Paladin’s CEO Exit: Cause for Concern?

That's that last ad you did for us. Yeah. That was good. You liked it? I actually did, yeah. I thought that was one of the better ones for some reason. Yeah, that's. Cool. Yeah. So you're either getting better. Or. That one just kind of. That through. Hopefully we get let me let me pull it out. I had to get better or that was it, an anomaly. So. So who still needs convincing now? It's in the fin, So maybe it was because of that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, research back like. Research back.

There's a science behind it now. It's actually, do you know, Yeah, a doctor in, you know, architectural and well-being. Or do you know? Yeah, whatever his PhD is. Yeah, wouldn't it be funny if you just gave us feedback on our ads, you know, and then that's our ad for next week. Yeah, you guys know what I agree with. That yeah, what are you? Gonna ramp up here, yeah. Once you got there mate. Oh, sorry mate, it's just I'm

always reading this book. Yeah, I like to put this book front and centre and yeah, I think you should just sit here for me. Place it right there. From now on, yeah, it's a quite a good book. I should read it one day mate. You know what time reading hey. Yeah. No, it's good. It's good. It's really good one. Have you read it? I've sort of perused it I would say. Rocks, fossils and formations. Discoveries through time. I hear the author is quite switched. On Thomas RH Warwick.

Rings a bell mate, we've got a bit on the menu today. Yeah, we do this stuff going how good, how good of a sport was Paul Natoli at the start there? What a what an absolute legend that was Paul Natoli of Grounded Construction, if it wasn't immediately obvious from the beautiful lots of tones of his voice giving us some guidance and feedback on our last ad. A local hero go poorly mate. Like you said, lots happening in commodities, lots happening in markets.

I, I'm excited commodities are, are sort of moving kind of volatile. We've seen gold peel off and everything. And when it comes to the companies, mate, Paladin have made some changes at the helm. Predictive came out with the DFS and I'm very keen to sort of dig into how the M and A dynamics play out. We've, we've seen about a year of action and I think we're into, into crunch time there now and. They predicted the discovery. Can we predict who the buyer is

going to be? And we've got approvals in Victoria of all places, as well as a junior in the lithium space doing a buy back, so plenty to RIP through. But first of all, this episode's made possible by none other than Mineral Mining Services. MMS Mate, the mining services business that just gets it done. It doesn't matter if you're an established miner or you've got a beautiful ore body there waiting to be ripped out, MMS is the partner you can rely on to get the job done. Mate it.

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palate and this came out in in an announcement yesterday. Very curious framing of the announcement. It was it was like it was it was worded in a way that it made you second guess. Hang on, he's as as he impaired, he told the market and flagged in advance that he's leaving. It was everything was about the appointment of this other guy. You. Get the head scratcher right.

I saw some analysts sort of call it well, well, telegraphed or words to that effect hadn't been sort of telegraphed so, so well to us at least. And yeah, it sort of gets you thinking, giving the given the nature of where this business is AT and and the evolution. So Paul Hemborough is going to step up, become managing director and CEO, always been the CEOO since 2023. So he's got familiarity with that, with the business, with the market.

Before that, he was at Rio Tinto for a long time as well as BHB, had a good spell there. So I see Ian Perdy's going to step down. He came into the business near the beginning of 2020 when spot uranium was breaking through 30 bucks in that year. It was a very different business. Obviously Langer Heinrich wasn't even operational. They were talking about doing PFS work on on the restart, so balance sheet needed. Tidying up, I think they sold the the the non core project as

well. Yep, they sold Kayla Keira within a month or so of him coming in. And yeah, there's, there's been a fair bit to say the least, that has happened through his tenure at the company. But like you said, the wording of this one raises a bit of an eyebrow and it's just worth chatting about and and getting into a bit more I reckon. Why do you find it intriguing? But for a couple of reasons, right let no doubt this, this business is in a different position to what it was five

years ago. But there's been a lot of good stuff and there's also been a couple question marks in the last year or so. So to to name a couple that the water shortage challenges last year, early last year. The controversy around that merger with Fission? Yeah, exactly that. That took a lot, a lot longer than people who suspected it might.

You had, you know, all of a sudden too much water with the the weather events earlier this year, you had reconciliation, you know, question marks with the stockpiles there, class actions following guidance being marked down and then guidance being pulled entirely earlier this year.

So there's a few question marks on those points, but I think it's quite simple, like a leader of a mining company sets down during ramp up. And that's just one of those check box items that makes you peel into it a bit more and just to make sure everything's in order. It's a pretty sort of straightforward, and it's not always A cause for concern, but it's it's worth digging into.

Yeah, Yeah. Sometimes it can be explained away, but it's yeah, one of those one of those things that you see happen and, and, and maybe they're in a different phase of ramp up, like they've been ramping up for a while. But yeah, there's. Because it's a race that project, you know, the it's not the the mind or gone through the the plant just yet. So it's a bit of a different based. Yeah, so tell me about the wording in the announcement. Well, I feel like there seems to

be a bit of ambiguity. So taking a phrase planned and rigorous succession process involving executive search specialists, first question mark is like you, you know, you're hiring search specialists, but you made an internal hire. Now fair enough. Maybe you just want to vet the field and make sure you've got the perfect candidate for the

job. But then you sort of dig in a bit deeper and they sort of say an interim COO process has been established within Paladin in the event that ACO transition period is required. That seems to kind of contradict the the planned approach that they mentioned just. Before it's the, the wording interim. Interim is something you've kind of put in place when there's an unplanned thing that happened, yeah. When things happen a bit more sudden.

Abruptly, yeah, which happens but but the but it kind of is contrary to the well flagged and also the the planned wording that we see in the other parts of the announcement and analysts remarks since but but Peddie's not stepping away straight away. He's hanging around until mid-december. He's available. So there's a six month, quite a lengthy notice period in there as opposed to living abruptly, which is like a more more promising sign than it could be

the case. Yeah. So, so Paul will become CEO from the beginning of September and Perdia said he will remain there and that's sort of clear within the the notice period, which can be activated by both himself or or the company, but that would run until December given it's a six month kind of period. And I think it's worth flagging now like different CE OS suit companies at different stages.

And I think it's incredibly rare to have one CEO that is the the perfect person to be the, the one that raises the capital and does the exploration phase, you know, discovers a project. If that's the type of company for, to developing an asset, for to ramping it up and then managing it in steady state, I think that's incredibly rare. And I think it's a justified statement to say that you have different people with different skill sets that are appropriate for managing a business at

different times. Added to that, I think it's incredibly rare you get the perfect time for someone to step down. Like, like, I mean, Jake Klein recently, he's sort of stepping down at, at evolution seems to be in kind of textbook. It's, it's gone too well. You know, the gold price has ripped. It's an opportune time. It's been there 15 years. But in most cases, like you're putting fires out at one point

or another. So there's always going to kind of be question marks, but I think I think it is pretty valid to keep in mind that different people arrive for companies at different times in in the company's life cycle. I think that I think that argument is like, surely, yeah,

it's valid. But I feel like it's much more valid when when you're talking about the kind of CEO who who was in and around the mix in the discovery phase really proven, proven it up and taking it through through those early development stages. Yeah, and that is, that's a general statement. Yeah, right. That's not a specific comment on Paladin that I'm making there.

Yeah. And then you've got then you've got the kind of like the operator or the, Yeah, the established operator, the guy who knows how to run a mining company. Paladin was. Paladin was a built mine. This is a restart project now. He had to do a lot in relation to the financing and also the operational oversight to kind of get things going in a in a country that's not Australia, obviously all those sorts of things. He wasn't the exploration guy at the time he was appointed in 2020.

Was the view that he would run the uranium mining company? Yes, it probably was so. Yeah, the the, the person to do the capital raising component and to to build, build hype around a stock and get all that in. I mean you could say that's kind of part of any CE OS mandate. But I take your point. I also think 5 to 6 years like that, it's not an out of the ordinary tenure running,

running, running a company. If you're going to play devil's advocate in this instance and and see see that side of it, it's a relatively standard tenure, yeah, for a business, but. What, why? So why is this like, like key? Are there examples that come to mind and everything where you've seen ACEO depart during a fragile period of a single asset developer Strand line. Life strand line. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that one because that was the one that came to mind.

Because I know that you you've got this rule that if you see it, you you'd like, you know, you would sell your stock because it's information asymmetry in that instance. Yeah, but he. But that that time the CEO, he actually he was an MD, he stepped off the board initially remained I think CEO for a brief period of time and a. Brief moment in. Transitioned out of the company, but the moment you saw you saw him step down in some capacity

and he sold. His shirt and by all accounts, you know, in that case, the perfect person to build the project got it done on budget throughout COVID, which was incredibly hard, but they had a whole host of different challenges that they were coming into. And this was mineral sands. It's not, you know, run-of-the-mill gold mining. So that that was caused for for concern in that in that instance.

Yeah. Do you think, do you think there are parallels to parallel or do you think it's quite different? I would say the the alarm bell went off straight away again and ramp up has been nowhere near as smooth as they wanted and it never is. But I wouldn't say I'm, I'm well versed enough with, with the intricacies of their mining operation at Langhahanrish to, to completely comment.

But you want to be doing a lot of homework now if you're holding the stock, like a lot of homework, not to mention what we spoke about last week in the context of how these guys are kind of valued given what they've got already and where uranium prices are currently, I think you're paying for a bit of upside like we said there. So that would make me all the more cautious. Yeah. And context matters as well, right?

Like in the case of Alan and like that they are facing, I think it's two class action lawsuit. The, the class action lawsuits, the way they get funded is the that there's like this whole kind of litigation funding dynamic, but in effect, you wouldn't see the class action, at least the first one, get to where it is if the the litigation funders hadn't already introduced. There's a very good probability that this this is going to, you know, they want to get paid real.

There's, there's, there's, it's not quite like maybe it's a home run case, maybe it's not, but it's pretty, you know, it's a, it's probably a very highly probable outcome that that, you know, shareholders win in the class action. At which point? Quick as well, right? Yeah. And at which point in time, like is it inevitable that the the CEO of the company at that point in time has to step down as a result of the you know the optics, the the pushback from proxy advisors, all that kind of

stuff? Like is it? Is it maybe pre emptive in expectation of losing the class action to? It could be, I don't know, but that that would be a better explanation If you own the stock than than you know something relating to information asymmetry. Yeah, that wouldn't be bad. Yeah, that that would and the stock went up, the stock went up. So I think, I think the market thought, you know, this is a good thing.

Exactly. Yeah, it'd be that class action would be an interesting part of the the business to to follow and and see where that kind of takes it.

Yeah, how about predictive? Right. We've got a few question marks about predictive. They came out with their DFS. So they obviously own the bank hand project in Guinea of all places. And I think we're curious to to ask a question, is there much kind of meat left on the bone for investors at this stage? And what and what is the next chapter of this takeover saga that we saw start up with Percy is coming into the the company and taking a stake sort of 2/3 of the way through last year.

So Yep, yeah, worth sharing a couple of the numbers. And what are the what are the headline numbers that you saw on the study? So 250,000 oz per annum is the production guide for 12 years of mine life at an all in sustaining cost the bit over 1000 US an ounce. The reserve grade is close to 1.8g per ton, but the underground is much closer to four and that will time with that the mine plan we'll speak to in a second MPV 5 of 2.5 billion and an IRR of 46% using a 2400 gold price.

And the last detail I mentioned is that the CapEx is about US $460 million there, big CapEx. But this is a quality mine when it's going, there's no doubt. Yeah, exactly. So if if we compare and contrast the PFS which came out in early 2024 with the DFS, there's a few different details to highlight and there's a bit of a difference approach. And we sort of show on screen now what a bit of this looks

like. So they're going for a smaller Neb pit and that is saying the strip ratio reduced pretty significantly from 4.6 to 1 to 1.9 to 1. So it's a much smaller pit with this steeper pit walls. But what they're going to do is they're going to attack the underground much earlier. They're going to go at it from the GBE pit and they're going to start this whilst they are

constructing the plant. So by the time the plant is good to go at sort of year 0, if you like, they've already developed out the decline to that high grade part of the ore body. And that they can just be underground mining contributing what they sort of call at least 25% of fresh ore from the beginning. So it's a, it's quite a different approach and it'll make sense if you sort of look at the the graphics that we're we're showing. But there's a few other differences in approach as well.

They've gone for slightly smaller throughput. So instead of 5.5, they've gone for 4.5 million tons per annum. And they've also seen the grade increase. So that's gone from kind of close to 1.6 to 1.8. And the overall output is down 20,000 oz per annum. But they're mining that at a more competitive cost. So ultimately, you see in the financials, the MPV up 140% from the PFS, which is a substantial lift. And as anyone listening to this would know, the gold price has

been on a tear. So they have factored in a gold price that is 600 US bucks higher than what they'd assumed previously. So all that in the context of the CapEx staying pretty steady? They yeah, those are those are those are certainly really tidy numbers. This is going to be like a phenomenal mine. And the visuals are awesome too that really help you kind of contextualize it. And they changed the macro assumptions there, including the gold price.

I just wish they had have changed the discount rate too. Kudos. The same day that came out, Astral put out their own study on on what's PFS and like big props to them. They put a sensible 8% discount rate on a, you know, a goldfields kind of single asset gold project. It's, you know, that's that's much more reflective of of what should be in these study

numbers. I'm starting a petition like and and this, you know, predictors in Guinea and the argument is, well, everyone else does it. You're going to get comped everyone else. So you have to use, you have to use MPV 5%. Not anymore mate, starting petition. But I don't care if you're in Goldfields or Guinea and PV eights. Let's just start with that. Hard to argue with that if you are going to get in the the PDI campus. Astral here to cause a bit of a bit of conflict.

I think they're using a a decently lower gold price assumption. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You are 100% right on that front. Yeah, I thought the astral numbers are tidy as well. Close to 100,000 oz per annum operation. Yeah, that's. That's shaping up to be like a very financial project, there's no doubt. Yeah, 13 years of mining on a 19 year life, as as they put it. It's an interesting one to follow.

Hey. Yep, Yep. But refresh me on the latest kind of corporate stuff going on with Predictive. I mean, Perseus obviously picked up that stack from Capital Drilling now then then we saw Zijin and Lundin actually enter. The cap structure, not montage. Yeah. So Perseus went and took a 14% state mid 2024. Within a month or so, they stepped that up to almost 20%. At that point, everyone kind of thinks, you know, they've got their foot on this.

And they did it kind of interestingly because the stock had traded up to nearly 30 cents, dipped briefly, and they scooped up their stake at closer to $0.20. And then it bounces right back up. So subsequently, in February of this year, we see Lundin and Zijin take a cumulative 10% mistake. Now they invested $69 million at 26 and a half cents and the

stock just ripped pretty much. So this dilution took Perseus below 18% and all of a sudden you've got a company that's kept closer to a billion dollars as opposed to the whatever 6 or $700 million that had been prior. So it jumps up more than 30% and it's traded at that elevated level since. So kind of between 35 and 45 ish cents for the last six months. That's that's the playing field set right there. Competitive.

It is, it is. And obviously Jeff who we had on the show around that time, he and the team at Percy's were were less than impressed with how things had kind of played out and more to the point that the valuation that the company was trading at and it's attractiveness given the the CapEx that then would need to be spent. So they were. Sure, he was unimpressed without played out. I think he was just, he was just trying to make us a point on. Like valuation on valuation,

yeah, yeah. So framing it as a kind of billion dollars plus maybe another 30% to take it out plus 700 Aussie means your $2 billion in in the hole and you need to make a lot of money and do a lot of mining to earn that back. So they're sitting on a. You have to. Start shooting a gold price that's yeah, north of maybe your internal deck is. And is that a sensible or

prudent thing to do? Yeah. And and what is the payback kind of period given the the volatility in political stability in in country as well. But there's just now sit on a decent little hyper profit that they can cash in should that time come. But that's how things kind of stand. And I think it's interesting to, to quickly actually have a chat about Guinea and understand where they're at because they've been seeing a lot of changes, right?

What's changing? So you, you remember just a couple weeks ago, maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago now, we saw hundred 22150 tenements be pulled by the government. Now there was, there was varying views, predictive work swept up in this. So they had their Argo and Bokoro, which weren't really going to play a substantial role in this, but they, they got pulled off them essentially. And there was sort of question mark.

So some people who operate in countries said some of the some of the revocation of permits was warranted. You know, people hadn't held it up their end of the bargain. Other people didn't agree with that so much. But if you look at what these guys have factored into the DFS, you've got 6% on royalties going at the door, you got a 30% tax rate assumed and you've got a 15% free carried interest.

So they are yet to receive those final permits, but that that's the the, the distribution that they have factored into their modeling. And yeah, when when you sort of comparable out that's on par with a lot of West Africa and remains to be seen whether that gets the the all clear, but that's sort of in line with the recent mining code. So the billion dollar question is who? Who gets the chocolates at the end of all this? An alternate party coming in and taking it out.

As you know it's complicated given the big stakes we we see there, but one interesting name to throw in the ring just to talk about in general really is London gold. They now kept at 19 billion Aussie, they have run over 120% year to date and they got Newmont on the register with 32% of the business there. You ever? Seen you ever seen a valuation like that for a single asset operation? I don't know if I. Have I I not saying one that comes to mind it.

Probably is, but someone else We're on Roads Ridge. Different base. They have executed really well in Ecuador to to put it simply, they're now sitting with US 450 million in net cash. They did 170 million in free cash in 1/4. They're paying dividends and I think it's pretty marvelous execution given the the tough jurisdiction. You know, there were a lot of question marks when when they went in there and started building router del military and they've they've done a great

job. Tremendous job, took a long term for you, like we're on side with the government and like a reaping the rewards of it, yeah. But they are still a $19 billion business with an asset in, well a single asset in, in Ecuador. And valuation aside, I'm, I'm super impressed. But I'm curious if they are looking, they've spoken very much about an exploration focus and capital returns, you know, dividends and, and, and the like that they're going to start

paying out. And I guess I have more question marks about that state sitting within the Lundeen family, how they think about it. They sort of famously have 25 to 30% stakes in a lot of companies and their MO has not been taking out companies at this stage. It's it's often been a lot earlier stage than this. So I don't know how they would think about it and I'd be very curious to explore that, but.

I don't think the I think London gold would be the vehicle to to embark in in West Africa for for the London. So I imagine that that might maintain a very kind of its own thing, South American focus. I think you'd be right. I think it becomes a different base and they've got a host of vehicles as well as spinning up new ones.

Seeing the seeing the the simultaneous placement from London family and and and Zejin at the same time into into predictive, I think was probably more telling if the London's like a horse that they're backing from a from a company perspective on their W African gold endeavours. And that's montage, yeah. You've got the inside line to Zejan as well, so. Well, that's that's the other

curious thing, right? If you've got both both Lundin family and Zejan backing montage like normally you, you one of the things that kind of kills the competitive spirit in MNA in in mining is the fact that No2 Chinese parties have a bid against each other. They always there's just this implicit understanding that, you know, we're we're we're gonna like one of us will get it, but it's but both not gonna get into a bidding wall. Yeah, that kind of sucks.

And now you've got, you've got the like removing the Londones from from the potential of the a competitive bidding outcome as well, because they're, you know, they're on side with Zijin and this vehicle anyway. Maybe the Russians will come, not go to operate, but that would be an incredibly complex, yeah, proposition given, given where we're at.

But yeah, I mean, Zijin made a big splash buying AKM not too long ago. It was a big transaction. So we'll see what what their approach is going forward. But yeah, I mean, I wonder given the the road ahead that predictive has in wanting to start construction early next year, does a perspective buyer just let them start marching down that that lonesome road and be there when they perhaps

stumble or come into challenges? Do they get creative and provide some sort of financing to get their way in the in the door? You know, lots of different shapes and sizes that could take but. Key catalyst here is, and I think it's the end of this calendar year, that's when you've got the at the moment you've Percy submitted a full change of control. They have to 50% share that upside with Capital Drilling who they bought their stake off by

the end of the year. Capital Drilling is no longer entitled to that extra 50%. So, you know, Percy's would save money, but but having said that, do you think that like Percy's will be sensible and and not kind of pay overs and they might actually be quite willing to sell their stake to to Lundine and Zijan jointly or more more likely, in my opinion, montage because I just, I just interpreted that as like a montage stake more than anything.

Yeah, or or or throw this one out there, Montage and Percy's merger, then then take over predictive. That'd really take the competitive attention out of the process, but it would be, yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, the big next step for predictive is to get the exploitation permit that comes through there, you know, on the cusp of them to sort financing and find their way to developing the asset. But yeah, a lot on the table.

I, I'm aligned with your thinking on Perseus being been conservative in, in approaching M&A. They've, they've got a lot to spend. They've got to develop Nyang Saga as well. And yeah, I, I can't see them at this sort of valuation coming in, but we'll, we'll see what happens.

It's, it's pretty tricky to be competitive versus like Chinese capital to for the number of reasons we've already talked about, not least of which they take a strategic view as opposed to like having to back out an MPV using a rational gold price or anything like that. So, yeah, it could, it could, it just could go that way. That's OK. PCs will make money. Pretty sure shareholders will make money. The Chinese will build a mine

like happy days. But yeah, yeah, I think more important thing is just be sensible, like from a capital allocation perspective when like in these times, there's a gold miner as well, because it's, it's this is like a window. Everyone's making good money now all of a sudden the the valuations of the development opportunities have come up a lot even in West Africa where they were not a lot like just 12

months ago. So that's, that's going to be a big differentiator between yeah, the gold miners like in 12 months time. This is now is how they were thoughtful about a creative opportunities to use their capital right now when valuations are are elevated. Yeah, a lot of the London family will be, you know very closely familiar with with red back in West Africa and the kind of absurd valuation they received in selling that out in the last

bull market cycle. I mean they did that a bit before it sort of happened like 2010 ish time frame is it? The more tiny one. Had Yeah, Tasira. And Tasira. Yeah. Saltikinros. Yes, Saltikinros and that was a $7.7 billion transaction. They all made a multi the. Landings did. Or they were part of that vehicle gotcha and isn't? That funny because. Kinross paid the price. Kinross. Kinross then had to. Well, wasn't that Kinross that sold through to Del Norte to the London Gold?

A bit later on. As a probably as a result of that, Patras thank Kinross twice. I didn't. I actually didn't know that. Yeah. So it's it's interesting and I'm completely with you there. Like this is the time where you want to see these gold. He's just piling up cash.

You don't want to see anyone blowing their brains out on M&A, not the PDI shareholders will want to hear that, but they want to stay disciplined and and you know fill up the bank account in the good times and deploy it in the in the bad times. Wow. But we should mention a couple

other stories just quickly. Astrin and their JV partners Energy Fuels have received the approvals for what there is the working plan for construction and operations. So they have the Donald Rare Earth and Mineral Sands project in in the state of Victoria, which isn't known for handing out mining permits so easily. And yeah, they're off to get sort of financing sorted now and get their ducks in a row there. But is that final? Approval or is this still?

Yep, final approval, final major regulatory. Approval, right? Yeah. Stock rocketed up sort of 47% yesterday and another 10% today. So, yeah, I'm really curious to see how that goes. And it's good in a way there's been a more constructive outlook on the value add in in regional towns there that well potential operation could play. Isn't this isn't this kind of curious? The two the two payments in Victoria have been the first payments in party forever. Is that VHMS, Gaussian and now this?

Are those like mineral sands projects? Like Gaussian will argue they're a rare earth project too, but. And how weird is that? Strategic matter. It's strategic. So like the amount of like land you actually have to disturb on a mineral science project is like vastly greater than you would a normal mine, but the Victorians somehow are more comfortable with that than they are just allowing a normal mine anyway. Don't understand Victorians? It's an interesting one.

And the last thing to mention, another quick story here, Wildcat, they have seen their market cap fall pretty dramatically to $190 million. They have $60 million in the bank and this is not something you say everyday they're doing a buyback 5,000,000 bucks worth. So back in themselves, back in the value that Taba Taba has and. Unusual circumstances. They're they're, they're trying to say they're cheap. Yeah. Yeah, they're signalling to the market and had a little bounce

on the back of it, but. They've still got plenty in the bank and they're on go slow mode right now, so they're not at risk of regretting using the cash for the buyback in the near term. Yeah, it wouldn't. Look, good. If you had to do a raise, you have a lower price later on. Yeah, but a lot that they've backed themselves into this one. So we'll see what happens.

Lithium price is at a real low ebb and doesn't seem to be changing, but maybe we'll see a couple cracks come through in the near term future and we'll be off to the races again. Couple of partners to thank mate. Thank you to Mineral Mining Services, Grounded sand, Big ground support, K Drew and Cross Boundary Energy. Voodoo. Voodoo. Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot.

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