HPC_Follower
22 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Yes, the quarterly report on operations, diamond recoveries & sales for 1st quarter of their FY18/19 (July - Sept) is due out this week. The last report on financials FY17/18 indicated that the good end year had continued up to the date of publication, and they are mining across the top levels of the Main Pipe to extract kimberlite that is undiluted by waste material and unweathered - which should help recoveries. The kimberlite itself comprises several zones with differing prospectivity for gem stones. The better zones, historically, improve with depth; but right now they are being careful to measure the recoveries for each of the six categories of zones to re-validate the overall mine value. As FDI reported before, the prices for run-of-mill small stones are relatively weak but the larger, high quality gem stones - pink, yellow & clear are selling at much better prices - hence their involvement with Tiffany in New York (implied by FDI tweets giving links to pictures of some of their best pieces of multi-colour diamond jewellery for VIPs). Extraction of some much larger gem stones is well overdue in terms of probability - so the debt has to be very carefully managed at present. Encouragingly, none of the major shareholders have reduced their positions & the mining operation is clearly being run very professionally. Certainly, my own exposure here is much higher than I intended; that’s the problem of emotional attachment since the days of EPD, KDD & FDI - and meeting of their directors at AGMs, etc FDI, and shareholders, are certainly due a bit of good luck, hoping it’s not my involvement holding them back.
davidrpenman
22 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Are FDI due to put out a quarterlu update soon? A few buys the last few days, shrewdies topping up?
davidrpenman
16 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion And another new low but hardly any volume to speak of. Just need a few decent stones reporting but if/when is the question…
HPC_Follower
04 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Good luck… still very risky here but I have some hope that the last quarter to be reported later in October will be a bit better in terms of diamond recoveries. Just topped up one last time @4.75p. Very disappointing in terms of large stone recovery so far, but Lucara & Gem Diamonds did much better as they went deeper into their kimberlites, so FDI may do so as well. Still finding quite a few coloured stones… but need to see the overall price per carat increased; and the debt paid down more quickly if at all possible.
davidrpenman
03 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Bought back in at around 5p having been out for over 10 years and topped up a few more today. Happy to keep adding at this price, am sure the rewards will come
davidrpenman
03 Oct 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Keep the faith - have been adding at 5p and below
HPC_Follower
25 Sep 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Your average price per FDI share must now be a lot lower than mine, but I remain hopeful as trading is still mainly small volumes. They must be getting to some of the better areas now but I honestly don’t know. The recoveries must surely be better this quarter; the dollar is strong & Rand is weak - helping on £ value & £/$ cost fronts. But I still worry that they haven’t found any really big, good gem stones recently. Lucara, however, did much better once down from the surface & weathered levels a bit - and FDI should do the same eventually. FDI only need to recover a few such large stones & the share price will recover rapidly… but nobody knows when this might be done and, until then, the share price will stay low given the debt outstanding. I do think that FDI may start to sell its best yellow gem stones to Tiffany, for a better return than in standard auctions. If Tiffany want to specialise in high value jewellery arrangements for their VIP customers, they will want to guarantee their supply chain. We will see in due course. Good luck… we and the major shareholders (whose average must be near 20p an FDI share, having bought most at 30p equiv., with extras in 10p placement), still need it I feel. Right now, I need some of my other prospects to do well too… FRR, VOG, JLP, ZIOC, OBT, MCM, NANO in particular.
clemenceo
25 Sep 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Thanks again HPC I have also topped up 100000 at below 5p . It would be interesting to know if they are mining the areas where they were finding the broken stones with the old kit which prompted the new kit and crushers I hope they were right about the broken stones . Market cap now 25 mil surely undervalued. Regards Clem
HPC_Follower
14 Sep 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Last trade today was a 100,000 FDI share sell at just 5.00p a share - which was actually enabled because I had two 50,000 limit buy orders in - MY LAST TOP UP… The next quarterly results should show a significant improvement through mining better areas, in good weather whilst the Rand is relatively low to keep costs contained. Slightly worried that there are no large diamond finds yet, but I am sure they will start to be found as they go deeper in the Main Pipe kimberlite. I am encouraged that none of the Main Holders have sold any of their FDI shares… which could be faith in the total diamond content & recoveries; or a reflection of the very low FDI share price at present. FDI did send a link to an article which showcases yellow diamonds (FDI’s?) in special arrangements prepared by Tiffany for their prestigious customers, which may be of interest:- [link] FDI are clearly helping out on the marketing front… and could get a better percentage of the final diamond value through direct selling of their most special gem stones.
HPC_Follower
30 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Re-payment of the outstanding $81m ABSA Debt plus interest due is now scheduled to re-commence end June 2019, and be completed by end December 2023. If the payments are equal, this amounts to about $4.5m a quarter plus interest on the balance outstanding. The other debts are much lower. $4.5m has to be measured against the last quarter increase in cash of $2.5m, so FDI do need to increase the average quarterly financial returns over the next few years in particular. To smooth matters over, FDI do have about $28m cash… I will be keeping a close watch in the coming months, but life would be much easier if they could re-start recovery of more good quality gem stones above 10 to 30 carats, and above 100 carats in particular. It should be noted that Stuart Brown, the CEO who recently stood down having largely completed his job in getting the mine fully operational, still holds all his 876,834 shares as far as I can tell and none of the major shareholders have reduced their holdings yet either. One very good quarter would make a big difference here.
clemenceo
29 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Hi All Big thanks fo HPC for ongoing analysis and information. Looks like we could mine 1mil carats this FY just wondering how much the capital repayments are Per annum when they restart in 12 months TIA Clem
ewerschristopher
27 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Thanks for the graphs HPC, they clearly show that fdi is falling down on one factor, value per carat, which is not really within its control. This should go up as better areas are mined, the diamond market starts to favour suppliers, and even the Holy Grail of a few larger diamonds may be recovered. Simply Wall St tipped fdi as a growth stock to tuck into today - not the most reliable of sources, but better than nothing.
HPC_Follower
25 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Now we have some FDI numbers for the quarters since the Main Pipe plant was commissioned, I’ve been able to put some graphs together which I hope to update and re-present quarterly in the future:- Firestone Diamonds Production v1.0 Graphs July 2018.jpg960x720 56.8 KB The volumes are now on target, but bigger & higher quality stones need to be extracted (as hoped/expected by FDI Management) from the better areas below the weathered top level in order to increase the average value per carat above the current level. At $71 a carat, this is just about the minimum promised in re-structuring the debt about 6 month ago. If diamond prices strengthen, this will also assist of course.
HPC_Follower
23 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Good progress in last quarter operationally reported in today’s RNS. Targets are now being hit in terms of tonnes mined & carats extracted but not many larger stones are being found near the surface yet meaning the average per carat is the bare $75 per carat set for debt funding. This must surely improve with depth, in the next two quarters in particular. I expect to see some share price recoveries now as they are at least growing cash at $2.5m a quarter now.
ewerschristopher
23 Jul 2018
lse:FDI Main Discussion Hi all, Have held fdi since early 2000s and like many of you, wish I had cashed in when it was around 55p. Am surprised by the slip down to 5p considering the original plan was to make the company a profitable concern with special value diamonds as an extra bonus -which is why I invested. Still, it is early days, the company has yet to have a full year mining at full capacity in decent areas, so my feeling is that as long as it can keep up operations it is good value at this price. But then I would have said that when it was 50p…
