Century Mining is already listed on 3 German exchanges. Century should try aggressively promoting the Century story in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. German retailers (especially) appear to be hungry for gold right now, even more so than the Indians and the Chinese (per the most recent purchasing stats - below).
As I have mentioned on this blog in the past, Severstal (IMO) has done everything possible to suppress the High River Gold (HRG) share price over the past 2 years (for their own agenda, IMO), including absolutely no promotion. As such, Chris Charlwell, a minority HRG shareholder, took it upon himself to hire an Investor Relations company to promote HRG in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He has spent US$195K of his own money thus far. Granted, Chris is wealthier than your typical retail investor, thus has more flexibility to take on such an initiative.
Anyway, he has received confirmation that new European investors are buying HRG shares. Also, HRG`s share price has increased from $.75 to $1.04 today, since he started his personal promotional campaign. Chris wrote this today:
``A few months ago I took it upon myself to hire an Investor Relations company – Precious Metals Investments - to promote the HRG story in Germany, Austria, Switzerland. I decided to do this in case HRG management and Severstal would only promote the Severstal Gold story. Germany has become the world’s largest retail purchaser of gold. See article below. I have invested US$195k in this program and it has been confirmed to me that new European investors (including funds) have been buying HRG since $.75 and continue to buy regularly.``
From the attached article:
``Germany in fact came in as the world's largest purchaser of retail gold investment products during the quarter at 44t against India's 42 and China's 36t.``
http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=110257&sn=Detail
8 comments:
Hi Prod05,
Do you think someone here at CMM is also keeping the share price depressed?
Thanks
Keith, you mean someone within the company? Highly unlikely....thats actually illegal so no that is most certainly not happening. Jitney was playing games for quite a while but in recent days they have been part of the run up. At this point the market is setting the price IMO.
Hi Keith
Sometime back there was a discussion in this blog as to whether the major share holder(s) would suppress the SH and launch a takeover at 0.40 and the general perception was it would not be likely.
Among other evidences, the recent price reversals, the sudden participations of 4 Canadian houses in PP (suppose they are foxy enough to sniff the atmosphere) and the recent and coming promotions especially additional 3 events in Nov, all these events are not consistent with a price suppression game IMO. On the contrary, I have the impression the Co is making great effort in promotions as per events they had participated and are planning to participate as per listings in the Co web site.
Thanks guys. I have a significant investment in Century. My DD is also telling me Century is trying to pull the right strings now. Just wasted some confirmation.
Hi Keith,
I think the Century situation is different. I think Finskiy and Scola are still driving Century towards becoming a very successful (larger scale) public market gold producer, where returns will be plentiful for both themselves and co-investors like us.
Wingfong listed a lot of good points. In addition, Finskiy promoted Adrian McNutt (a person with no historical ties to him) to COO of all operations. He wouldn`t had approved of that move if he had his own agenda. The easiest way to suppress the share price is to bring in your own COO puppet then manipulate the info coming out of the operations. Also, Finskiy released the last quarterly statements 18 days early. This is extremely meaningful. He didn`t have to do that. It shows that Finskiy and Scola are trying to make things right, with both the regulatory boards and the investment public (with an eye on making potential institutional investors and potential analysts feeling more comfortable about the level of professionalism that is expected from Century in the future).
I think the slowness of the share price (in the face of US$1,300) has to do more with these reasons:
1) Market is waiting for demonstrated (efficient) Lamaque ramp up to a reasonable level relative to the 2,000 tpd current mine plan (market is currently focused especially on the Bedard Dyke, but also North Wall (to a lesser degree)).
2) New CEO - the market is looking for clear public leadership (direction). Also, the market is waiting to assess the new leader to determine if he/she meets specific investment criteria. The market, in general, look for companies with leaders that can take full advantage of the US$1,300 gold price. This is why there is a big gap between the haves and the haves nots. Almost all of the money goes towards the haves, especially institutional money (institutions need to see certainty as they need to meet short-term and mid-term benchmark targets). This is why companies like Red Back Mining and Andean Resources (and many others) have made a killing in market cap value relative to true asset value.
3) We haven`t seen meaningful institutional support (where there is heavy buying in the open market, resulting in with substantial increases to the share price). We haven`t seen much with regards to analyst coverage as yet either.
4) Market confidence issue due to years of sub-standard performance by the company - As I have said all along, I don`t think current management has done enough on the education front to assist the market to better understand the intricacies of the mine plan. I continue to believe that eliminating the monthly update is a lost opportunity to connect with both the shareholder base (during an important period) and to continually educate the market about all aspects of Lamaque, especially in the face of US$1,300 gold, when plenty of brand new gold investors are looking for emerging/growing producers just like Century.
Fyi, the September presentation now has a picture of a ``new`` scooptram (taken ``Sept 2010``).
Hopefully it`s an indication that our new equipment have been deployed.
Every little bit helps with the production efforts.
Of note, they also now have a picture of the operating committee inspecting a stope area before blasting. That looks like a very rich vein structure. Hopefully there are numerous others like that in the Lamaque 2 area. Also, hopefully the operating committee do site visits on a frequent basis.
It would be really good if they could put up pictures of both Bedard Dyke and North Wall (recognizing that they might only be work-in-progress type pictures).
The pictures are on pg. 20 of the Sept`10 presentation.
I think that the salient points are made by P05 and Mr. Stormpay. I also like to think of what the picture might be if one removes all emotion from the equation - the lack of s/p runup along with the rest of the current market and so on. Adrian, Keith Hulley, PB and the entire management have, I believe, one single focus - which is to get the groundwork done and enter commercial production asap. The CEO search is likely siphoning away some of that energy, but will pay handsome dividends when it is done.
Despite losing the monthly report (which I also deplore), we have seen a steady improvement in operations since April. I agree completely with P05 that FS and MF want to build a serious mining company - we have both the properties and cash-flow [prospects] to make that happen. Everything depends on getting Val D'Or into commercial production - including developing San Juan.
None of this can be effectively accomplished overnight, as we all know. But after years of investing, I can safely say that, while I like triple plays as much as the next fellow, the moral of the Tortiose and The Hare has more to do with making money in mining stocks than any amount of quick sprinting.
Two years from now, if we are sensible enough to buy what we can in CMM now, we'll be looking at returns that no bank could ever match. After all, if you can make better than 10% return per annum, you're beating most of the averages out there by a long shot.
I pressume that if we can deliver 1200tpd (60% of 2000tpd) consequtively for 3 months, Lamaque may claim to be in commercial production. More optimistically, if Lamaque reaches 1600tpd, then at 4.7g/t ore grade, we could hit 360x4.7x1600/31.1=87,000oz/yr and together with the 20,000oz from San Juan, our potential total will be 107,000oz/yr.
What I am saying is that:-
1) The Lamaque 1200tpd-commercial production status and
2) The Lamaque 1600tpd implying CMM reaches the 100,000oz/yr Production Rate catagory are 2 of the important current targets informed investors are watching.
At the same time, with Lamaque 2 being mined successfully while Bedard Byke is in advanced development following behind by North Wall, my gut feel is by Q1-2011 latest, we will have either one or both these targets achieved whereby proving to the world we have sort of arrived. By then I anticipate the SP will be at least a dollar. I hope my assessment is probable n I am not being too optimistic.
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