Will a bidding war begin on this copper junior?

JD, are we about to see a bidding war for this copper junior? There could be some alpha in this episode mate. Maybe, maybe not. Because Xanadu has received a bid from Bastion and it seems cleverly structured to elicit a counter bid from Zijin at a higher price and fast. I'm keen to explore that with you today mate. Plus why we think Regis won't buy Ravenswood Asterisk mostly depends on price.

To kick things off mate. We've had a really interesting few days reading all of the emails that have come our way. I haven't replied to them all yet, but I know that you have and. I can't say they have yet. So thanks a bunch of the people that reached out. We added phenomenal feedback and we thought we'd we thought we'd run through a couple of the best replies, the things that made us

laugh a little bit. There was some some wicked responses, some great ideas of what we can think about going forward and a few great one liners in there. So let's let's just bounce off each other this. Is this is the one liners that you've you've cut out here, you've ignored all of the feedback, but you've just concluded the one liners, the zingers from the money miners. Massive appreciation for sending through your thoughts and

comments. It means a lot to know that that yeah, the the listeners you guys are still invested in in the future of of of money of mine. And that certainly came across in those emails. But I'm I'm intrigued in these, these one liners, mate, what have we got? All right. Here we go. I'll start us off so talking about our Abbott dour Thursday episode. Mate. Saw your episode today. It was like watching 2 guys whose 20 year old dog had just died. Pretty grim stuff. Oh, I got one for you.

If Black Sabbath can break up and reunite, maybe you guys will too. Someday, who knows? Who knows? I saw the same actually about wasn't wasn't about Black Sabbath. Maybe. Maybe you've. Got it. Might be coming. It might be coming. Hold your breath. All right, so to give you context on how big a fan I am, I was listening to your episode on the worst mining deals so intently in my car that I missed my turn off by 25 kilometers.

Didn't realize for 25 guys. You might need to use your phone or your sat NAV for that, but we are thrilled that we could be so engaging in a podcast. Unreal. All right, go on for you mate. I was keen to hear more on the battlefield, Lenora and the activist interview about Abyssinian medals and they got completely pulled. I listened to it twice before it vanished. I still remember driving down the street in Vancouver nearly having a car accident because I was so locked in.

Maybe one day we'll bring that one back. I don't know, JD. Actually, no, it's deleted forever unfortunately. It's out of our hands, but maybe we can tell a story one day. Last but not least, money miners. Imagine how much ACDC would have wanted to quit when Bond Scott died and yet they came back even better with the new guy. It's fantastic. I never thought we would get mentioned or compared to a CDCI. Didn't think those sort of words went in the same sentence mate.

But lo and behold, lo and behold, us and ACDC being compared. Thanks a lot to all the money miners for getting in touch with us, sharing your feedback. We haven't got back to all of it because it's been a complete mountain, but we will get there. Every day I say I'll be happy if I end my day with like, no, no emails sending in my inbox. And it just gets bigger. But we'll get there, mate.

We'll get there. Those messages from the money miners, they've brought in the mood here and they've, they've given me some energy, which I didn't, I didn't think it was possible to get that energy in, in this period of time, JD. But it's it's very relevant because I've actually prepared a quiz for you today. Have you? I have mate, no pressure, but your reputation's on the line. Are you ready? Question one who's building state-of-the-art hybrid power stations for enormous mine sites

all over the world? Cross boundary energy is the only name that comes. Correct question two. Who actually owns and operates them so the mining company doesn't have to lift a finger. Steel cross boundary. He's on fire. Final question, who's helping mines cut diesel, cut costs and cut emissions, all without CapEx? That's an easy one mate. Cross boundary energy. Clean sweep mate, want to know what you win? Hopefully their phone number

mate. If you're if you're running or building a mine and want lower energy deals without building your own bloody power plant, talk to Tim Taylor across Boundary Energy. That's the answer every time. Phone number and show notes. Go cross boundary energy.

All right, mate. Xanadu copped a beer. I think up front. We've got to do a Ding, Ding, Ding Jada, you and I have been shareholders for best past six months, I want to say in this stock so. Something about that since better. To disclose that up front. Yeah, we, we spoke about this one about 6 odd months ago and it intrigued us so much, so much that a little while after that we decided to, to pick up some

shares. So yes, we're talking our own book, but we think it's super relevant for the money miners and it is a fascinating story. We're going to try answer the question, will there be a bidding war at Xanadu? It's currently trading above bid price, which we'll get into and there are some some juicy details to this one mate. What's, what's the one-on-one? You know, fast, fast background on what's going on here, mate. All right.

In in a nutshell, Xanadu holds a stake in a huge undeveloped copper gold project in Mongolia. The asset is called Karmagtai. Now the CapEx is close to US 900 million. That's the important detail to know because that has always been the impediment for Xanadu to develop this asset. Now they have had a bit of a relationship forming with Siege in over time. Xanadu owns about 38% of this big project with our great friends in China, Z Gin.

So everyone long suspected Z Gin of being the ultimate owners of this one, and the company have made no secret that they've tried to get a deal done to that end in recent times. And effectively over the the course of history, there's a few different deal structure options. It's all coalesced in, in what was briefly an exclusivity period for Z Gin last month. That exclusivity actually

lapsed. And then, you know, we, we, we kind of woke up, was it yesterday And Xanadu copped an 8 cent bead not from ZZ in very interestingly. Yeah, fascinating. So the the bead itself, we're just churning away, sitting in the office here drumming up content for the Director Special newsletter. It's early. Sign up if you're not already, by the way, get. On in the show notes and then we see it recommended 8 cent cash offer.

Now, like you mentioned that we'd long been suspecting a bid, but we were a bit surprised in the form that it took. So like I said, Colin Moore head the CEO of the company and the whole company have been working pretty hard. They've had webinars, they've had calls they've mentioned in countless presentations over recent months. Now Z Gen. was the glaringly obvious partner to this.

So long behold, we crank open this announcement that we see and Xanadu and Bastian have entered into a agreement. My first thoughts mate, Who the hell are Bastian? Second thoughts, which I thought right after that. You bloody beauty. We could be on for some competition here mate. I think we got lucky to be honest with you, mate, because like, no, we've talked about this before, but no one ever makes real money trying to predict an M and a corporate transaction.

And we're like reading the tea leaves a bit. Thinking was pretty, everything was transparent. It was like, yeah, these are all the dates. These are the options. We're like, it just makes sense for the agent to buy this. So we that's. The thing there was a timeline on, Yeah. And that was the the only reason in what you, yeah, can otherwise describe as a pretty fruitless strategy, at least for a punter.

Totally and there was it was a non controlling or became effectively like non controlling interest. So we sort of you often get screwed over in those situations. And we, we also thought, I don't know if there's actually any like credible other party bidding here or, or, or putting forward a credible funding option. So when we saw it was Bastion, well, like, yes, there's there's someone else here. This is, this is interesting. But yeah, I I was stoked to say that. Yeah, absolutely, mate.

So clearly we've got to unpack a few more details in what came out. So cash offer for $0.08. Now there is quite a bit more meat on the bone here. You've got Xanadu, the directors in the company recommending shareholders accept this. Then you've got Bastian, which is a consortium of a couple parties, excuse me, subscribing for shares at six cents. Now 8 cents bid, six cents is what they're subscribing for shares at. And it's not just a completely paltry amount, $17 million

worth. Now, as I mentioned, a consortium that is made-up of this group called Peru, which is Singapore based, and Xanadu director by the name of Ganbaya. Now, Ganbaya is a very important character in this whole narrative because he also owns what is a 13.5% stake in the project. Very, very important detail back to the placement. So there's a catch to that.

And what you start to uncover as you read more about this deal, right, is that they're doing everything they can to prompt Zijin to get the work, to get to work. And Zijin have been dragging their feet as we just described. Siegen have for the longest period thought they're the only natural buyers. They already own a big stake in this. It's Mongolia has sort of attributes that make it more appealing to a Chinese buyer,

all these sorts of things. Now, I think the market as well as us thought best case Siegen come in and, you know, we'd kicked about this idea about maybe a month ago. Eight cents, maybe 88 and a half cents if we're lucky. But we'll see what sort of happens. We didn't really think there was a. Logical Plan B what's your Plan B?

Yeah. We actually thought that Plan B was the put option and thought, OK, if worst case scenarios, 25% carried interest, whatever, like that's, that's, that's like can live with that feels like a downside somewhat, you know, protected, Yeah, but didn't, didn't think there was a credible Plan B of another, another party.

But it is interesting, right? The way it's kind of zigging was had exclusivity because they had tended an NBIO, which the board of Xanadu deemed to be a, a a superior proposal to what the, you know, the alternative was going to be the the 25% put option would have been shareholders were asked to to go to go and go and vote, vote on that. But instead they deferred that let gave gave CGN exclusivity.

And clearly whatever number CGN put it put on the table in that NBIO, they backed out of it. And I think they were just kind of who knows, right? But it's, it's, it's, it's potential that they just played hardball, realised they've got all the power in the negotiating position. They're exclusive to your lapses. Then all of a sudden that was actually the, the, the Plan B we didn't know about all along comes the party. And there's real pressure on Zijin here because of that

placement. Like you talked about that placement of 70 million bucks at six cents. Now Ziji's got to make their mind up. Do they, do they, do they want more ownership at, at, at a, at a price that's, you know, reasonable or do they not? And if they, they do, they're going to have to pay north of north of the $0.08, which means that on that 70 million bucks of cash that's going to be put into the pro forma, they might be having to pay like 25,000,000 bucks for that in terms of, you

know, what they actually pay. So their incentive to put forward a more compelling bid is only up in like is they let's say you know, at least 7,000,000 bucks if they submit that offer before the 26th of May, which is only 6 days away. If they submit an offer before then, then and and it seemed to be a superior proposal and the the board recommends it and Bastian doesn't exercise their matching right, then all of a sudden CGM will save 7,000,000 bucks.

That's a decent enough incentive for them to come to the party. Hence why we're kind of yeah, really interested in in how the next six days plays out. Now, I don't think we have like stars in our eyes about what what value can be really attained here because everything about this doesn't look like Bastian wants to enter a bidding war. It just looks to me like Bastian wants XI Jin to pay a fair bit more than they, you know, currently being willing to.

And that's where the other part of the ownership that Ganbaya, that director comes into play because there is potential if Xanadu goes into another party's hands, IE Ganbaya, that when you take into account his ownership interest in the project outside of this sort of joint venture between XI Jin and Xanadu, that he would have a bigger stake. He and his, you know, partners in the in the consortium would have a bigger stake than Seijin and that is a key, key detail here.

Totally, there's a lot more negotiating leverage that is is concentrated with Gumbaya in that case. And if Seijin really wanted to consolidate the, you know, full ownership of the project laid down the track or or at least as much as they can without government, then then Gumbaya holds a lot more power and cards in all of that.

And, and right now what, what, what could they feasibly get get away with paying well at 8.3 cents, That's where Bastion kind of starts to, to, to actually make money otherwise. So I think any, any offer from Zegen that like, that's the

absolute sort of starting point. But depending on the leverage that can be, you know, held between Gabby are because what Zegen wouldn't want to do is let, let let Bastion, you know, acquire this stake in, in the, in the project by acquiring Xanadu. And then all of a sudden you have to pay like 15 cents instead of $0.10 equivalent for

the entire thing. So. And what what you're sort of describing there is the, the optionality at play here for shareholders who would go onto the market and pick up these shares, right? So after the deal got announced yesterday, we start seeing it trade in the high sevens, you know, below the the bid. But people aren't paying upfront over expecting anything to come through. And then that changes today.

Clearly some people have cottoned on to say, hey, we have sort of solid footing at 8 cents. Yeah, but but we might get 8 and half, we might get 9. Whatever we we can, you know, weigh those probabilities against each other. Whatever you might think it is, it's pretty hard to pick into the mind of what Z gin Yeah, but you've got your downside in the sense protected and that's the, that's the base you've got. That's the that's the downside.

You're not losing an awful lot of money if you can pick them up like some shareholders were yesterday at 7.67.7. Awesome. Your beauty, right? Totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it, it doesn't look like there's too much risk of of deal failure in the sense of invest in not getting 50.1 acceptances, I think becomes unconditional at that point. So I do think deal risk is actually pretty low here on the balance of probabilities. The the asymmetry is skewed dish

to the upside. However, I wouldn't get carried away with like a bidding war. I think there's like, you know, one more bid. Is it $0.09? Is it $0.10? I don't know. I don't know what gets the deal done, but I I'm, I'm hopeful as a shareholder. I'm still still yes haven't haven't sold my stake. Yeah, exactly. I mean credit to the to the team at Xanadu, they they managed to drum up interest where most people thought there there wasn't an awful lot of interest. So I came to see how it kind of

plays out from here. But it's a it's an interesting one. Your, your talking point on how solid is the, the deal is an interesting one because shortly after we realized it wasn't CGN and it was someone else who were like, well, clearly they're trying to prompt CGN to come in. So like, is this someone that's just come in randomly trying to product? Like, are they solid? You know, do they have a bit on them? And yeah, long behold, they do. So that's the relief, Yeah, I

think we got lucky, JD, but. I think we got more than lucky mate count now. Lucky stars. Awesome, that was really interesting mate. So now JD, the the Billion Dollar Man, Mr. Derek heard of Sandvik ground support. He sat down with us last week and he told us boatloads about ground support.

We're pumped to to share a bunch of these kind of one minute snippets from the combo that we had with the Billion Dollar Man over the coming weeks, starting with this, how has ground support changed over like the the last 20 years for example? Some people might say not much at the end of the day because it looks like a a steel bolt or a splitty or a friction bolt. Depends if you know what you call it sort of thing.

But they've been around forever and a day because they're a good product at the end of the day and they they do their job. But there's been a lot of evolution on sort of the dynamic capability of products, you know, that can hold more capacity, more energy. Again, as these conditions become more challenging, you know, there's more requirements for, you know, higher capacity products at the end of the day.

The other thing that that's probably changed over the years is the, the frequency of use probably ground support probably was a almost an afterthought, you know, 20-30 years ago. Now it's a critical as part of the development cycle, you know, to provide again, provide that safe working environment. Thank you, Derek, Kurt and Sandvik Ground support. Thanks Wiser, you know he was in, he started his career in R&D. That's why he cares so much about how things have changed over.

Time I did. It was a pleasure to learn a lot from Derek. Thank you.

And to round out JD, we actually had a chinwag about Ravenswood. We've recorded it the same days we did our Lion Town episode, but because we chose to include that kind of post episode RIP, we just wanted to make the podcast a realistic time to consume. And we've reserved it to to Chuck. And today it's still just as relevant. Nothing has changed since, but we're going to have a good yarn about why Regis isn't going to buy Ravenswood. No less relevant.

Here we go. Who's going to buy Ravenswood? Well, this is, this has been like one of the more advertised sales processors out there, especially in the data room column. There's not much going on on sales price fronts. So you got to, you got to write articles about something. And Ravenswood, Ravenswood's gotten a fair bit of attention, but Ravenswood gold mine in Queensland, it produces about 200,000 ounces of gold annually.

It's on the market and, and all of the, the articles, they kind of advertise this gold mine as A2, a $2 billion price tag grant. Now this, this mine is jointly owned by EMR Capital and Golden Energy and Resources, which is called Gear often when it's referred to EMR Capital, they're obviously private equity firm. You've spoken with Owen on the podcast in the past, JD and then you've got Gear now that is a majority owned by Indonesia's Bujaya family.

They, they do a lot in coal and see them kind of with Latimore's and and Stanmore and all those sorts of things. So anyway, EMR and Gear acquired Ravenswood in 2020. The up to 300 million bucks was the price tag, 100 million of that was was upfront and 300 and the remaining 200 million was kind of contingent. That's largely all all paid or payable. Since then they've invested a fair bit into Ravens. What a lot of capital is going

in here. They've reportedly extended the mines life by 15 years to 2022. I say reportedly because there's a few asterisks to that extension, which I will get to this is a a sale process that has been publicly advertised since November last year. That was six months ago. That's that's like quite a long time to be banging on about our sales process with lots of articles in data room.

And over that time, we've watched the bidding pool narrow down in all of the columns to now it's just two bidders left early days. There were tons of potential bidders like named in these articles. Everyone was saying Capricorn, Gold, Rd. Remelius, Evolution, dot, like you name it. Every every mid tier was always kind of like reference with a bunch of Chinese, a bunch of Indonesian capital, all that sort of stuff. And now we've got just two names and final bids are due next week.

The only two contenders apparently left ASX listed Regis Resources and Indonesia's United Tractors. A good set name. It's funny. United Tractors. Yeah. I want to talk about some of the maybe not so obvious elements to to this sale process if you're interested in reading kind of past the press. Spell them out mate. What are? What are the details you can to

discuss? Firstly, this is, this is a sale process from private equity and you know my golden rule when it comes to sales processes from private equity. JD. Never forget mate, never buy the bags of PE. Never buy private equity bags. Like I, yeah, I just, we private equity is remarkably good at dressing things up a lot better than they are. And because they're auctions, like they're often, you know,

competitive. There's a lot of like those dynamics where you dress something up to be really, really good and then maybe in the long run, it might actually turn out to not be as good. And because it was an auction or a sales process, it's competitive. Everyone really, really wants it. And maybe a couple of people need it and they bid and they aren't bid. And it's private equity guys.

They're pretty damn good at kind of harnessing the competitive attention and, and often you don't quite realize, you know, what you might have truly bought until a year or so later. And then the reality is, you know, some of the policies have washed off a little bit, But that's a generalization. It's not to say you can't make money buying off private equity. And plenty of people will point to plenty of examples where people have made lots of money buying off private equity.

But in general, that's like a, a blanket kind of, you know, heuristic. I I roll with. To to to go specific now on on Ravenswood, spell out some of the the key risks as you kind of see. Them well, well, even even a step before that, the generalization is it's going to be competitive. This is different. This isn't competitive. You've got 2 two parties left in a sales process submitting final bids. Like that's kind of crazy to me.

So in in general, the competitive nature might lead people to overpaying for something that is not going to turn out to be as good as you think it is. This one, it might not have the same competitive tension. So I. And even even 2 might not be what it might first appear to people on the outside. One could just be hanging in to the end with a with a lowball as well. So it's not as if you've got 2

eager buyers. But I think there could be none like, but yeah, absolutely, that's a real potential. So the other point too is there's some critical risks that you you kind of need to accept as a bidder in this sale process. What's being, you know, talked about or what what's kind of come out in the price in the duration of the sale process? Why there are only two it is left. Well, there's a very substantial out of the money hedge book in place here.

Bidders, whoever buys Ravenswood has to assume that hedge book or maybe they could alternatively stump up their own funding to to close it out, restructure it, whatever. I, I haven't been able to get the exact number out of anyone of what the true value of this out of the money hedge book is. But I think it is enormous. Like my, my intuition, the kind of range that I've I've been told or guided towards this is

very, very substantial. Like north of, you know, 5 hundred 607 hundred $800 million sort of substantial. To the huge detriment of the the current owners, right? Totally. That's a that's, that's a pretty chunky. Yeah, it's pretty chunky, part of the capital structure, right And. You touched on earlier the the life extension component and this sort of off reported 15 years that they have sort of worked on. What are you thinking on that?

This, this, I don't think a 15 year mine life extension is as certain as it might imagine. This kind of comes into the part where private equity could have kind of, yeah, making things look better than they, they actually might be. So there's in that within that mine plan, there's new ore bodies that kind of rely on untested or sorting. All of all of that has risk, right?

If you, if you're taking on kind of new technological or applying technology to untested already, all those sorts of things, there's, there's risk there. And another, another kind of, you know, part of this sale process too is do you remember when, when Newmont was selling Telfer, that sale process was sort of plagued by a, a leak in one of the, the TSFS they had there. There's a bit of deja vu here.

One of one of the TSFS here is yeah, there's, there's, there's a, you know, I don't think it's, you know, terminable kind of leak, but there is, there is an issue here, yeah, the tailing storage facilities here. But my, you know, my, my broader point is this is a week before final bids and there's, there's two parties supposedly submitting a binding offer in

the midst of a gold bull market. That's that kind of speaks volumes to like issues that the bidding bidders have had A, with the asset quality and B, reconciling asset quality with the valuation expectations of the vendors, like $2 billion to accept a lot of risk and edge book and all that sort of stuff doesn't compute. Hence 2 bidders left. So let's talk about how it, how it plays out, how it plays out in reality then. I think so.

So you're not attractors and Regis left, right in this apparently you're not attractors. He's an Indonesian group. One of the vendors of this is is Gear Indonesia links, you know, EMR notorious kind of like Hegity has kind of connections to yeah, Indonesian capital, all those sorts of things. So I don't, I kind of interpret United Attractors interest as that questionable in and of

itself. I'm not, I'm not convinced that United Attractors is a, is a genuine kind of credible bidder purely because I'm like, is this like, is it a, is it a favour to look like a A? Competitor. It's a big question, but. But yeah, I'm I'm told that maybe they are kind of serious and they're, but that they might not be serious anywhere near the value expectations of the actual vendor. So you're not attracted in and

of itself. I'm like unsure of even even like assume you're not attracted is a serious bidder. And they might actually like have, you know, a value, a value that is unpalatable. I'm not even sure they'd get fib

approval. And I know that's kind of maybe a bit questionable or absurd because because this isn't Indonesian capital as opposed to Chinese capital, but there's definitely overlap like the Chinese ethnic Indonesian capital is. I don't know, I don't know how like down the track you want to get, but but Ravenswood is a stone's throw away from Townsville military base. That's a pretty kind of critical area.

Ferb might be a lot more interested than they otherwise would, given proximity to a pretty cool, pretty critical military base. So. Anyone who's had mates in the army, they've they've swung through Townsville at some point. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's impossible. I'm here obviously like was able to buy this times are different in 2020 as well. But I just think like it's not, it's not a home run furb outcome in my mind. I think there's I think there's like there's risk there.

And as vendors you've got to kind of question, well, how much conditionality am I willing to accept? You accept more conditionality when it's not very competitive And then Regis, right? Do we actually think Regis is going to buy this? I don't, I'm not convinced, I'm not convinced. And I like, I'm certainly not convinced that they're there at any anywhere near the value expectations that the vendors have. That that's the, that's the point, right?

Because I think yeah, they would pick it up if they could do it completely on the price that they want. But is that anywhere near what EMR are expecting? If you're, if you're already assuming a call it close to a billion dollar like out of the money hedge book, it's, it's it that, that's, it's, it's, it can be a stretch here when there's technical risk as well. And even in Regis's case, who are clearly keen to buy something, I mean, that's no, no

doubt. And they're making tremendous cash at the moment, but they're obviously looking to add growth, improve their portfolio. Whether Ravenswood actually does that, I don't know. And and Regis doesn't have the same license for M&A in the same way that a lot of other mid tiers do because the last goal of it was buying its stake in Tropicana, which was really poorly received by the market for for a good period of time. Their big consensus was that

they overpaid. Now they've like built up a bit more trust gold prices run that you know improved their hedge book. Tropicana is clearly the best part of their portfolio now, but they have the same license for M&A. It's interesting what a few years did into that deal and they solid run in the in the gold price. But you know, license to do a deal as as you sort of frame it is clearly more limited at outrageous than it is at other companies all the while they're

growing their cash bar. They, they and they have to benchmark this opportunity next to like the other opportunities which are clearly in the market at the same time. And on that point there, there are like 2 like very present real ways that they could allocate their, their capital or seek growth. And both of them are far more in their like their home court. I'm talking about Bellevue who was like publicly declared that they're running a strategic

review. Like we're pretty sure that they're like showing signs of being serious about that. There's the data room. To the best of our knowledge, a bunch of, you know, companies mid tiers have been invited into

that data room. I don't know like details about timing or everything like that, but there's a, there's a proper process that underway there for, for Bellevue to maximize shareholder value, which certainly involves exploring kind of best, best value M&A on its cards, which it's very possible Regis could be a serious contender in that.

And the other one is, we've talked about it a few times, Focus Minerals is, is actively selling their Laverton, all of their like, yeah, tenure in the Laverton, which there's a lot of gold there that focus of kind of land grabbed for many years and not done very much with. But there's, there's a there's there's a lot of answers there, the quality and how long it will take and all that sort of stuff. All of that's to be proven out, but. Much more under the radar given,

you know, Chinese ownership and. Totally. Or or the sort of questions around that, but. In the right part of the world though, and there's a lot of, yeah, a lot of players in that labour and region, even Regis themselves have will have synergies. But there's yeah, there's you know, possibly like 4 million ounces of mineral resource that can be acquired there for like, you know, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But a reasonable number that that like what would the market

prefer to see Regis do? I think it would have much less appetite for it to to go go Interstate, take on like, again, more hedging, take on technical risk, all those sorts of things. But yeah, that's my gut feeling. And where does that leave the sales process? Well, if you were Regis, what do you do? Probably put in a pretty lowball bid. And that lowball bid might be just like, like the actual price you'd be willing to, you know, stump up if it like a super lowball bid and private equity,

what are they going to do? They're probably not going to accept it. I put good money that this doesn't sell. Like that's my, like my, my leading hypothesis is that it doesn't, it doesn't sell. Or maybe maybe gear buys EMR, EMR stake that like in for like negligible profit. And that lets kind of, you know, EMR have the, the, the kind of closure outcome that's required for their for the LP's and the funds and the asset and all that

sort of stuff. But I struggle to sort of see if these are the only two parties there. I'm I'm more skeptical of a of an outcome that kind of will actually be acceptable and palatable unless they accept the very low ball off of ranges. Yeah, absolutely. That's that's the other aspect just to emphasize with PE, they bought it in 2020, but who knows when the that particular fund, I think that was already a couple years old.

They have definitive timelines. They have pressure on when they need to have outcomes and get stuff done. And if it doesn't sell now, you know, maybe they can extend a few years with the fund and stuff. Maybe they had a few more years up their sleeve.

But they have outcome pressures that unless they roll it into the next fund and these sorts of things which PE does over time, but they no doubt have pressures put on them as well to achieve outcomes so. I I do think both like Focus and Bellevue are going to be competitive and. Undoubtedly. And LV back. Down at that below the raise price. Yeah. And Ravenswood is not like not

competitive, right. So there's like, yeah, like what kind of bargain you're going to get on a relative basis, like, I don't don't know. But but yeah, like they'd be the equations for for a company like Regis. Yeah. Given we've also said in the past that winning a competitive auction process is is no great achievement, but we'll see what happens on that front given that the nature of it. Absolutely, mate. I think we've got some Marks and partners to thank mate.

Absolutely a massive thank you to Mineral Mining services, Grandeur, Sandvik Ground support, CRE Insurance, K drill, KCA site services, Black diamond drilling services and Cross Boundary Energy.