It was probably just as well that the latest announcement from Russia focused platinum miner Eurasia (EUA) was delivered after the stock market close. This is because it would appear that the company has invented a novel form of verbal Sudoku, which left even some professional investors and fans of the company scratching their head. True, that part of the deciphering challenge comes from AIM’s rich tangle of rules and regulations, something which even seasoned traders will be struggling to comprehend. Perhaps the key aspect here is the way that Eurasia said it was leaving the Formal Sale Process, but said (at the same time) that it was entertaining a potential acquisition of substantially all of Company's assets. This rather suggests it may be worth hanging on to the FSP – or does it? EUA supporters will say that there is everything to play for on the value extraction – perhaps more than ever. Long in the tooth stock market observers might say that the Rosgeo joint venture was preparing the way for life after the FSP, and would not have happened if there was to be the knockout takeover of Eurasia which we have been waiting on for the past year. Indeed, Rosgeo could have been regarded as a hedge against no deal. No doubt, we shall find out very soon which of these explanations are proven to be correct, with the possibility of a combination of them as well. At the very least, RNS’s should be designed with plain English in mind, rather than someone with 90% plus in the CFA exam.
Sticking with the mining area, but perhaps being a little easier to understand, it was the turn of AIM-quoted exploration company focussed on West Africa, Oriole Resources (ORR) to update the market. Here it said that joint venture partner IAMGOLD has now started its Year 4 exploration programme at Senala, of a planned c. 11,000 metres of reverse circulation and diamond drilling at the Faré and Madina Bafé prospects. Results from the first phase of the exploration programme, are expected in Q3-2021. Oriole shares improved another 0.1p to 0.9p.
There was progress at the end of last month from AIM quoted mobile content and data intelligence company, Mobile Streams (MOS) regarding its investment in Quanta Media Group. Quanta was preparing to launch its first three, direct to consumer, mobile content sites. These sites will be targeted at the sports bets and online casino games in Dutch. All of this may have been enough to inspire the latest TR1 notification from Mark Berry who crossed the 3% shareholding level, as well as to cause Mobile Streams shares to edge 0.02p higher to 0.255p.