Good afternoon
well established parties got an absolute hammering in German elections...the very right wing biggest winner, with just under 13%. Looks like a Angie/Greenies/Liberals coalition, which might not be easy, but could actually be quite reasonable...we will find out . The only good news is, that 60% of right-wing voters voted for them without being convinced, but because of disenchantment with established parties. Germany is doing well, but we have to look after the 15-20% who either are not doing well, or at least feel that way!
Heard a story in the Radio the other day about an American math-teacher, who got up at 5.45 am, comes out of school at 3.45pm, and then starts at 5 pm as a sales girl in a shop - only to check on her kids by 10 pm....There are very few in Germany, who have to take 2 jobs to survive - but we have a few, and that´s not good! In our social market economy, which has worked very well since World War II, there got to be enough wealth for everybody getting his fair chance to share in it+ contribute, without having to work 80 hours/week!
German Business Confidence fell slightly in August - I guess the Euro did not help....
Trump is fighting now with black sport stars in the States...no smart PR! Let´s hope, that it hunts him!
VW apparently asking for tenders to supply them with enough cobalt on a take-or-pay basis for the 10years starting 2019! They must be dreaming...Not sure, when and if the car industry will understand, that they should put some cash into developing companies in the space, to secure future supply. Japanese and Chinese are much better at that. VW also is reported to indicate in the tender, that they will be moving from 6:2:2 ( nickel:cobalt:managese ) into 8:1:1 batteries, which would catapult nickel demand.
Kingsgate - there are some rumours around, that they would forfeit financial compensation, for receiving mining/exploration permits they have been waiting for for many years.This would make the Chatree Mine a great asset again - even though it remains to be seen, whether country -relationships with Thailand can be repaired! Kingsgate have 22 Mill A$ in cash - that would go a long way to restart the mine.
Sheffield - sorry, again today...but they have signed their second off-take agreement, this time with a large ceramics company in India, for about 24% of the planned production. They now have 36% under off-take agreements. These agreements will be very beneficially for the planned financing of SFX´s mine. More offtake-agreements, and financing updates are expected for " the near future". The stock is doing well, and is slowly but surely coming on the radar-screens with a market cap of just above 100 mill A$ now.
WS- interesting new contract with the existing MD, Bary Cahill. His Performance Rights have vesting conditions, which are strongly weighetd towards growth to 35-40.000t of copper p.a., and 40-50.000t resp. I think especially the latter will be impossible to be reached from the existing mine - even the first target will be very difficult indeed. So I take this as a strong endorsement of the board of a M&A strategy. I am not 100% sure, whether I like this, as it will be very hard to add projects of a similar quality. Personally, I would be happier with a huge dividend, unless they find something outside of Indonesia to reduce country risk.
I fear not much more of interest to report today!