Market Pushing TRQWIth the news out of Mongolia being political consolidation and more reasonable noise made about negotiation and agreement on a new participation model for government participation, TRQ is rising.
The market seems very disconnected from the ETG special situation, yet by market cap, and by upside by resolution of its framework within OT, ETG has far more leverage to current pricing than TRQ in my view,
You would think if they are going to scrape the bottom of the barrel for Mongolian cash flow, adding in whatever the tariff will be for ETG would be part of the Mongolian agenda. The untenable situation with no IA coverage (contrary to the intent of the Earn-In) and still, after all these years, no Joint Venture Agreement finally negotiated and signed, no transfer of licences over the JV ground completed ... it must be resolved. We are nomfurther ahead in disclosure from our management about why it has taken 12 years time and these issues are unresolved. My own take is ETG refused any further reduction of their 20-30% JV carried interest on the basis their 80-70% transfer to IVN/TRQ was pre-payment in full including any costs of procuring Mongolian IA treatment substantially similar to TRQ. The opposite view was substantially similar treatment would include a surrender of 34% of asset value by ETG. Knowing how these clowns operate you can just imagine the genius resolution at the end of the day will be to saw the baby in half and grind 17% out of the ETG interests for the Mongolians, at a price which, again opacity doesn’t make clear what happened in 2009, but would seem to be repayment of all sunk costs plus perhaps a small premium. When Erdenes became a 34% shareholder of OTLLC, their share subscription was financed by TRQ/RioT, and the interest rate is a current bone of contention. But they were very sly about not disclosing what they charged the Mongolians or the rationale for the pricing.
I find it extremely frustrating that 12 years of supposedly mandatory public disclosure of a public issuer by ETG, and an absolutely fundamental issue - what IA treatment, what the issues being negotiated are and the issues that are in controversy, have not been disclosed. Just general, non-descriptive “negotiating IA coverage” tells the speculator nothing.
So we trail along behind TRQ. But our market cap is so small the upside is large, we might catch up and surpass multiples up in a hurry? That would be refreshing!
cg