[miningmx.com] — WITH the summoning of the special general meetings to consider the merger of JCI and Randgold & Exploration (RG&E) a major chapter in this saga will be written. The two companies no longer have virtually identical boards and management and the opposition of the Cape Town George family’s Trinity group has been assuaged.
While the attitude of London-based dissident Monty Koppel isn’t known, the deal should go ahead. But this is the end of the chapter, not the end of the story.
The merged company still has major claims against other parties involved in the collapse of the Kebble empire and will also still have to consider whether to contest the draconian terms of the Investec bailout.
However, on the available information what will the re-listed and enlarged RG&E be worth? Is a straw in the wind provided by the latest proposal concerning another former group company, Matodzi Resources? (Incidentally, it’s a great pity Matodzi’s special meeting to consider this is scheduled at the same time as one of the JCI/RG&E meetings. I know the calendar can be crowded, but not in the third week of January.)
That entails a mandatory bid by Trinity Holdings Pty, which bought JCI’s 57.1% interest in Matodzi in July, to Matodzi minorities, on the same basis at which control changed: of one RG&E share for every 126,0003 Matodzi (I hope I got the number of zeroes right, but such spurious precision hardly matters.)
Matodzi is currently quoted at 16c and has been there or thereabouts since July. So that’s a genuine price, even though the NAV of what’s now little more than a cash shell is around 10c. It puts a notional value of 2020c on RGE, against that company’s pre-suspension 890c.
In another straw in the wind, the RG&E/JCI merger, if implemented, will hike RGE’s NAV from 767c to 2524c. Either way, or even allowing for the fact a company such as RG&E will normally trade at a discount to NAV, the share price should move up sharply when it’s re-listed. There should even be a small boost for JCI. Suspended at 16c, the terms of 95 JCI into one RG&E equate to an RG&E entry price of 1520c.
Trinity plans to rename Matodzi White Water Resources and the announcements don’t reflect any intention to delist the company. So we must assume Trinity intends to use Matodzi as some sort of vehicle; which means Matodzi minorities will have to decide whether to take a quick profit or hold on and see what happens. They should bear in mind that White Water rafting has always been a hazardous sport.
