Hi Don, to use ABC parlance, I’ve discussed this with my “brains trust” and the consensus is that JORC upgrades are the ace up RSK’s sleeve, and will be the card played last - or possibly not at all. Before posters point out that he doesn’t have a choice and must disclose and market sensitive information immediately under the listing rules, that’s correct, but I don’t think it trumps his obligations as a director to his shareholders under the Corps Act. Accordingly, I don’t think it is too long a bow to draw that it is in shareholders’ interests not to make this announcement now, for a couple of reasons. Assuming that all terms (royalties, additional MLs, etc) still haven’t been agreed (I think they have, at least at a high level) it puts RSK in a stronger bargaining position with our Thai business partner in negotiations as any concessions will be much harder to extract if we have already announced we have the equivalent gold resources of TWO Chatree gold mines, not just one. “Look what we gave you already”… Secondly, if the JORC upgrade card is played, it makes much more sense to announce this after an Akara IPO that can then be well received by all the Thai mum and dad investors. Timing an announcement this way (same with announcements on royalties) won’t give the opposition ammunition to use against the government - the opposite actually. This is also why I think the details have been agreed. The delay will be around getting all the approvals from the various arms of government, (bureaucracy in motion if you will) to bring this IPO to the Stock Ex of Thailand (SET).
Pure speculation I know, but it seems logical.
Separately, is it just me who isn’t surprised that with the funding announcement made that the SP has barely moved? Not that there was any doubt anyway, but that was the reason for the SP decline being touted by HC’s chicken littles.
Clearly this isn’t the case, it’s as simple as one (or possibly more but related parties) Institutional investors deliberately suppressing the price. Ross could have found diamonds with the gold and the SP could still go down!
Have a look at the sale of 19,437 shares at $1.27 in the photo below from Tuesday’s close at 4:01pm. 30 seconds earlier that order had been at $1.33, so clearly they aren’t trying to maximise profits - which was integral to the High Court of Australia’s definition (DPP vs JM) as to what constitutes an artificial price. They are trying to push the price down, no other explanation.
As noted by Fitzroy et al, it looks pretty quiet when you only see the genuine market participants once the Bots log off and go home for the day (second photo). Buybacks please Ross! Pick up the phone to Investec and start the $20m buyback advocated by Gymjunky now. I really don’t see the downside in bringing a buyback forward.
(20min delay)
