About two months ago, Rio Tinto's Andrew Latham, the head of the Ventures division in that company, put out an interesting presentation based on some research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the metals most likely to be impacted by new technology.
The presentation included a graphic (pictured below) based on the findings of the MIT. Curiously, tin was the metal that topped the list, followed by lithium at number two and cobalt at number three. According to the research, tin was likely to see increasing demand from the growth in autonomous and electric vehicles, advanced robotics, renewable energy as well as advanced computation and IT.
That said, in my opinion, this stock doesn't really need a surge in the tin price for the share price to rise.
Thomson are sitting on a promising little tin deposit at Bygoo, and I believe the MD to be competent and ethical. Not too many mining companies with a sub $10 million market cap would be able to tick both those boxes.
The share price probably deserves to be higher, but unfortunately, their major shareholder Variscan, have proved to be a bit of a ball and chain.
Prospective buyers have cottoned on to the fact that last year the TMZ share price got hammered after Variscan dumped a chunk of their shares last year, and with the Variscan share price sitting at record lows, the buyers aren't keen to buy except at very depressed prices.
Having said that, it is worth noting that the recent Variscan capital raising was quite well supported, and I have no doubt the management of that company won't have trouble finding takers for the shortfall.
I also suspect that the management of Variscan have realised that selling down their position in TMZ at the current low levels is a lose-lose proposition for both companies. (I'm not sure who is the owner of that large parcel of 400,000 or so shares that are currently on offer at 0.056, but I suspect it isn't Variscan).
In short, I don't think Variscan have either the need nor inclination to sell of any more of their shares in Thomson in the near future, and once all the buyers sitting on the sidelines digest this fact, a rapid re-rating in the company share price may well follow.
(20min delay)
