I agree that the ATR share register is problematic, though I don't think it can fully account for the huge discrepancy in valuation with VHM/Goschen based on traditional mining metricise such as total resource, grade and stage of development.
I shouldn't go into too much detail on the history of ATR on this thread, but in answer to your question as to why the Astron MD Tiger Brown holds 72% of the shares is that it is basically a family company founded by Tiger's father Alex Brown, a Kiwi who was one of the first westerners to establish a business in the PRC processing VHM and distributing zircon and titanium products in the 1980's, which was first listed on the ASX in 1983. They went on to take over the Donald project from CRA(?) around 2004.
When the old bloke passed on a couple of years ago, Tiger ( A Kiwi national I believe) inherited his entire share holding, with the second largest holder being Alex's widow and Tiger's mother Mdme Kang Rong (3.3%), a PRC born chemical engineer and ATR exec director. Even after the recent credit raise ATR continues to be tightly held with very limited liquidity. It would have been nice to get a few more outsiderers on the register but most of the CR shares were taken up by existing directors.
In addition to the share register issues there has been governance issues which have led to a couple of run-ins with the regulators over the years, shifting their listing to HKEX (ATR shares are currently listed as CDI's on the ASX) , and most recently an ill advised attempt to demerge the PRC titanium chemicals business into an unlisted Hong Kong corporate vehicle which was mercifully kiboshed when another of Alex's sons took them to court in Honkers. After that episode the (very) long term chair Gerard King went to the backbench and they appointed a new independent chair and an additional non exec. director.
So while I agree the ATR has share register and governance issues, I can't see it as justifying the current valuation gulf of approx 10x between VHM and ATR given the similarities in their Groschen and Donald mineral sands projects.
VHM Price at posting:
$1.17 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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