profit (higher avg sell price than buy price). I think Kanga is the real deal and sure that others do to. So long as Malawi plays nice and management doesn;t fk it up...
"As for a takeover…65% of the stock is held by the Top20. This includes the Chairman, his siblings and friends"... stop it please, you're just triggering me again about all the well-timed placements, buying and selling in this stock. Regardless, despite the money to be made correctly trading the newsflow with good timing (the raison de'tre of most ASX explorers), the ultimate goal and payday is for large holders driving the stock into institutional portfolio's happy to take the baton at higher prices once Knaga is de-risked and profitable etc, and or M&A with a suitable exit for all who want.
The plan if possible; sell Guinea for upfront cash to China, plow that into 440ktpa Stage 1 'demo' plant, design demo plant for ~4.5% TREO feed not 3.5% lifting mon-con by 30% for same plant, power pull, tailings etc, then mine 3-4 years with a high grade control cut-off to meet 4.5% TREO ore feed. An extra 30% revenue from similar capex/opex goes straight to the bottom line. 440tpa at 4.5% TREO, 75% recovery would be 25ktpa mon-con containing 3000tpa NdPr, which is about what HAS wants to produce from $750M capex and $200M annual opex...
Shift the <3% TREo material into 'medium grade' and 'low grade' dumps left up on the edge of the mountain as cheap 'pre-mined ore' for when Stage 2, 1.5MT expansion is permitted, mine lease extension agreed upon etc (ie don;t commit to big Stage 2 capex without bringing forward a deal with the government on permits and extensions). Extra strip ratio wouldn't cost 10% of the extra revenue generated by high-grading the deposit gold mine style, all while staying 'medium-scale' as per mine lease, throughput, tailings etc.
This allows the West to build out downstream RE off-take capacity for Kanga to expand into (non-existent right now) while making big profits to pay for Stage 2 development, no more CR's and dealing with Malawi from some position of strength. Feed the lower grade broken ore under Stage 1 cut-off into a Stage 2 plant designed for lower grade when it's up and running (ie lower mass-pull from the spirals to feed into back-end of plant). Use Stage 2 to really get the lower grade, bulk mining economies of scale thing going.
A plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel... A thing of beauty, i'm sliding off the chair just thinking about it and haven;t even started drinking yet. But as you say, the destination will be bumpy and journey mapped out by those with bigger pockets than the likes of us. First thing is first imo... sell Guinea for cash if possible and take the cum-funding foot off our throat!
GLTAH
(20min delay)