I have to say that the IPO of CAS was one of the most underplayed events on AIM for an age, volume in the stock yesterday was 100 shares, that is unreal for a new listing. So far there is no interest at all, there has not even been a Crusader bulletin board set up in the UK, that in itself tells you all you need to know.
One wonders given the woeful share performance history, massive financial losses, including what many consider to be excessive director remuneration & G&A if the London market will stay well clear until the stock falls significantly from current levels, perhaps investors may see some real value under £10m from the current circa £15m market cap, maybe not.
Take note that one company already producing 20k oz of gold at $600 AISC with 1m+ oz of reserves has a market cap under £13m, they also have a project in the prolific Hot Maden area of Turkey which contains another 1m oz of gold, check Sandstone and Mariana Resources recent $100m+ buyout to see how prolific the area is. Sub £13m market cap recently, I kid you not!
A £15m market cap for a company like CAS that has no revenue and will most definitely have to come back to the market for more cash will be aggressively targeted by the shorting community. Entities often sell stock forward and profit from spread bets with each % drop, they replenish that stock in the next (inevitable) placing. AIM is no valuation panacea.
I also think that London investors deem the AIM listing to be necessary as Australian folk have lost the appetite to fund Crusader. The new CEO has also been tarnished by events that occurred at Stratex, he pursued the CAS deal knowing the larger Stratex shareholder were against it from the start, as I have mentioned the AIM junior resource space is a small place and people do not forget easily.
There is a lot to do at Crusader to restore investor confidence, maybe they will deliver but their long history of shareholder value decimation stands against them currently. One wonders why they did not list on the TSX as someone implied in an earlier post.
Sorry to be negative but these are my genuine views of recent events.
