Actually, Chalice have a long reliable history of paying shareholders generously and with quite a quick turnover of projects every 2 to 4 years by various methods. Worth comparing to the potential profitability and situation at VMS now too. If you're busy, just skim the blue and yellow bits;
eg from the most notable events that I recall best at CHN:
First Method: Capital Returns to Shareholders:
2010 final stage of Zara Project in Eritrea acquired in March (mostly acquired by merging with SubSahara Resources with shares in Chalice + about 1.6 mill in cash). By the end of the merger, Chalice still only had about 121 million shares on issue. Maiden Reserve announced in June (only 3 months later) + further exploration, then near mine drilling commenced by June the next year. Makes me wonder what a Chalice merger with VMS would look like for Thor, Odin & Kulin.
2011: Sale of Zara finalised to China SFECO Group, a subsidiary of Shanghai Construction, for $100mill-ish by Dec 2011. Tax paid to Eritrea of 38%. Transaction delayed for circa 6 months due to red tape in China. Makes me wonder what a sale of Mt Lindsay and Riley would look like for VMS.
August 2012, sale of Zara and a "Capital Return" to Shareholders of 10 cents per share with Ex date Dec 4th. Payment by Dec 14th made for a joyous Christmas. (ATO did not tax it as a dividend). SP had been about 10 cents before the capital return was announced, and was only about 12 cents in September, and then only rose to about 17 cents by the ex date. Price range is hauntingly similar to the recent rollercoaster for first shipment from Riley.
Bottom line: for everyone who had purchased Chalice at 3 cents in 2008 or 9 at the start of their Zara project (not only enjoyed the chance at a Disallowed, then another 5 bagger on the rollercoaster up to 38 cents by Dec 2010) they also had the option of just holding longer term for the $25mill capital return and still making more than 3 bags without needing to sell a single share. Then the SP settled back to around 10 cents again.
Rinse & Repeat:
2014: Chalice merged with Coventry in January to acquire the Cameron Gold Project in British Columbia at a cost of 46 million shares in Chalice on a pro rata basis... Then they upgraded the value by exploration and discovery of more targets. Wheeled n dealed on several other projects for the next 3 years.
2018: Another Capital Return to Shareholders. This time 4 cents while SP was still around 10 cents (ref Announcement Oct 1st 2018), rose to 12.5 cents before settling back around 11 cents. Stupidly, I missed that one.
But that's also around the time when Alex Dorsch took the helm. I met him at a conference and leapt back in. Within 3 months the share price had gained 50%... another two months after that and the rollercoaster began - initially at Pyramid Hill, before Julimar in March 2020
NEXT Methodof returning value to shareholders:
In 2014, they also announced an on-market buy-back in March for over 25 million shares which occurred in the price range of 10 to 12 cents per share.
Plus by December they bought back over 1700 unmarketable holdings (totalling over 1.7 million shares) were purchased at the generous price of 11.5 cents per share, then cancelled to improve value of shares to the remaining 1900 shareholders.
2016 Chalice sells Cameron Gold Project for over 32million shares in First Mining (TSX-V:FF) + a royalty. They also sold a few other little projects (Ardeen in Canada for more shares + royalty), and another on-market buy-back, this time over 28 million shares for about 21.5 cents per share.
2018, they sold their Canadian Projects, but this time, instead of a capital return or buy-back, they acquired the Flinders River & Julimar tenements... both of which were only labelled as Nickel-Vanadium tenements at the time, but Chalice noted the layered intrusions which they believed were prospective for Ni-Cu-PGE's... and got cracking with exploration.
Next method: Demerger with 1:3 in Specie Distribution:
2018, Chalice announced first drilling of large scale gold targets at Pyramid Hill in SA.
2019 to 2020, more drilling revealed they were hot on the trail of (their second) Tier 1 billion dollar baby (aside from the Gonneville tip of Julimar).
2021: The current demerger of Falcon with all of their Aussie based Gold projects. Ex Date yet to be announced. Perhaps while their SP has currently taken a hit from $9 to $6 due to current market conditions for Palladium etc. (note: the Macquarie valuation of the 2km Gonneville tip of Julimar = $9.70 with Palladium at a conservative future value of only $1000/t (currently over $2000)
RE previous JV's:
2010 and 2018 at Chalice are also interesting for VMS shareholders because:
a) in Sept 2010, Chalice withdrew from a JV opportunity with Newmont in Eritrea to continue exploring the tenement 100% on their own.
b) in 2018, CHN completed their 70% obligations in Canada under a 70:30 JV and then bought out the remaining 30% at a generous rate, which was still highly profitable for them. (ref: Announcement Sept 10, 2018).
Also interesting to note:
1) If you check their history of other various tenements, they also seem to work towards 100% control, and even buy-back several of the royalties in those deals as well.
2) Their practice has been to acquire and extend existing landholdings around hot targets as much as possible to help maximise potential value, solve any access issues, and attain other various benefits which ultimately improve value for shareholders. eg they have acquired 100% of another tenement already near Thor.
3) The JV for Thor is for 4 years, such a poignant time frame for them, after which they shall make a decision re Thor & Odin, which I feel confident that I am able to trust will be both fair and generous to VMS holders and also in the best interest of their own shareholders (based on all the previous instances of their highly reputable dealings with their previous JV partners (and where at least two smaller companies have been happily absorbed into them.)
This is not to suggest the same may happen to VMS, because:
a) Chalice has changed their name from Chalice Gold to Chalice Mining recently, which implies they intend to move from explorer, packager and seller of tenements to miner. (And their recent big govt grant for R&D suggests they are also pursuing a path to processing using new green technology, here in Australia, which may ultimately present us with an offtake partner for PGEs.)
b) Chalice don't seem to have any interest in Tin or Iron Ore, although the Tungsten and Copper at Mount Lindsay may... but prounounced slowly and hesitantly as maaaaaay, by the end of the 4 year JV period, by which time the whole world economy should have a much clearer direction in what is hopefully a post-covid planet.
Apologies for the novel length post, but it has been mentioned several times in various VMS threads that Chalice holders have suffered long periods without benefits as a comparison to LT VMS holders during the same period, but this is completely untrue and deserved much more than a glib response.
Actually, as I see it, long term CHN holders have made their money back several times in several ways over the same period that VMS shareholders have been enduring difficult conditions, even without profiting from the usual rollercoaster of pip trading.
But these returns to CHN shareholders are certainly difficult to see, because they don't show starkly on the charts, and they don't appear in any dividend records.
Still extremely interesting to VMS holders I think - and in many ways.
DYOR
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