Speaking of being constructive. I wouldn't oppose the idea to generate some momentum amongst the punters (= us), which I believe accounts for the majority of holders in BAT, to question whether this deal with RCF is the best deal. I think we should at least send a message to BAT management. I personally think this stock has great prospects and a lot has been achieved (hats off to BAT management), but unfortunately I believe their engagement with capital markets in terms of potential institutional investors/financiers has been really sub par (aside from generating presentations and keeping the market generally "informed). The only thing they have really failed to deliver is shareholder value - which perhaps outweighs all else. BAT could have been 30c/sh by now if handled differently - now there is no real upside priced in. Having to wait around for years for a resource stock to re-rate based on achieving mine production is pretty rare and is usually a sign that management don't get the capital markets. Normally the stock price has gone up a fair way when it looks like the mine is going to happen - we're getting none of that. Now we see a schedule slippage in the latest investor presentation.
Look at how the share price completely got away from BAT and they raised capital after it was smashed down, and the debt is not cheap and has some pretty woeful conditions attached to it in terms of required equity raising (unless the equity in question can be satisfied by exercise of the options by RFC within five years - then maybe its OK). It looks to me like BAT had been shopping the story around Asia -Pacific looking for institutional investors and the intended investors have simply manipulated the stock price down, laughing all the way to the bank. I'm just thinking out loud, and not trying to ruin anyone's weekend - but I think we should put a bit of pressure on management here to get the best deal. I raised a bit of my concern with BAT directly and the response was OK (they responded), but not great. As I posted above, GRB were in the same position, raised equity at the absolute bottom - at the time it was eye-wateringly bad, but it made a lot of us rich - but that was clean, not drawn out with conditional further raising attached to it.
