Ann: Jeremy Sinclair appointed MD as part of Board changes, page-15

The previous RCF debt deal (May 2018) was a rushed one. A Plan B so to speak. The strategy of partly funding Montepuez from 10c unlisted options out of the November 2017 placement failed ( the Dow corrected in February 2018, whereas they were expecting an announcement of 4 x Binding Offtakes in quick succession would drive those 10c unlisted options into the money ). I think it's highly likely this was a bad idea generated by Hartleys / Morgans in 2017 and as it turned out a bad decision by the board at the time to even consider such a risky strategy ( although the graphite price slump in 2017 might have caused them to try such an innovative approach ). I don't think they even approached banks. I think their planned strategy was to raise about $33M from those unquoted oppies and the balance with a debt provider such as RCF.

When this strategy failed, the problem for them was that in early 2018 they didn't have enough time to properly talk to banks. It didn't come done to the deal being 'meh' from the perspective of banks ... I don't think they spoke to any. They didn't have time to go through the exhaustive process of debt funding by banks.

JORC 2012 has been in place for some time now and the whole industry has generally cleaned up their act, although there are still horror stories I don't think BAT will be one of them. At least from a resource knowledge perspective. They have done significantly finer-grained drilling than both SYR and BSM have done ( and I think this is part of their problems ). BSM also didn't seem to produce any from of feasibility study for their mine refurbishment.


BAT have done full grade-control drilling at Montepuez on a 12.5m x 50m grid. In support of offtakes they also did a bulk sample program. They should have a pretty good knowledge of what is in the ground and where. They also brought in Ivy Chen to help ensure adequate rigour in their reporting to the market.

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20190205/pdf/442cw5tcfv6bw9.pdf