The most basic tenet of life education is always to be a good human.
Be honest. Have integrity. Be kind.
And when you are in the global exploration game, it also clearly doesn’t hurt to be finding high-grade chunks of good stuff in the ground to win over some favour – even in Africa, where some geopolitical ructions have caused investors to show a little nervousness recently when deciding on where to punt their hard-earned.
But assuring the market of solid corporate citizenship and throwing up nine distinct copper-in-soil anomalies in Tanzania this week was the perfect combination to set Resource Mining Corporation’s stock soaring. After closing last week at just 1.5c, the company’s share price jumped more than 213 per cent to a high of 4.7c.
Resource Mining spells out a clear and simple modus operandi for both its pursuit of critical minerals and its standing in the community. It says it has a vision to realise the value of its “world-class” resource opportunities and a mission to create wealth using innovative technical, marketing and financial skills – all while putting a sturdy focus on a suite of impressive values including safety, collaboration, innovation, efficiency and sustainability.
If only this column came with a background tune featuring harps and violins, we could really be composing a sensational symphony.
In any case, Resource Mining really did turn some heads on Tuesday when it picked up some green rocks near artisanal mines in Tanzania and sent bits to the lab. The assays came back with some high-grade copper – no surprise there – and also some gold.
So, as it turns out, those old-school Tanzanian miners weren’t just digging holes at random.
The rock chips went as high as 13.58 per cent copper with 3.24 grams per tonne gold, 10.78 per cent copper with 1.41g/t gold and 4.12 per cent copper with not much gold. The chips were taken from ground within Resource Mining’s Mpanda project, which has soil samples suggesting nine distinct copper-enriched areas in a strike length of more than 2km.
In all, the company took 9700 soil samples from the area and assays are expected to flow to the market as they become available.
But it is not only the good people in exploration and mining who can help make the ASX share price dial turn for the better – as has been evidenced more in recent times with some commodities (read lithium) experiencing volatile price waves.
In the med-tech universe, LBT Innovations jumped more than 171 per cent to hit 3.8c on Wednesday following news of its “APAS PharmaQC” product achieving primary validation and being formally released to industry juggernaut AstraZeneca – and if you don’t remember that name from the intense COVID period, then this columnist would like to know if you have some extra room to spare under that rock.
LBT describes itself as a “leader in microbiology automation using artificial intelligence”. It says APAS PharmaQC provides automated imaging, analysis and interpretation of microbiology culture plates used in environmental monitoring.
The company’s completion of primary validation and the formal release of the product finalises its development project with AstraZeneca, which now expects to complete an internal secondary validation of the system within its own manufacturing processes in this year’s third quarter.
Still in the tech universe, but this time in restaurant commerce solutions, Task Group Holdings soared 105 per cent to touch 82c from a close last week of 40c on news of a takeover by global restaurant tech company, PAR Technology Corporation.
Under the scheme of arrangement, Task shareholders can elect to receive cold, hard cash at a price of 81c per share, which is slightly over the trading price at the time of writing, but a 107 per cent premium to the 30-day volume weighted average price (VWAP).
Alternatively, they can choose to grab 50 per cent of their consideration in PAR stock at a ratio of 0.015 PAR shares for each Task share and the remainder in the folding stuff.
Seems not a bad deal if you can get it – at least that’s what Task management has said in recommending shareholders vote in favour of the scheme. However, they made no stipulation on whether the shareholders should take the money or the box deal of cash and shares.
It is lovely in life to have options…
And finally, a theme of capital recovery possibly taking shape also emerged this week after more than a year when money has been very difficult (and expensive) to come by.
Less than a year ago, capital raisings for ASX-listed small caps were averaging out to a massive 25 to 30 per cent discount. There were even a couple of noted capital raises that were forced through at discounts in excess of 40 per cent.
In the past few months, however, those discounts have been wound back considerably and are now almost back to historical averages of between 10 and 15 per cent.
And just this week we’ve seen some serious cash being raised in both debt and equity markets, with splashes of cash washing in – most significantly into the coffers of Arafura Rare Earths and Deep Yellow.
Arafura managed to snaffle about $812 million thanks to a Commonwealth Government debt financing package and then Deep Yellow went to the market announcing a $250 million equity raise, of which the first tranche of $140 million was filled within a couple of days at a discount of virtually zero!
For a raise of this magnitude to be completed at no discount, there must have been some serious demand out there for this soon-to-be-in-production uranium developer.
And in Arafura’s case, the market clearly liked what it saw and heard as the company’s share price almost immediately jumped to an intraday high of 27.5c after closing the previous week at just 14.7c. More than 115 million of the company’s shares, worth nearly $28 million, changed hands during the period.
Even at the very pointy end of the market, Black Rock Mining – a sub $100 million market-capped company also confirmed it had secured loans totalling about $70 million, which alongside a potential $40m equity investment from strategic partner POSCO International Corporation, should see it through to production at the company’s Mahenge graphite project in Tanzania by 2026.
Green shoots? A turn for the better? Oh 2024, we are certainly hoping so…
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Duffy
