Right. Oh money mine is.
We are kicking off your Monday with a bang.
Three stories today, Min Rez, Ellison update quarterly, Name
and Shame and Rio Tinto in Mongolia.
What a start to the week trap. What?
Dono, you, you gave it the Yeah, the righto that I remember when
I've intro without Maddie. No one's happy when you don't
start with the right. Oh.
Oh God, I probably need another 50 decibels but that's OK.
You and I today, Ali, how was your weekend?
It was good, good buddy sorting stuff for weddings.
All that and then back into it this week.
So it was. It was better than better than
the min Res boards weekend you reckon?
I I think probably marginally better.
Let's let's RIP the band aid off Trev.
So yeah, update out today from Min Res as an update on
corporate governance and and this ship succession.
So take us through the high points and what it all means.
It was a bit like, a bit like Christmas Eve waiting for the
verdict and what was what was going to happen to, to Allison.
And today we've got the verdict from the board because you know,
last week they basically said, you know, we're going to provide
more information about what the findings are and, and what our
decisions are on the 4th of November.
Keep in mind, it was only, it was only last trading day.
I think it was the 31st of October that minerals like
announced their quarterly and simultaneously announced that's
all the gas to the Gino share price shot up.
And now today the update on corporate governance share price
tanks 10%. I mean, like it's just it's
amazing the the the volatility you see mineral share price and
kind of it also probably just like an underwrites how how
paranal kind of our public markets are and how sensitive
they are to just like sentiment and vibes in a lot of ways too.
But the high notes, Ali, the high notes on what actually came
out today. OK, Allison's going to stay on
as MD for 12 to 18 months as the the board accelerates a
succession plan. Allison is going to incur board
imposed financial penalties of of 8.8 million consisting of
$3.8 million to be paid to min res and a $5,000,000 donation to
charity staged in $1 million increments over the years.
Allison's unvested Ltis and and STIs will immediately be
forfeited and the proposed award percent incentives at the
upcoming AGM will be withdrawn. Collectively that could be up to
$9.6 million in in remuneration there.
And the chair James Mcclements will be departing the board as
well by the next AGM. And there's like where's the
effect that board evolution will continue.
So sort of expect more turnover on the board front in due course
to to play out as well. Yeah.
And the share price, I mean, look at the chart today, right,
There's a pretty, pretty dramatic drop, yeah, on open.
And then it sort of slowly recovered a little bit, but sort
of lost at most around 10% earlier today, didn't it?
A. 100% so in which you want to like deduce like what's the what
are the forward looking consequences of the governance
kerfuffle that has engulfed corporate Australia's attention
engulfed my attention. I'm like, I'm hooked, maybe
rightfully or wrongfully, but I'm hooked.
And like you, you look at the share price, it's come off.
It's been volatile as all hell. I'm kind of curious, Ali,
before, before I sort of give my, my takes, you're a Ding,
Ding, Ding. I'm in res you've I am, you've
owned this stuff for a while. How do you actually feel as a
shareholder in in response to what the Board has actually come
out with today and the market's response to?
Yeah. Look, it's, it's an interesting
one, right? And I've trying to balance,
yeah, this say from a min res perspective, you know, the need
to sort of take appropriate actions to address these, you
know, very important governance issues, but also trying to
retain some sort of near term level of stability in the
business and, you know, confidence in the, in the board
and the company's plans going forward.
It's, it's, it's quite a tricky 1 to do.
And overall, I think the, the response from the board was
reasonably strong, perhaps more than I think people expected or
I personally expected. I think the leadership
transition component in my view was sort of an attempt to like
strike this balance I've just spoke about before because you
sort of think, you know, if they let Chris go straight away, you
know, would this have perhaps created a lot, eroded a lot more
value, created more instability, you know, in the short term.
But in saying that, you know, 12 to 18 months is also a long
time, you know, and, you know, markets are pretty myopic.
So you know, that might weigh further on the stock too.
And you know, today's announcements addressed, you
know, a range of things, it's addressed a fair bit and it's
sort of set out, you know, a plan or some sort of a plan
going forward. But there's still, you know,
there's, as they say in the announcement, there's still
certain things they're completing enquiries on.
So therefore, there's still some unknowns.
So personally, I've got mixed feelings to be honest.
And this is all while the business is experiencing
commodity price headwinds, balance sheet pressure, which
you know, is somewhat alleviated by the, the gas deal with, with
Jana last week. You know, it's, it's a step in a
direction, but I feel like there's still a lot of, you
know, water to go under the bridge.
Yeah, yeah, big time. There's as as it seems like
every single day that goes by, there's new talking points in
amongst the. The announcement actually came
out today, yeah, including a litany of of new use the word
allegations. But in reality, that seems like
admissions which have have surfaced both in the media and
in Minarez's own statement, which kind of are incredibly
damning in their own own right. So over the weekend, they if I
revealed that Allison and some of the early execs were were
renting properties to Minarez well above market rate with
aggressive rental hikes along the journey.
There was another article that detailed that, you know, the
whole kind of deplorable set of circumstances around the Kelly
Metals series of events was revealed that Minarez's in house
execs, including the CFO, Mark Wilson, Yan Ong and Josh Sterler
were all participants in that IPO.
But what I actually think is the the most damning of all of the
things to kind of come out in the last couple of days is this
one paragraph in Munoz's announcement today, which
honestly have to work to read word for word.
It says the board has also concluded that Mister Allison on
occasions used company resources for his personal benefit.
This is included directing company employees to work on his
boat and properties, directing a company employee to manage his
personal finances, and using the company to procure goods and
services for his private use. The Board is satisfied that the
use of Minrez resources and assets in this way was not has
not caused material financial detriment to the Company.
Where Mr Allison has used the Company to procure goods and
services, procedures existed to ensure that he paid the Company
for these goods and services. Wow.
That's a fucking staggering statement, Ellie.
Like. And I mean it.
And there's no real detail on the actual quantum no in the
announcement, no. Procure goods and services for
his private use, that is, it's such a broad sentence.
It it it appears to me like the Tronic kind of front run, what
the future kind of allegations might actually be here with a
bit of a broad brush statement that might be a bit of a catch
all. And it de escalates things and
categorises it as as old news as as maybe new articles surface to
that end. But but I mean, it's just a
crazy it's a crazy like it's a crazy admission.
I just think it's such a damning admission in and of itself as
well. Like, like what, you know, a
bunch of our listeners, a huge amount of our listeners work in
the industry. They work for mining companies
or, or whatnot. What would happen to any one of
them if, if it just so happened that, that they started just
putting personal expenses on the, on the company card?
Oh, you get fucking fired. You'd have to pay it all back
and you'd be sacked too. It's just crazy.
And like you said, there's no, there's no detail in that
paragraph which actually states what the number is of, of
resources that were actually kind of, you know, allocated
from company, company funds to Chris's personal use case.
Yeah. And I mean, they've obviously
made a determination that they believed well in their words,
you know, has not caused material financial detriment to
the company. You know, that's more like a
quantum definition of of material or, you know, value,
but one could argue could be material in nature.
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
And and on your point on materiality as well, like I've
publicly taken issue with the ways that this company has has
determined what isn't isn't material in the past.
Chris himself has said in the past, you know, I'm never going
to tell you how much we paid for Bald Hill, things like that,
right, which other people could argue were material at the time.
We're not disclosed to the public.
So there's do we always believe what the company tells us is
material versus not material? We supposed to just take their
word for it. I think the board needs to
disclose what the number is, right?
That's kind of just how I see it.
I think that's an important thing because how are you
supposed to assess if the financial punishment here is
appropriate if you don't know how much money was actually, you
know, misappropriated in the first place?
That's that's kind of like So what what we've got today is.
What actually was that? That they sort of set out the
board. Yeah, they, they, they said
18,000,000, like if you add, add it all up, call it, you know,
roughly $18 million of, of financial punishment here.
But I don't think much of that is actually like real money.
So you got $3.8 million of cash is to be repaid to Minrez.
That's kind of like the only money in there that I'd
categorise as like real cash punishment because that's for,
that's for the Far East payments, which sort of
happened, OK, as as many as like 20 years ago.
But it doesn't include interest expense on those payments.
It's been like 20 years of like inflation like in, you know,
interest should probably be applied to that in other self.
Then you got $5,000,000 charitable charitable
contribution staged in $1 million payments per year.
Like charitable contribution. What does that mean?
What? Does that mean like is could he
get away with, you know, donating that money to a charity
that one of these related parties has created, for
example, like, like how is how is he going to get a tax
deduction on that charitable contribution?
Like I think some parameters around that, the mechanism here
are important in order to actually like, like, how else
are you supposed to assess if what the board has come down
with here as punishment is actually appropriate for the
litany of allegations, PR and admissions, by the way, that
about, about Allison and you know, his activities.
And then you've got up to $9.6 million in, in incentives in
these STIs and LTIS which are forfeited.
That's a fair game. Like they, in my opinion, ought
to lapse if you depart the company as a bad lever.
Like these are like, you know, standard clauses in in your
incentive programmes when you leave the company as a bad
lever, you, you know, your unvested performance rights
lapse, that's just they're forfeited.
Should we actually be including that there is part of the the
quantifiable financial punishment to Chris?
I just, I just think there's it's kind of hard to to provide
commentary on the appropriateness of the financial
punishment if we actually don't know the financial quantum of.
You don't have all the information at hand, right?
Yeah. And I don't think taking the
headline values included here are the appropriate numbers to
actually use to, to to talk about the financial punishment
either because it's just that's in my opinion, not real money.
And I mean, what, what's your views on the, the transition
period, firstly as as an approach as opposed to, you
know, just just letting Chris go today versus, you know, over a
period of time, but then also the the period itself.
What are your thoughts on that? I.
Think. I think a cynic could argue
that, yeah, 12 to 18 months is a is a hell of a long time to
source an appropriate successor. And you know, you can you can
fairly ask a question like why why would it take that long?
I think if you look at what's the commentary that's been
provided to the media and in in an article that's already gone
up is 13 of the 15 largest shareholders were pretty keen on
on Chris staying around for this like transition period to
provide stability like you talked about.
You can see it from both lenses, but I don't I don't actually
like like him transitioning out of company in 12 to 18 months
time is like, why does he have to do that in remain as MD, for
example, why can't one of the maybe one of the board members
who might be newer pop in as an interim, an interim MD and Chris
has to report to her like over the next 12 to 18 months, for
example. So you can have the stability
required, but you also potentially have the someone
who's cleaning up the mess, who's accountable for that and
maybe hasn't been like caught up in all of the all of the the
deplorable kind of things that we're seeing here.
Yeah, it's it that's it's just such a tricky thing just trying
to strike that balance of yeah, the stability or what we can
perceive as trying to achieve stability.
But you know, just moving on to the to the next step and the and
the in the future of Min Rez as well without, you know, having
to take hopefully too, too long as as well.
Yeah, it's, there's so many different ways you can slice and
dice it trying to balance those two things.
Yeah, there's, there's this attestation in the announcement
Ali, which I wanted to read specifically as well.
It says Mr Allison has apologised to the board.
He has confirmed that there are no matters not already known to
the board for him to disclose that would or could bear upon
whether he is fit and proper person to continue the role as
Managing director. And there are no undisclosed
transactions between the company or its subsidiaries and entities
associated with. Interesting, very interesting
statement. And like, my instincts tell me
that the, the media pressure is not going anywhere.
It's been like consistent throughout.
There's yeah, stuff popping up already in response to, to, to
this. So, but like, if what is being
spotlighted today by the press is the tip of the iceberg and
that there are there's like, you know, more to come.
What are the implications to to to Chris Allison based on that
attestation that he has provided the board and the board has has
written in words in this announcement today.
Because if more things come up, it's more damning in nature or
equally damning in nature that hasn't been kind of disclosed
yet. Like it's almost a a like that's
that's that's the recipe to have to depart far a fair bit earlier
than 12 to 18 months If if more damning things surface.
I think Ellie. Yeah.
And look, there's quite a quite a few takes or different
perspectives sort of from across the landscape today.
Take us through a few of them, Trev.
All right, I'll share a couple of things that are are popping
up around the ground. Sally.
Chuck Chunda says spot the company with corporate
governance issues, and he's got a a map of companies by market
cap on ASX. And the bright red one there is,
of course, Minrez. Roland, who's been providing
some unfiltered commentary on LinkedIn, says the Minarez saga
has followed the trajectory of all major PR disasters.
Wrongdoing followed by concealment.
Obscuration followed by discovery.
Revelation followed by scandal. Denial followed by stubbornness.
Song and dance followed by capitulation.
James Thompson writes Almost any of the examples above would be
grounds to immediately sack Allison and virtually any other
organisation in this country. And then later in his article
call, he says. But surely this is a good
example of investor Stockholm syndrome, as you'll see talking
to the fact that shareholders want him to hang around, and
then Speaking of what shareholders actually think. 1
of Minrez's shareholders with a 6.4% interest in the country is
activists hedge fund L1 Capital. They have been quoted on record
as saying. As the largest shareholder in
Minrez after Chris Ellison, L1 Capital is supportive of
strengthened corporate governance protocols and
oversight. L1 Capital is supportive of
Chris Ellison remaining as CEO with a more appropriate
corporate governance structure in place.
We've engaged with many large mean shareholders in recent days
and we understand there is widespread shareholder support
for Chris remaining as CEO over the medium term given his track
record of delivering enormous shareholder value over many
years. And that's a fairpoint, but it's
to what end as well, right, Because I think that's like the
whole the whole thing for the long term in red shareholders to
grasp and grapple with is for so long you've glorified this
charismatic founder as a founder LED business who's been on your
team. The revelations that are coming
out now. It's like, no, maybe he wasn't
actually always specifically on my team.
Maybe, maybe he was on his team. Yeah.
And I think it's just coming, coming to terms with that,
right. And you know, you see the L1
guys here, you know, they're sort of saying that the the more
appropriate governance structures in place perhaps is
enough for them to sort of remain comfortable for for
others it's not. And.
To be fair, like I want capital, they're not the sort of
shareholder that like buy stock and sits in it for two years.
They're like in and out kind of shareholders.
They'll be writing it until some catalyst and then leaving.
So, but there are other many other shareholders on that
register who have been around for a very long time.
And then the last perspective on I want to share is from dry
Blower, who's put out an article already kind of spreaking the
merit of a Glencore takeover here.
OK, but why does dry blower think that?
I think it's it's an interesting proposition, but I don't think
Glencore are going to come sort of save the day for university
shareholders anytime soon for a bunch of reasons.
Like one, like the bare own balance sheet is somewhat
restrictive at the moment to now consider what it would look like
if they did. The debt fund and acquisition
have been raised, including assuming in Rez's existing debt
as well. They're not going to equity fund
an acquisition. And I think Glenn Gore's got
time on their side as well. You don't like like you don't
have to rush into something here like, yeah, you've got you got
time on your side. The one possibility out there I
think you can just never quite rule out is what Gina does or
doesn't do. On Friday, she was calling Chris
a friend, but what price does she turn to Chris and suggest,
do you want to just take this company private again?
Right, Because I'm pick if if you're if you got all of this
public spotlight and you don't want it and being private is
what a wonderful thing to have again.
And yeah, none other than than Gina Rinehart and her like many,
many billions of dollars could facilitate that.
But you wouldn't be baking that in as your base case.
No. Just ask lying down shareholders
what that's like so. Yeah, no, no, it's a fascinating
1. I mean, I mean, she's certainly
got enough cash to do it. But you know, whether she she
feels like that those assets and and services businesses are, you
know, appropriate for Hancock's a whole another question, right?
You never know. You never know.
You never know, Ellie. You never know.
Oh, look, I mean, I'd just be imagining, you know what, what
it must feel like for the for the min res board at the minute,
you know, navigating all of this under some immense pressure,
right? It would it would probably feel
like the roof is is falling in on them to be honest.
Ellie. Very intense 1.
I wonder, I do wonder if Sandvik's ground support could
actually alleviate that. Ellie.
Oh, that's a good shout. You know it does actually stop
the roof from falling in in in other applications underground
mines all over the globe. They choose Sandvik ground
support to keep their workers safe.
Get. Reliable deliveries of bolts,
mesh and all the ground support accessories you could possibly
think of. So in fact, I actually, I
actually spoke with several underground workers in in mines
that rely on sanity ground support.
And you know what they said, Ellie?
What did they say? Said.
I feel safe, I feel protected. I feel free.
I bet that's all you want to hear, right?
Especially working underground is, you know, it's a pretty
scary thing and that's all you want to feel safe and protected.
I bet the board Mendrez wishes they felt that way.
Maybe it's not too late for them to Chuck ADSI order.
And it's not too late for you either.
Give Derek, Kurt and his team a call.
Stock up on some Sandvik ground support money minus all.
Righty. Good work, Trev.
Now it's that time of year again.
It's it's quarterly's name. Shame.
So for those companies who basically put their quarter
quarterly at the absolute latest time on the last day possible.
So no, we didn't forget, even though the quarterly's
technically finished last Thursday, you know, half of them
put put them out on the on the last day of the month.
But crazily, something like almost 100 companies not only
put them on the last day out, but aftermarket on the last day
out, which just baffles the mind.
And I feel like this segment just absolutely reminds me of
for those who are familiar with Frank's Costanza's Festivus
scene in Seinfeld. I don't think I've seen this
actually. I'll play it for.
You tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances.
I got a lot of problems with you people.
Now you're going to hear about it.
Yo, Kroger, my son tells me your company stinks.
What? You get yours in a minute,
Kroger. You couldn't smooth a soaked
sheet if you had a hot date with a babe.
I lost my train of thought. Oh, gosh.
All right, let's let's do it. We're Oh yeah, I feel like
there's some repeat offenders on this list, which is appalling to
see to be honest. Oh God all right, so let's yeah
let's do a rapid file on the the 10 latest quarters that came out
aftermarket last Thursday. I'll get us kicked off.
So min boss. 8:23 PM Sydney time.
There are 38 mil market company advancing a phosphate fertiliser
project in Angola finished the quarter with only 1.2 million
cash and 80% of this quarter's spend was on staff, admin and
corporate costs. But they are finalising a bunch
of funding from the Angolan sovereign Wealth Fund and the
International Development Corporation South Africa to
advance their projects. So perhaps they're working on
Angolan time when submitting this quarterly.
On to the next one. Strike Resources SRK 815 PM, $10
million market cap with an iron ore deposit in Peru also at
27.7% shareholder in lithium energy spent out of strike back
in 2021. But look at the cash balance was
6.1 million, which you typically wouldn't expect for someone
reporting at this time of the evening.
Seems like they're trying to secure approvals to support
upcoming expiration plans, so no excuses to not report on time
next quarter. Strike.
Get your shit together. Get your stuff together.
Speaking of Lithium Energy, Lithium Energy, 804 PM.
They were the third latest quarterly reporter.
They're currently suspended from trade because ASX believes the
recent sale of their Solara's lithium brine project for that
like US $63 million, which, you know, completion is still
pending. A few conditions constitute a
disposal of the company's main undertaking.
So this suspension will remain in place until ASX believes it
has, you know, sufficient operations to justify very
quotation or, you know, basically recomplying with the
ASX listing rules again, which, you know, they probably have to
buy another asset or something. They're also spinning out some
graphite assets. And so fortunately, you know,
they should hopefully have a bit of cash coming through, assuming
all these deals complete, you know, fun in US and get back on
their six boards. They finished with 2.4 million
cash. Like being suspended, there's no
excuse for not reporting on time.
I know. Come on guys.
Fuck this company. Horseshoe Metals 7:58 PM.
I've said this company's name twice already in name and shame.
What the actual fuck are you still doing reporting
aftermarket? This is deplorable.
They are a regular tiny $6 million market cap company.
The only price sensitive announcements this year were
their quarterly and an announcement back in April about
evaluating a strategy to accelerate the cash flow from
potential DSO sales of its existing copper stockpiles.
This process still seems to be underway.
In last week's Quarterly finished the quarter with a
measly $1000, but it has $1 million in unused financing
facilities that can draw on Ellie.
I mean jeez, that $1000 cash left in the bank is body cutting
it fine, that's for sure. But that's still enough to get a
free insurance review from CRA. What an offer?
What an offer. With $1000, yeah, you can hope
the Horseshoe is up the right way.
There's some good luck there because CRA will review your
insurance policies for you. They might need some insurance
policies, Ali. Yeah, So what an offer give give
Dave Adam Atari from Sara a call.
They'll do a free order of all your existing insurance to see
if you have any gaps or exposures.
They're across insurance for heaps of commodities and
jurisdictions, from gold in West Africa to coal in Queensland.
The insurance ace is second to none.
Do yourself a favour, organise an insurance review with CRE
Today phone numbers in the show notes And who knows, the dollars
you might be able to save on insurance policies could be
directed to dollars in the ground.
What a win. Win it.
Could be, yeah. I don't have many dollars though
but. A couple extra dollars are
better than I. Reckon I reckon CRE's advice
might just be to stop fucking reporting late.
Arcadia Minerals 7:57 PM. Even tiny company than
Horseshoe. Barely $4 million.
Market cap. Share price basically halves
since the start of the year. They've got significant
austerity measures and cost reductions to preserve cash
reserves implemented. Only $55,000 cash at the end of
the quarter. Righty Golden deep 747 another 5
million mark Cap A6 Mino had a big share price spark in early
September off the back of some copper and silver hits, but then
now they're back to their usual trading range.
Better cash balance and some of the peers we've spoken about
today, 4.6 million, but admittedly they raised 1.8
during the quarter and they spent only 700K on expiration.
I think those are copper hits featured in Devils in the detail
one one of the days too early. Yeah, the dork experts out there
took plenty of issues with that one.
Middle stage, right? 7:47 PM Fancy cover page for
their quarterly report. Also secured working cap
facility the day before the quarter released up to
$5,000,000 to move forward a Slovakian gold project.
Fortunately, because they only had $73,000 cash at the end of
the quarter, I, I remember doing a deep dive on this company like
and just bizarre series of events.
I'm keeping my eyes on it, Ellie.
I've got my suspicious eyebrows kind of taped upwards.
Friday, BMG Resources 740. They're a little gold junior
doing a strategic review on their Abercrombie gold project.
So is it for sale? Basically, they did a scoping
study on it as well very recently.
They finished the quarter only with $96,000.
Fortunately, they have commenced discussions with brokers for the
purpose of raising capital, so see how they go there.
I love when you see the yeah, like how you're going to get by
the next quarter. It's like, yeah, we've we've
kicked off. We are coming.
We're. Chatting with the brokers.
Redstone Resources 7:39 PM Sub $3,000,000 market cap company
accelerating its, you know, copper expiration in the coming
months at West Musgrave Project WA.
Feels like, you know, the drilling has been planned for
the last few quarters. Expiration results that we could
find. We're almost 18 months old with
only sort of 800,000 bucks cash in the bank, largely thanks to
an Rd refund received in the quarter.
Expect better reporting timing next period.
Redstone. Diablo Resources 738 Last one
for today though, don't worry, there's still plenty that were
after aftermarket. This is the smallest company
we've spoken about today. 2,000,000 market cap just show
off 400,000 bucks of cash at the end of the quarter.
Share prices more than half since the start of the year.
Another one of those companies whose price sensitive
announcements, you know whose only price sensitive
announcements for the year were so far were the quarterly
reports. They say the following in their
in their quarterly, they're saying they're actively
reviewing opportunities focusing primarily on more advanced drill
ready projects. The company's low EV and tight
capital structure make it exceptionally well placed for
project acquisition. I'm not sure how 1.6 million EV
well places you for project acquisition, but.
To shell OK, but. What a shell.
But what does it say about the exploration prospects that
they've already got if they're looking outwardly?
Oh, Jase, it's. It's an admission we are a shell
company. Oh.
So and, and that wraps it up. That's actually our last
quarterly name and shame for for this the year.
Trev, there you go. Oh.
Jeez, get your shit together next year guys, 2025. 2025 make
it the year of reporting before. It's OK if it's on the last day,
but do it before you know market close.
Alrighty, last one for the day, Trev.
Rio Tinto in Mongolia and entree resources.
What? What is all of this about?
Well, I I think it's actually really interesting and
admittedly it was it was completely off my radar.
So Pete Kerr, he reported that Rio Tinto's chief flew to
Mongolia on the weekend and in an attempt to strike a deal with
this Canadian listed junior called Entree resources and the
Mongolian government in relation to it's what you talk like
copper project. Why is it interesting Ali?
This is one of those awesome times in, in kind of, you know,
corporate history where a listed junior is sort of successfully
holding out and causing real pain in the butt for a major
like Rio Tinto. Entree Resources, they're TSX
listed junior with a market cap of 370 million Canadian dollars.
And it's, it's been quite the tear over the last like five
years. But Entree has a 20% carried
interest in part of Oye Tolgoi with with Rio and the Mongolian
government in JV Pete reports that Oyo Tolgoy is extracting
rock from an underground zone called Panel Cave Zero and it's
scheduled to start extracting from a new high grade area
called Panel Cave One in the next couple of months.
Now Rio's not been able to convince Entree to sell its
rights over the tenement. Today the impasse from Entree
threatens to disrupt Oyo Tolgoy's mine plan because
construction of Panel Cave 1 cannot go ahead until Rio and
Entree have done a deal if one can.
If a deal can't be reached within the next 8 weeks, then
Rio will be forced to take a stop gap stop measures in 2025
such as mining in lower grade sections of the rock, which will
lead to lower copper production volumes and revenues.
And even says that a source close to talks confirmed the
situation was now urgent and Rio would strongly prefer to start
building Panel Cable One as soon as possible.
What an amazing set of circumstances this is like a
real life corporate, you know, David and Goliath type
situation, isn't it? The little guy, it is David and
Goliath, but it's one where, yeah, the little guy actually
has all of the negotiating, like leverage.
It's so rare, fascinating, so rare to say that the minority in
the JV has the upper hand in the negotiations.
But this sure seems like one of those event opportunities our
markets dish up from time to time.
They're really fascinating. Watch play out.
There are also opportunities for people that are paying, you
know, really close attention to the details.
I'll be watching closely to see what happens here.
Ali Entrees two big shareholders are Rio Chinto themselves, who
own 16%. There's also Horizon Copper
Corp, who own 24%. Who are they?
They are a listed company. I was trying to figure out why
it only had a media market cap itself of of 67,000,000.
And it turns out Sandstorm, the royalty company, Sandstorm
actually own a bunch of debentures in Horizon's cap
structure too. So EV of Horizon is closer to
230 million Canadian dollars. All of this is just going to
make for popcorn viewing with respect to deal negotiations and
yeah, pretty interesting like a thing for the shareholders of on
trade to just watch play out I reckon.
So we'll be keeping an eye on that one, Ellie.
Yeah. I mean, how do you say that
coming together, what's what the most likely outcome might be
like? Do you think it's just a really
aggressive takeover from Rio? I think so.
Everything's got a price, doesn't it?
And really, we'll be trying to play hardball, sort of trying to
suggest that, yeah, it's got this like, other plan and it'll
just go here and blah, blah, blah.
And that will mean that cash flows to entree are going to be
unpalatable and will come later. But I actually think Rio's
already showed the end and the fact that the CEO's flown to
Mongolia, like, yeah, that that they can't, they can't negotiate
from a place of this doesn't matter to us because they've
already shown why they've shown that they need to do this.
So it's just going to be like price dependent here.
I think everything's a price. You know what else matters a
lot? Trev?
Tell me. Ellie is our amazing partners.
Who are they? Mineral mining services.
We've got Grounded, we've got Cross Boundary Energy, Sam
Victoria ground support at the top of the show.
Also CRE Insurance at the top of the show, Cagel and a new
sponsor which you'll hear about later in the week.
They SAT Oodaroo. Money miners Oodaroo.
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