Armadale Capital Ratings

BUY by 3Dimensional on 12 Mar 2014 16:16

Price at rating: 0.14, now:

Armadale Capital: is Mpokoto too good to be true?r BY BEN TURNEY — WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2014r r Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.r r An RNS this morning from Armadale Capital (ACP) made me sigh. The company announced a placement at 0.14p to raise £525,000 for the development of its Mpokoto gold project in southern Democratic Republic of Congo. “Oh well”, I thought, “here we go again...another member of AIM’s zombie club with 3.65billion shares soon to be in issue”. “How do these companies keep raising money?” I mused. But was I being unfair?r r Closer inspection of Armadale’s announcements and results suggests I wasn’t.r r One of the things I immediately look for, when analysing a company for the first time, is how much the directors pay themselves. One of my greatest bugbears with reporting on AIM is that accessing this information is unnecessarily troublesome and, much more crucially, nearly always out of date.r r Take Armadale as a case in point. The most recent and definitive declaration of director remuneration can be found in the last annual report. Obviously, this covers the period to December 31st 2012. In that year, Peter Marks, now Chairman of Armadale, was paid £190,000, including a £90,000 payment for “assumption of executive duties” over the period. In light of Armadale’s share price performance over that period, you might very well ask yourself whether or not this represented good value.r r It is then anyone’s guess what Mr Marks paid himself in the first half of last year. Here’s the latest half yearly report and let’s just say its “unaudited condensed consolidated statement of comprehensive income” isn’t exactly the clearest expression of a company’s costs, which I have ever come across. Helpfully Armadale also hasn’t published its latest interims on its website.r r Given how important executive compensation is to help investors appreciate what a listed company is truly about, I don’t see why companies shouldn’t be required to provide a quarterly statement about director remuneration as part of the AIM Rule 26 declaration.r r I know I am whistling in the wind here. The authorities aren’t remotely interested in reforming AIM. It is, after all, “the world’s most successful growth market” (chortle, chortle). Private investors will just have to accept that they could unwittingly be putting their money into elaborate executive beneficiary schemes, which don’t stand an earthly chance of providing a tangible investment return.r r Anyway, I digress; back to Armadale. So what about all that vast potential at Mpokoto, the low cap-ex, low op-ex gold project, which is due to commence production in H2 2015?r r The fan club of this stock is bound to accuse me of being biased against it. I don’t like what I have seen so far, but for the sake of balance you can read all of Armadale’s Mpokoto propaganda here. I’ll admit I had a good old chuckle when I read this webpage.r r As far as hyped ramps of a project go, this has to be one of the most shining examples I have ever seen. According to Armadale, this project has everything, absolutely everything.r r There’s the 510,000/oz gold JORC resources, the $20million spent by three named previous operators on the project (which does make you wonder why they discontinued their involvement, but hey ho...), the close proximity to a national highway and railway to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola, the potential for expansion of the exploration target to between 20 and 24 million tonnes at 1.5g/t-1.8g/t AU (ahem, but which they must point out isn’t an official Mineral Resource estimate because of “insufficient exploration” – errrr... so what was that $20million spent on?!), the projected operating costs of $700-$900/oz and the slight matter of the $10million to $15million required to set up mining operations.r r Wow, I’m pretty breathless after all that lot. This really does look like a license to print money.r r So why then is such a gilt edged opportunity in the hands of an AIM tiddler like Armadale?r r Answers on a postcard please...r r

Score: 52.50

BUY by REDDEVON on 28 Nov 2013 13:58

Price at rating: 0.24, now:

Lots of buys showing as sells to scare people into selling me thinks. News on the Briquette front is imminent. Due a rise.

Score: 57.50

SELL by BuyBOA on 28 Nov 2013 13:16

Price at rating: 0.24, now:

Just awful

Score: 48.75

BUY by REDDEVON on 17 Nov 2013 19:07

Price at rating: 0.27, now:

[link] Dec Forecasts In above link page 11r r MRI interim out tomorrow, could give out briquette info too.

Score: 50.00

BUY by REDDEVON on 13 Nov 2013 16:20

Price at rating: 0.23, now:

Still going up.

Score: 100.00