Why BHP Will Return for Anglo (Again) - podcast episode cover

Why BHP Will Return for Anglo (Again)

Nov 25, 202533 min
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Episode description

We’ve got a special episode to share today, full of yarns about all the biggest stories in mining. 

A recurring deal that’s near and dear to has returned once more… its BHP-Anglo version 2. 

The lithium market has provided no end of entertainment lately, and the astonishing run up in the stocks got us asking: Where do stocks go from here?  

Lastly, we’ve attended a number to AGMs this season, so we share our thoughts on the best details & most eye-catching moments, including from MinRes, Deep Yellow, Genesis & Vault 

Stocks covered: BHP, ALL.L, RIO, TECK.TO, PLS, IGO, LTR, ELV, ALB.NYSE, SQM.NYSE, 9696.HK, 1772.HK, MIN, DYL, GMD, VAU 

This was recorded on 24.11.2025.   

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TIMESTAMPS  

(0:00) Intro & Lithium Market
(0:20) BHP’s Bid for Anglo
(5:30) UK Takeover Rules & Deal Outlook
(11:00) Lithium Market Rally
(20:40) AGM Season Takeaways
(25:50) Gold Companies & Merger Theory
(32:30) Closing & Disclaimer

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Transcript

Intro & Lithium Market

Six months ago lithium was in the doldrums and now I look at the lithium equities and they are not in the doldrums. Has the world changed? Is lithium. Hot again. The change we've seen in six months is quite amazing. So lithium has been running of late and Travis Ricciardo, big mining, M&A is back on the scene. Boy, have we got a bit to talk

BHP's Bid for Anglo

about today. There's a couple stories that are front of mine. Of course, nothing can trump the the headline that is BHP coming back for Anglo, but not before they've withdrawn. They're coming back for Anglo already. I've got a hot take and that's it. They'll come back again. I'm keen to talk about that. Mate. You've been going deep on lithium.

I'm excited to talk about lithium, mate A, you know, a returning mine, the Jung Shi Wu mine, which has been wreaking havoc in the lithium market for quite some time. And we've got a few Agms that we ducked into. We might get on to them if we've got time later on too. Keen to talk about those Agms JD. Alrighty BHB Anglo mate. I will lead us in here and give

a bit of bit of context. So these these two famous companies, the big Australian and South Africa's most famous miner with a with a fantastic long and complicated history. And it looks like BHB has come back to the dance floor on this one. Or maybe they never left. You know, so famously they were they were flirting with one another throughout 2024. BHB tabled an offer. It was a very kind of public affair as it all kind of emerged. That was version 1.

Then it was kind of put to bed. And then on Sunday, Bloomberg broke this story that the deal is back on. BHB has tried to engage with the Anglo board. They have engaged, they've tabled an offer, but lo and behold, they have been rejected. We find out within about 12 hours. So it was good while it lasted. We all sort of woke up here, Western time in, in Perth, in Australia to seeing a kind of double take of headlines. BHB is back on and then it's off again.

Now there's a few rules to know about this one, which we'll, we'll kind of get into with the, the UK takeover rules. But yeah, you've got a, you've got a hot take and a bit more context to share on this one. So lead us in mate. There's, there's quite a bit to this one. Oh, and I'll add one more detail. The the proposed deal that was tabled was a share, shares and cash deal with no quantum being shared.

So we don't know what the exact value on that one was, but we're going to try and infer a few things and spin a bit of yarn about this one mate. Yeah, we don't know. We don't know what the value was right, But we do know that that, that the last deal that was sort of tabled, the implied value was like 4949 billion US for, for Anglo. Now Anglo trades today around like 42 billion Anglo's embarked on some sort of simplification like model since.

So look, look who knows? I, I think, I think the, the implied offer was probably north of that, but, but while this looks like a retreat on paper, mate, I'm not, I'm not buying it. I think BHP is coming back. So forget, forget the type UK takeover mechanics for just a moment. Bear with me. I'm going to talk about the rationale of why BHP needs this or we'll, we'll, we'll do this. Look at the statement out from

BHP themselves. So Monday morning they come out with this, this statement saying that, you know, they're, they're, they're with no, that the deal is not on and, and what are they, what are they state in this, in this kind of, in this,

this one pager, they say. Whilst BHP continues to believe that a combination with Anglo American would have had strong strategic merits and created significant value for all stakeholders, BHP is confident in the highly compelling potential of its own growth strategy, own organic growth strategy. OK, so they talk about their own

organic growth strategy. Let's take a look at that organic growth strategy because BHP themselves were very transparent about their organic copper growth strategy. In a Chile site, there's a copper deck 12 months ago,

almost exactly 12 months ago. And what they included in this, in this deck 12 months ago that they put out publicly is this slide showing the capital intensity of their organic copper growth in Chile. Look at the cost of it roughly and I'm rounding, I'm rounding here, but roughly 30,000 U.S. dollars per incremental tonne of, of copper production. So that is, that is the reality of their organic copper growth pipeline. Incremental tons are extremely

capital intensive. Now if BHP could lock in that that cost, just say commit and know with certainty that they're going to pay $30,000 per ton US additional organic copper growth or copper production. So for those for those kind of wondering, we're talking about the upfront CapEx you need to spend to get these tons incremental. Ton and these are brownfields expansion too. But but the reality of, of that capital is it is uncertain.

You're making an estimate based on the best information you have at a point in time, right? And and if they could, if they could have certainty around that, maybe I would believe the rhetoric that the BHP is not coming back again. But but I but, but these are, these are numbers with uncertainty and it's just the reality of, of capital projects. The real cost is uncertain and it almost always blows out.

BHP is starkly aware of this too, because in the exact same presentation, they include this slide which shows the rapid rate at which brownfields expansions are getting starkly more expense expensive over time. Like this. This chart shows you Latin American capital intensity of copper growth for brownfields projects has soared by 65% in real dollar terms. So, you know, adjusting for

UK Takeover Rules & Deal Outlook

inflation over the last decade. In other words, organic is not cheap and it's not getting cheaper. It's slow, it's political, it's uncertain and it's capital heavy. Anglo's copper is here today. It's quicker, it's cleaner, it's more scalable. BHP's organic copper intensity is skyrocketing and by the, and this is by their own admission rights. So buying existing copper tons from Anglo or by buying Anglo, in my opinion, it's rational. It's not necessarily

opportunistic. This is rational and the opportunity cost of walking away on the other hand is actually quite high, which is which is why I don't believe this is a genuine walk away. Here's the other thing too, right? Remember when the Anglo Tech deal emerged and one of the slides there talks about the, the annual synergies of of $800 million per annum of our supposed synergies in the Anglo Tech deal because of the, the, the operational synergies between QB and Colossi.

Well, there's no doubt in my mind that those synergies are available to an interloper like BHP 2, because it's clearly going to be very like very clear economic rationale for JV to exist there now. So yeah. Just need to get all the parties online. It's not like those synergies are exclusive to these two

companies merging. So why should the market assume this isn't a genuine walkway to to kind of elaborate on, on the point you've just made and maybe just touch on the, the UK takeover rules which we've we've alluded to there? So UK, UK takeover laws, it's like put up, shut up, and yet you're effectively you're sidelined for six months for making another, another bid. There are exceptions to that as well, right? The code itself lists the escape

hatches. So there's like board consent, A rival firm offer, or a Rule 9 waiver proposal that fails. Plus, Angler sort of lets them. Plus like the other thing to think about here too is that the, the timeline on the tech angler deal itself, this is a deal that's not going to be

complete in six months. There's a very long period of time that this deal is kind of like, you know, in, in the mix just because of the, the lengthy approvals that are required from various different, you know, regulatory, you know, competition, etcetera, all of these different approvals that they need. So I think there's still probably like 12 months to go before this deal completes. So BHP can come back in six months and mount, you know, more shareholder pressure in the interim.

And I think make a, make a, make another, another go at this. So BHP they've turned up twice and you don't do that unless the the strategic itch is very real and strong. The long term kind of copper narrative inside BHP has not changed in 24 hours. I think like situations like this, they, they almost never present themselves. This is this is a global diversified major under pressure mid transformation with a world class South American copper

footprint and it's in play. If you want this portfolio, you have to be bold and you have to move while it's in play. Because think of BHP for for over a decade they've been shouting from the rooftops how horny they are for copper. In in October 2026, they even published a piece titled The Bullish Thesis for Copper. 2016, yeah. 20/20/2016 So they've deviated like this has been over a decade that they have been like shouting how how much they how bullish they are copper.

We spoke about it with Hugh Makai, Yeah. It's, it's clear, it's clear that, you know, internally this is the commodity that, that they want more of. So look, am I supposed to believe that in the, in the very short window that, that a phenomenal world class cup of portfolio becomes gettable that the BHP is gonna, gonna, gonna let it get away from them? I, I, I don't believe that this is a, yeah, a world class portfolio.

They're going to have to open the wallet and pay an uncomfortable price to get it. Now that's the, that's the bit the BHP is going to have to contend with is paying an uncomfortable price. But I'm going to wager that will do just that. JD I like it. I'll also wager that it'll be worth it, but you know, time will prove that wrong or right. Time, time indeed will prove

that one wrong or right. Yeah, the, the capital intensity is a fascinating point that needs to be obviously contrasted with what you're paying to get the assets. And yeah, there's a bit of detail in what BHB would do with the assets that they don't want within, within Anglo. Obviously Anglo's kind of try to RIP themselves apart to on the back of the BHB deal last year, but a lot to play out there. They've made themselves more attractive in the process.

They've they've, I mean, they've divested the PGM business at cyclical lows. They've clearly got something in the works with the beers, which, you know, we'll see that kind of business divested. Got close to I met Cole and met Cole. Yeah, I mean, they fumble the footy a bit, but but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's there for, it's there for BHP. They're gonna have to make their mark. But I yeah, I think this is, I think this is the kind of do you regret not doing rather than

regret doing. That's that's my hunch. What do you reckon? You hate paying out for stuff, don't you? I do. Indeed, I do indeed. Eyes on tech as well though and see what would happen out of the the back of disruption here whether somebody else tries to well. BHP coming for Anglo makes Rio getting going for tech a lot easier. Exactly. Exactly. I think there's a lot of water to go into the bridge. And yeah, just like you said, 18

Lithium Market Rally

months from when the deal was first announced that they thought it would get done, which is a long, long time. And a deal like Anglo BHB would have a lot of approvals and hopes to jump through as well. But we'll sort of wait and see. Six months, yeah, it's not that long in the scheme of things in, you know, to, to emphasize the point you made.

Speaking about how short six months is made, six months ago lithium was in the doldrums and now I look at the lithium equities and they are not in the doldrums. Has the world changed? Is lithium hot again? You know, I was thinking about what's going on in lithium and what you've just kind of said there is how I kind of tied up this story. The the change we've seen in six months is quite amazing. I'll start from the the beginning though. So lithium has been running of

late. And in particular, one week ago, we saw the chair from Young Fang Li Liang Bin come out with these very, very punchy comments talking up specifically the ESS, the energy stationary storage component of lithium demand. And he, he pretty much said the price is going to boom, it's going to double in the next year. And everyone got excited the, the defects, which is these Chinese futures for, for lithium, they shot up limit up 9% on the day. So they've obviously performed

very, very strongly. You had further good news with the Minarez deal. People quite excited about the price that Minarez got for the 30% sell down of their operating assets there. So I think there was sort of positive sentiment all around. And if you look on the focus charts right here, mate, we're showing Lyontown, IGO, Pilbara and Allevra, which is the old say Sarona. And just look at the share price tier between call it N10 and

N20. Lyontown is you know, it's closed above $1.60 for the first time in a long time. Hilbra's traded over 4 bucks. 10 line town. Sorry, IGO has traded well north of 7 bucks. This is this is boom times again. Despite the price being in the low one thousands, Kilbra is up nearly four times from its lows a little while ago, and it's trading at an enterprise value of 12:00-ish billion dollars.

Like some of these numbers are truly kind of astounding to for the the lithium price environment in which we're in. Is this, do these valuations make sense or is this just muscle memory of of people who remember you know where things go in? They they make no sense. They make no sense to me personally, but I'm sure there's lithium bulls out there with would completely justify. But there's a lot more interesting stuff that has

happened in the market. So Min Res and Lintown have talked about selling parcels at about 12:50 SE-6 equivalent that line Town 1 was dated for for January. So that's one more interesting kind of anecdote that we've seen. But you've also got kind of cautious buyers of the physical product in the market reading the kind of Chinese trade blogs and what what's out there.

A lot of people physically were were stepping back from the market not wanting to to pay up, which is another kind of interesting detail to to jot down. That said, we are kind of seeing destocking of of infantries more more broadly. Add to that a lot of investment banks now we've we've kind of shared our thoughts on on commodity price forecasting in general a whole bunch in the past, but Baron Joey of note lifted their forecast to 3250 bucks next year. That's almost the 3X from where

we are today. Bold. That is very. Bold to say the least. Another interesting detail, a particularly interesting detail is that Gangfang and Tianchi, their stocks have not flown like the Western names have. So Gangfang over the last month is down 10% and Tianchi is roughly flat.

Compare that with the names I just mentioned as well as SQM, which is up 30% over the past month and Albemarle pretty similar since early November that that's a real divergent and that's there's something quite, quite interesting to to kind of think about and and try and understand. So there's obviously a number of different factors apply, one being the short interest. We've seen a real ratcheting down of the short interest in the Aussie Lithium names.

You've also got the the retail shareholder interest, which is very strong in the Aussie lithium names. And I think that's one of the reasons why we've seen a real beating up of of their equities. And the last detail is that that anti involution kind of component when it comes to the Chinese names. We spoke about this specifically in the context of the Jiang Shiwu mine, which is cattle's mine, which is a pretty decent scale operation in the scheme of

global lithium production. Some people call it kind of 3% ish of global lithium supply. Now, what I'm talking about there is that that that whole story we spoke about a few months ago of the the Chinese government stepping down and saying how you need to ratchet up your environmental processes,

all these sorts of things. Essentially clamping down on kind of a bit more wild behavior and, and professionalizing industry and stopping at the end of the day, the the crazy price wars that Chinese players were were having with one another. Now, not everyone kind of buys into that, but that was a narrative that was very kind of prevalent throughout the industry, so. What what are we what are what

are we missing then mate that. Well, the, the, the bow to all of this kind of narrative of this beautiful sentiment and lithium running up is that over the weekend cattle come out and say, hey, you know what, we're going to restart Jungshi Wu. We might be able to do it next month if if all our ducks kind of line up and all of a sudden the GFX futures are limit down, spot falls almost 8%. All the lithium names in on the ISX and and abroad just get hammered.

So yeah, a wild, wild kind of couple weeks. And who kind of knows where this goes. Who knows how serious the Chinese government is about these permits and everything. There was a a price tag floating around of what cattle would have to pay to get the permit and all

of that in aligned. But I think the the more interesting kind of point to make is especially in the context of Barringer putting this pretty, pretty ballsy price target out there is like, is China going to be OK with the prices just running up like that? Again, Remember that narrative we spoke about for quite some

time? Or China would just turn the tap on And they're always going to be be able to put that lipid light supply back into the market to hamper down to damper down supply rather to make sure that the price doesn't run away so that downstream the EV makers, all these players out there don't get washed away on price.

So that that is one thing in the back of my mind and it makes it makes me particularly curious to see some of these investment banks come out with real strong price targets for the pretty immediate future. When I sort of, you know, air out all these kind of thoughts. What do you kind of take on board mate? What do you think of the the pretty astounding run up we've seen in in some of these lithium

names? I think it's fun like, yeah, I like I, you know, whether whether the valuations make sense or not, like it almost doesn't matter as much because lithium for as long as I we can remember it. So it's these stocks have traded so much on sentiment and, and like, yeah, where where people think that prices are going to go or where where people think that investors or speculators or retail are going to move to or whatnot. And I think, I think, I think it's just the same old, same old

here. I hope it's I hope it's a true balance, but you never know, mate. I. I think that's that is what the market has done more broadly as well over the past five, 1015 years. Things just trade on flows, on sentiment, on liquidity, and lithium does that more so than most others flushing out there. They're definitely sorry. They're definitely people like we know who like, maybe weren't.

Yeah, like, like, like invested to the extent that they thought they should have been in the last likely people market. And then they say green shirts. And like, this is the moment, you know, better, better, better buy like and get long. And you're buying on valuations that are maybe pricing in, you know, prices that are beyond where they are right now. However, like the market is so small, it doesn't take too much demand to really move the needle.

Couldn't agree more. That's the point I want to close on. When you, you know, open the segment you asked about, you know, is it a time to buy and these sorts of things? Six months ago was the time to buy all this stuff. That's when it was hated. And I know we we come from a real, a real value lens when we look at these these opportunities, but. You could have bought a month that got pretty good valuations, but. Right now you're flushing out already 1500 plus on a lot of these names.

So you are, you know, baking in upside. But what do we know, mate? We'll we'll see what the the flows and the sentiment does around these names and maybe we'll be proven wrong over the coming months. No, we're, we might, we own a lithium stock now. So we're actually OK for happy for it to go. Up. Ding Ding, Ding. We do. All right mate, Speaking of things that people should own, people should own Sandy Ground

support. They should, they should, they should get long, Derek Heard, the fantastic team at Sandy Ground support servicing the entire Australasian market from none other than Newcastle, Australia. It's not just the entire Australasian market. This is a this is a global mining division of Sandy which provide well keep keeps people safe by putting ground support

in underground mines. It is an absolute essential mate across the globe and any time that we ever think about bolts, I think of Derek. Any time we think about ground support, I think of Derek. And when I think of Derek, I think of Sandvik. When I think of Sandvik, I think go, Sandvik, go. Sandvik If you want the greatest ground support in the industry at your Mind site, get in the show details, click on Sandvik Ground Support or download the app. There's an app.

There's an app, mate. Oh. Jeez, hang on, two seconds. Got the app.

AGM Season Takeaways

There we go, mate. All right, Agms, it's AGM season. Shall we talk? We've got a couple to talk about here. Should we go? Should we go? Min raise to start well. Hey, let's just, let's lead in. We, we, we made an effort this this year to go to a bunch of Agms. And these are, yeah, we've got a bunch in our diary that we haven't gone to yet that we're still going to go to in the last week of AGM season. But we've been to like 6-6 or so like already.

And and we've gone like we've picked out Agms of companies that that we generally don't see too much of from an investor facing perspective because they don't do quarterly calls. But they they sort of weren't, you know, our attention because they're they're large, they're corporately active, they're doing stuff. And so we picked out a bunch of Agms that we've been to, we're going to min rest doesn't fit in the category of of being being hard to find out investor stuff.

I mean, the AGM streamed and everything that we just want. That's just like a must attend. We had to go to that one. Yeah. So we went to a bunch of others and to your point, learn stuff at each one of them, learned a lot at every single one of them. So it's well worth going and to the point you made a few weeks ago on the show, Get down if you own shares and one of them get down because there is stuff to be learned. I reckon we should kick off by sharing a couple of thoughts on Minres.

Yep, Yep. So the big story is Ellison's staying. Was that that wasn't that wasn't really a story from the IT. Was it was confirmation from the company? I didn't. I don't think that was a headline. Like, I know it was a headline, but I don't think that was like news, if you know what I mean. What, what kind of tops that

coming out of it? To be honest, I just thought that the company turn around like tops that yeah, like we we were there 12 months ago, very different situation like a lot more uncertainty, ambiguity that state of the business. Clearly, clearly the the the business is in a lot better, a

lot better health. Like there's a lot a lot of the uncertainty stuff is there over the hill in in a lot of respects that the balance sheet looks like, you know, especially in the wake of the the 30% sell down of the lithium business deposit code. Like it looks it looks completely out of control. And I think, I think things are on the up from a, from an operational performance perspective and, and financial performance perspective.

And there's just a lot, lot less uncertainty on the, on the, the ramp up kind of deliverables there. Yes, we're going into summer. But the thing I keep thinking about is, you know, even when they were doing repairs on that road, their ability to get tons to ship tons really surprised me. The upside and these iron ore prices, they're they're, they're killing it. Yeah, I think you've hit all the notes there.

They've fetched a greater price than the street thought they would for that sell down of the lithium business. That does wonders for the balance sheet. It's, you know, it's still a stretch, but no longer as bad as it once was. There's been a lot of turnover at the board. That's, that's kind of no secret, but I thought Mal Bundy did a great job and I think he's really reassured a lot of investors out there. And the, yeah, the whole, the whole vibe about the place was

it was quite different. I think the, the business is in a much steadier footing and what they've delivered today at Onslow, it has been nothing but but impressive. And let's see how that kind of continues and let's see how they execute on some of the growth goals which we know they've all got deep down and on what they want to do with Onslow.

Yeah, yeah. So to your point on on Allison staying or leaving, I did go to Joe Aston's breakfast on Friday last week in Perth and he alluded to a situation in which he does leave, but I'll see if that one pans out before I speculate on it. More to be said on that one. OK, deep yellow. Next up, we weren't allowed to intend this one. No visitors were allowed to intend attend this one, but there has been some interesting kind of shenanigans that this business of late hasn't there.

Yeah. So, so like this first came when our radar is an AGM worth going to. Well, OK, John Boshop's departure in the lead up did seem clearly like suspicious and abrupt. You know, you don't have a tenured kind of person like like John Boshop just depart effective immediately without knowing that this guy was showing the door. So why was he showing the door? What did what did the board disagree with him about? All mysterious and never really

got answered. And then you see yeah, like a few days before the AGM 33 kind of, you know, high profile shareholders all, all kind of lodge an initial substantial shareholder in concert together. Because they, they basically, you know, in this, in this, in this announcement or in this, in this disclosure reveal that they have an intention to, to requisition a shareholder meeting to vote on a change in the board, which is a Section 249-D effectively.

So we're thinking, OK, shareholders are having a, having a crack here and they want to, they want to air their frustration in the, in the, in John Borscht's departure. Then we see this article in the, in the AFR as well where David Paradise, one of these three shareholders. So he paired up with Sol Patz and McMillan. David Paradise, who doesn't speak up very often, by the way.

Like, I wouldn't describe Paradise as an activist or even, like, you know, really much of A vocal publicly shareholder.

Gold Companies & Merger Theory

But he says, I'm sending a few of our people to go and have a crack at them tomorrow. That's a big statement from David Paradise, I thought. I like that. It was good, good, good. Unfortunately we couldn't witness the the crack that was had at them because we weren't allowed in. By the way, I think this is an absolute load of shit to any any company that just like blocks out visitors or not or non shareholders from actually coming along to the to to to an AGM or an AGM.

I've seen it three times only and all three times they were hiding something mate. So. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. It's, it's deplorable to to not let visitors or media, whoever come on down and, you know, whether that be from from nerves from the board or, or whatever, just let the people in, you know, you've, you've got to stick by the decision you've made. Will John Borshoff return? I think it's the bigger kind of question to be answered here.

And yeah, I think I think there's kind of question marks to that one because obviously the shareholders got together on that point, but they haven't called an AGM yet. They haven't gone that step. We saw the voting come at the back and we'll flash it on the on the screen so you can see how how shareholders actually voted. So we're talking 20% against a couple of directors, 40% against another. And then there's a couple loans that copped a heavy vote against, but that's not enough. I did.

Jump Borsroff's loan shares. Yeah, none of that is enough for any of those directors not to be reelected or anything like that. And now we kind of sit and wait and see whether they do put forward an AGM Section 249-D and try and have another crack at overthrowing the board and perhaps invite a few more investors onto their ticket to to vote against these things. open-ended question there. TBA, right?

A couple of a couple of gold companies we went to their their Agms because we've talked about them plenty and we don't really never really met some of these people. So like vault in Genesis, the the whole battle for Leonora was, you know, at the time fault was called Silver Lake. But but that's the management team. We we never, we never met these people. We never met Luke Duncan. I don't think you can find video

footage of Luke Duncan online. Like maybe you can, maybe you can't, but but we never hear his voice in any calls or anything like that. Like when when Silverlight merged with Red, he didn't speak in that on that call or anything. No diggers, prezzos, nothing like that. So, but yeah, so but then it was his last AGM because he's announced his resignation and he was quite likeable, mate. He was actually, he was.

He won a sofa. I, I learnt a lot at both the Genesis and the Vault Agms. And I thought, you know, to your point on Tonkin, the way handled, you know, a plethora of questions from, from investors and investor in particular was, yeah, it was fascinating. Love the opportunity to speak with management of these companies after the meeting to ask a few questions and these sorts of things.

And yeah, it was fantastic to put faces to a lot of the names that we've spoken so much about over the past couple of years. Genesis another one where unless you go to the AGM like it's, it's hard to to to tune into the what's going on at the company unless you're, you know, and and insto who gets to that the rundown very frequently. But but also that was that like that was that was very informative for me.

And, and subsequent to the, to that AGM, they did get a, a, a, you know, a rail user agreement, agreement to, to, to shorten the length of the, the rail, the rails of the terminus is, is earliest effectively allowing Tower Hill to kind of move forward in, in, in, in the full kind of stage 1 and stage two way down the track, which, which is, which is really transformed. And that's going to be their best or body that they'll have

to mind. It was the first time I thought maybe Genesis isn't expensive, maybe because I understood the business in a better way. What a contrast in management styles between Vault and Genesis. Totally, Yeah. That that really stuck out to me. But but both valid, you know like yeah. Absolutely each set around. The other reason we went to Genesis and Vault it is of course because I keep speculating that there's going to be a merger between these two companies.

JD hasn't happened yet. Maybe my timing is off, but it's going to come. And here's my here's my thesis, right? Well, the thesis as well is obvious the synergies, but but here's my thesis of why I think it happens like sooner rather than later. When we were at the vault AGM, even though Tonks was over, there was no mention of a succession plan, no mention of an executive search to find a new MD, no mention of like, you know, even internal, like the whole topic was just like not

addressed. So that's one piece of information. I wonder if they're actually is going to be, you know, a new MD after Tonkin or if it's really his departure is just like a timer to an inevitable deal with with Genesis. The other thing too is bolts gone like owner operator on a bunch of on all of their assets. So deflector king of the hill. So they moved to go like owner

operator. There is that because you've got Genesis mining services, so you can just port over their own existing owner operator model when and then measure genesis. That's another thing in my head and what else has been going on?

OK. So imagine if black these two companies had discussions in the past and they couldn't quite get there on like on on bid R spread or subsequent to that Vault's done this like announced A buyback stock re rated it's sort of outperformed Genesis on since the buyback. So maybe that's like the the premium that happens before a deal to enable kind of like a more nil premium kind of merger between these two companies? Make it more palatable to. Vault shareholders, Maybe. Maybe.

Anyway, these are the things ruminating in my head, and I'd convince myself that we were going to say something before Christmas. Now I no longer think that, but you never know. You just never know. Tower Hill getting closer to being milled. Makes a lot of sense to send that up to King of the Hills. I I think so. I think so. I'm preaching to the converted here.

Yeah, by the way, we we spoke about the good news on on Tower Hill, like it sounds like, you know, Vault vault might have some good news on on the way in relation to Sugar Zone as well. Yeah. So wins all around hopefully on on unlocking these these into projects which have been awaiting a bit of an approval or or a permitting sort of situation. Taking a while to get there, but I think so. Yeah, beautiful mate. Well, that kind of that's that's my, that's my like deal.

Watch for the for the for the week out of the way. We'll see if Cavs got some more deal. Watch for us. Looking forward to Christmas mate. Emma, Dave Looking forward to Christmas, mate. We're in the festive season. A massive thank you to Sandvik Ground Support Focus the

Closing & Disclaimer

platform by market tech, Introlinks and switch technologies, right Hodoru Hodoru. Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out a disclaimer.

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