Met with CEO Walter Coles at 121 mining conference Hong KongLots of interesting stuff: On the lacklustre share price performance, he firstly put the blame on himself, that he paid over 80 million of shares for Spectrum-GJ project. He then told me the owner of the Spectrum has been dumping the shares into the market, putting a cap on the share price. When the share price was at 16 cents, there were institutions trying to buy all his stake at 14 cents, but he refused. He kept dumping shares into the market currently and institutions were willing to offer him 10 cents per share but he still refused...Coles estimated that the guy may still have around 25 million shares on hand, which may need 6 more weeks for him to be completely out of the position...
The PEA for Spectrum-GJ project will be released in April. Initial capex may be around the $250 million ball park, IRR expected to be in mid-20s. They are actively looking to either sell off the project (but he admitted it won't be easy or quick process) to get the capital to develop Snip or looking for someone who is willing to fund the project.
Re the silver project, there are voices for both either selling off the project or to keep the project. They will have a board meeting next Wed and it shall decide what will they do on the silver project. Coles mentioned that the Rick Rule party is interested in buying the project, and thus the property should have some merits. Thus if they are selling the property, they may sell it for half cash, half shares of the company buying the project.
They will continue to sell projects (including those belonged to Sona) and put their focus on Snip. I asked, without any liabilities what is his personal target for Snip's target resources. Coles replied he is targeting 1M-1.5Moz. There are already sharks swimming around and he believes eventually, someone is going to buy them (and Snip) out.