Very interesting thread with a number of good posts with...

Very interesting thread with a number of good posts with interesting ideas behind it. But everybody has to make up its own mind, so I have tried to distill what I read and what I think about this into this post. Hope you all like it.

1) Discount impossible or not?
Many people consider this investment by SS good as it did not happen at a discount. Factually this is correct and in fact they are now paying 12% more (11.2 vs 10c) then what they paid to take over the JRO shares. However, if JRO had never gotten into financial problems and did not have to sell its million of shares where would the AJM SP have been? So discount or not is really a very relative matter. IMHO the AJM is currently significantly undervalued and thus I consider this to have been at a discount. Or at least at a price which is very favorable for SS. Nonetheless I am happy that we now have almost 20% of the shares being in stable hands once again. Good for the AJM future.

2) The Good, the bad, the ugly quarterly?
Interesting debate regarding the timing of this investment just before the quarterly. Was it AJM who pushed SS into investing before bringing out a bad/poor quarterly report? Or was it SS pushing AJM to not bring out the quarterly until they had struck a deal. Given that SS most likely had insight into all the numbers before taking over the JRO shares and certainly now before investing 22.5m$ I am sure that the quarterly will not be bad. If AJM would have be having a bad quarter the SP would certainly have dropped when reporting that. SS would have know that and would have waited a couple of weeks with this investment and get even more shares or for less money (staying below the 20%). So I agree with those who think the quarterly will be fine or even good as this would have motivated SS to make the move now rather then in a few weeks.

3) To TO or not to TO?
I personally see no signs nor any interest from SS side in doing a TO of AJM. This is really a strategic move from SS to ensure their lithium supply. So no risk of TO from SS side, quite the contrary I would say. This investment by SS will help AJM to protect itself against any possible TOs, especially hostile ones.

4) The Debt killing stone
This I think is really the main negative issue/hurdle AJM still has to overcome. The 15% interest rate on the large debt is killing a lot of the upside potential. I hoped that the investment of SS had an extra component, not just a 22.5m$ equity but also some prepayment for the offtake. AJM really had to significantly reduce its debt and/or the interest it is paying for it. This should now also be in the interest of SS. So although I am currently rather unhappy with this deal being merely a 22.5m$ equity deal I am still hopeful that there is more to come. AJM must reduce its debt burden and/or the interest rate (i.e. refinance) as soon as possible.

All in all the AJM/SS strategic partnership does give AJM a very solid backing. But some more stones are needed to make the fundamental really rock solid!