Consistent Bot buyers and sellers in MAK are Lehman Brothers on the buy side, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch on the sell side.... recently.
Although MSDW and ML have been on the buy side some days as well.
With so many US based broking houses working MAK over on a daily basis, I can confirm that there are ceratinly US based "fertiliser savvy" institutions aware of MAK.
BBY have offices in London and NYC, so the most recent placement was put under the noses of some of the biggest institutional investors going around.
I know for fact that several NY and London based funds took stock in the $1.50 placement, so it is definately on overseas radars. As to whether or not they still hold, I would suspect that they definately took some profits above $2.00, but probably left themselves a free carried position and may even be reconsidering MAK now that we are below the placement price.
My broker told me that Atticus Capital (the group who gave Joe Gutnick $20million recently for his P2O5 project) have seen plenty of Aussie resource stories over recent years, and no doubt they would also be aware of MAK.
One of the challenges ahead of MAK in building a sophisticated/institutional shareholder base, is that it is highly unlikely that there will be big capital raisings where large institutions can get a big lick of scrip. By big, I am talking $20million+++ positions. There are plenty of Resources/Emerging Markets/Asia-Pacific funds out there who manage way more than $2Billion in a single fund. How many different stocks would you expect a Resources focused fund manager to be able to monitor and keep track of whilst maximising the returns for his fund... 100 different stock at the absolute most? Well that would mean an average position size (1%) of $20million.
Assuming MAK trades around $1.50 going forward, and the next raising (for argument's sake) is done at $1.50, and lets say that they even need to raise $80million for all future Wonorah capex and exploration... well then it will be very hard for big insto's to get set. The most likely result would be 30-40 institutions overbidding the book by 3-5 times, and the end result being 20-30 insto's getting positions, none greater than $5-6million... or 4million shares... max.
This does not mean that big insto's will shy away, far from it if the story adds up and the projects cashflows are realistic at the time, but the challenge will be in building a suitable position of exposure for a decent sized fund without sending the share-price into the stratosphere.
Make no mistake though, as the milestones towards production pass under the bridge and the boxes get ticked, then the risk of the project decreases. This gradually entices these institutions into buying on market, and as the SP rises, so MAK will join the ASX 300, ASX 200 and hopefully higher. This progress will make it mandatory for index weighted funds to take a position in the stock, providing further demand/support for the stock and pushing the price even higher.
Of course all this relies on a continually stong RP price, which underpins the entire project... however, strong peripheral events like the NT govt expanding the Darwin port, and the cresending chorus for the Mt Isa - Tennant Creek railway line all contribute to the increasing momentum for MAK which will eventually be reflected in the shareprice.
The pre-feas will be a signifcant event... lets just pray that global markets have not collapsed and instilled the deepest fear/depression in global investors.
AEV Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
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