• Jadestone, Beach & Hibiscus Petroleum as well as Carlyle are among the parties likely to line up for Santos WA assets (The Australian)

• Only one Boss Energy board member didn’t join the selling frenzy as the remaining directors netted over $25m in sales (The West)

• Iran increased stockpiles of “bomb grade” enriched uranium ahead of elections (Yahoo)

• Peter Dutton’s rejection of production tax credits for critical minerals processing is risking support in several must-win seats in WA (AFR)

• Commodities are on the cusp of a “super-bull rally” after traders cashed in their winnings last week (AFR)

• BHP & Rio are set to trial new battery-electric haul trucks at their Pilbara operations (The West)

• A BHP takeover of Anglo could lead to US$4.3b in outflows from South Africa, according to JP Morgan, as a result of index flows (Bloomberg)

• Singapore-registered Yuxiao Fund had a win over Nick Curtis after he resigned from the board of Northern Minerals (AFR) More below

• The Whyalla blast furnace restarted after being out of action for several weeks, with steelmaking to recommence in June (The Australian)

• China defied the copper squeeze by producing a record amount of the red metal, as higher prices unlock more scrap metal (Bloomberg)

• US$240b Abu Dhabi conglomerate IHC’s mining unit embarked on a flurry of deals in Africa, & expects to spend US$1b in acquisitions this year (FT)

• Bluescope waived its pre-emptive rights over S32’s Illawarra met coal assets, allowing the GEAR/M Resources takeover to proceed (S32) BSL negotiated improved terms relating to their supply contract (Capital Brief)

• Brightstar proceed to compulsory acquisition of Linden Gold (BTR)

• CZR’s sale of Robe Mesa to Miracle Iron has been delayed as FIRB aren’t able to complete their assessment, extending to 30 June (CZR)

• CITIC is planning to sell a small portion of its holdings in Ivanhoe Mines through public trades or privately through block trades (Mining.com)

• Hot Chili closed its SPP early and upsized the raise to $7m (from $5m) due to the “overwhelming response to the SPP” (HCH)

• Indian commodities tycoon Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta is considering a share sale as soon as the coming weeks that could raise as much as US$1b (Bloomberg)

• Following recent capital raisings from both Pantoro and Metro Mining, we thought it would be useful to identify which other companies are likely to follow a similar course of action by meeting similar criteria:

  1. High-cost producer

  2. Messy balance sheet

  3. Benefitted from recent share price appreciation given commodity rally

  4. Broker coverage momentum picked up recently

• The below names come to mind. Not all fit “perfectly” in the categories, but they roughly do:

  

• In the case of Catalyst, a look at their 31 Dec half yearly showed a hefty net working capital position. As of the end of March, the Company held interest-bearing facilities of c. $39m and has call and forward gold sales of +20koz in the low A$3,000/ozs due in the June 2024 quarter. Throw in some very timely research initiated on the stock by Argonaut in early April and we think the writing is on the wall.

• With Aeris, their debt is with their major shareholder, Soul Patts. The interest rate is horrible. Would Soul Patts tip in pro-rata to a raise that cleans the balance sheet? Or would they rather simply clip the insane interest coupon on the $50 million debt facility?

  

• 29 Metals’ challenges have been well documented by us in multiple podcast episodes. We suspect they might find themselves the beneficiary of some QLD government give-outs which should help their cause. We still wonder if deleveraging their balance sheet further will be required at some stage though.

• To be clear, we support sensible capitalisation of high-cost producers. Some of these companies should have far less financial leverage. And for some of them, new equity is realistically the only way to get there (absent an opportunistic bid).

• Australian investors are more engaged in activism than at any time in more than a decade with campaigns surging (Bloomberg)

• Gina will be the keynote speaker at an Atlas Society lunch, a libertarian group with benefactors including Peter Thiel & Michael Saylor (AFR)

• 10 years after giving a pivotal speech on EVs, Xi’s dream came true. But that dominance has set off alarm bells overseas (Bloomberg)

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