Australia's richest woman backs Sirius Minerals - By Lee Wild | Tue, 25th October 2016 - 11:37

Australia's richest woman backs Sirius Minerals In a major coup for Sirius Minerals (SXX), Australia's richest woman has just backed the AIM-listed firm's North Yorkshire potash mine. Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting Group (HPPL) will pay Sirius US$250 million (£204 million) in cash and acquire $50million of Sirius shares to secure access to the company's high-quality agricultural fertilizer.

As part of what is Sirius's first royalty financing agreement, privately-owned Hancock will receive a 5% royalty stream on revenue from the first 13 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of sales every calendar year, and 1% for volumes above that.

Hancock, headed by Rinehart since her father and company founder Lang Hancock died in 1992, also gets the right to buy up to 20,000 tonnes of product every year for use on its Australian agricultural operations.

Sirius is rightly chuffed with the deal, which is part of managing director and CEO Chris Fraser's plan, flagged back in March, and again last month.

"Considering Mrs Rinehart's and Hancock's expertise in each of mining and agriculture, this investment is a significant vote of confidence in not only our project, but also our product," said Fraser.

Of course, the big money which will bankroll the project is yet to appear, although we're told that Sirius continue to make "good progress" on its two-stage approach to financing. We'll get more on the Stage One capital structure and timing "at an appropriate time".

"On our numbers, with full production of 13Mt/a of Polyhalite and a forecast sales price of $150 per tonne (WH Ireland est), this equates to $98 million/year," says WH Ireland analyst Paul Smith, who repeats his 'buy' rating and 60p price target for Sirius.

"The effect of this would be to reduce our EBITDA at the mine of ~$1,500 million by $98 million. The mine has a large operating cash margin with operating costs of only $30/t and Sirius has always guided that a royalty sale was a potential source of some mine finance".

The royalty deal is still conditional upon Sirius completing its Stage 1 financing and two confirmatory due diligence items which will be satisfied prior to the Stage 1 financing being finalised.

Then, drawdown of funds under the agreement is conditional on, among a long list of other criteria, Sirius informing Hancock that it has spent US$630 million of its Stage 1 financing.

"This project delivers a new and natural product which is relevant to Hancock’s focus on agriculture and after years of field tests and across many crop types, demonstrated improved yields," says Rinehart. "Sirius has a large, high quality mineral resource and is located in a stable jurisdiction with a competitive tax rate."

"Through the North Yorkshire Polyhalite project, Sirius Minerals is focused on the development of what we believe to be the world’s largest high-grade known polyhalite deposit and our patented multi-nutrient fertilizer product."

38.50p +3p

By SARAH MEDDINGS CITY CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL, 26 October 2016

Australian tycoon pours £250m into UK mine: Country's richest woman backs dig for fertiliser in the North Yorkshire Moors
The North York Polyhalite Project will dig for fertiliser a MILE down

One of the UK’s most ambitious mining projects for decades has secured nearly £250million of investment from Australia’s richest woman.
The North York Polyhalite Project to dig for fertiliser a mile below the North York Moors National Park has been given backing from mining tycoon Gina Rinehart.
Sirius Minerals, the company behind the scheme, revealed yesterday that Mrs Rinehart has agreed to pour £247million into the mine, which is thought to contain 2.2billion tonnes of a specialist mineral used in fertiliser............

Australian tycoon pours £250m into UK mine SXX

Has moved upon early demand after various comments and then profit taking has started to take place and now holding around the 39.25.

Sirius Minerals: Technicals target 55p post Rinehart intervention - By Zak Mir - 26 October 2016

Sirius Minerals: Technicals target 55p post Rinehart intervention
It has certainly been a long journey for fans of the would-be Yorkshire Potash miner Sirius Minerals. As most of us are aware, it is usually the case that for mining companies the key is less about the digging, and more about the funding. This is of course, whether or not there is actually anything under the ground.

But at least it would appear that things are starting to take shape in a reasonably positive way. Indeed, this comment could be regarded as something of an understatement given the announcement of the intervention of one of the world’s richest women. Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is set to back the Sirius Project, now valued at up to $4bn, to the tune of $300m.

The intervention is probably the reason the shares have gone back on the front foot over the past 24 hours, with the technical breakthrough being the push back above the 50 day moving average, currently at 37.05p. The message at the moment is that provided there is no decline back below the floor of a rising trend channel from the beginning of the year at 35.5p, one would be looking to a technical target here as high as the January resistance line projection at 55p over the next 1-2 months. In the meantime, any dips towards the floor of this year’s channel can be regarded as buying opportunities.

Close position earlier 38.375p

31 Oct '16 - 08:40 - 13 of 13
SXX 38.50p -1p

Profit taking since last Friday, after not able to go higher on the Intraday of the day before, Indicators have reached also overbought

35p -2p -

placing- open Offer and Convertible Bond

The price will be determined by what the institutional investors are willing to pay.
"Record Date for entitlements under the Open Offer 5.30 p.m. on 1 November 2016
Announcement of the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer 7.00 a.m. on 2 November 2016
Ex-entitlement date for the Open Offer 8.00 a.m. on 4 November 2016"
This means shareholders need to retain their holding to qualify, till 4th
---------------

Sirius Minerals Plc
Launch of Comprehensive Stage 1 Financing Solution

Sirius Minerals Plc (the "Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") today announces the launch of a comprehensive financing plan for its Stage 1 financing requirements to begin the construction of its North Yorkshire polyhalite project (the "Project"), aiming to raise gross proceeds of approximately US$1.2 billion including:

(i) a Royalty Financing Agreement for a total of US$300 million with a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd as announced on 25 October 2016;
(ii) an underwritten Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer to raise approximately £330 - 400 million1; and
(iii) an underwritten Convertible Bond Offering to raise approximately US$400 - 450 million.

1. Key Highlights
· Underwritten Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer at a price between 20 and 30 pence per New Ordinary Share (the "Issue Price") to be determined by the Bookbuild.
· The Issue Price represents a discount of between approximately 18.9 and 45.9 per cent to the closing price on 1 November 2016 (being the last Business Day prior to this announcement).
· The Company intends to raise approximately 90 per cent of the gross proceeds of the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer through the underwritten Firm Placing at the Issue Price to certain institutional investors.
· Approximately 10 per cent of the underwritten Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer will be subject to clawback by existing shareholders by way of an Open Offer. The Joint Bookrunners and the Co-Lead Managers intend to conditionally place the Open Offer Shares with certain institutional investors at the Issue Price, subject to clawback to satisfy valid applications by Qualifying Shareholders under the Open Offer.

33p -4.25p (-11.49%)

Most likely Pi's and Institutions are selling, knowing that the open offer price is going to be below 30p
so able to buy cheaper later

" Underwritten Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer at a price between 20 and 30 pence to be determined by the Bookbuild."

Results of Firm Placing and Placing

Results of Firm Placing and Placing

Sirius Minerals Plc (the "Company") announced on 2 November 2016 the details of a proposed Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer. The Company has completed the Bookbuild and has raised gross proceeds of approximately £370 million through the Firm Placing and Placing in connection with its Stage 1 financing requirements to begin the construction of its North Yorkshire polyhalite project.

Concurrently, the Company has successfully placed US$400 million of Convertible Bonds through the Convertible Bond Offering.

more.....

Convertible Bond Offering Results

Sirius Minerals Plc (the "Company" or the "Guarantor") today announces the successful placement of US$400 million of Guaranteed Convertible Bonds due 2023 (the "Bonds"), guaranteed by the Guarantor.

more.....

Reading at the results of the placing I have reached a conclusion and is not good for shareholders .....

1 - Firm Placees have agreed to subscribe for 1,665,805,761 Firm Placed Shares at an issue price of 20 pence ( 40.0 per cent of the Company's issued Ordinary Shares )

2 - Have placed 185,089,529 Open Offer Shares ( 4.4 per cent )

3 - Qualifying Shareholders will be given the opportunity to apply for the Open Offer Shares at the Issue Price 20p

4- On the following basis: 2 New Ordinary Shares for every 25 Existing Ordinary Shares

Conclusion
Diluting current investors to high heaven, as they are given only 11.11% of the total subscription on a very low share price 20p (185K : 1,665K x 100 = 11.11% ).

Capital Research with 10% at the moment, has been well awarded on the participation in the Firm Placing and the Placing so shareholder got not much to say on the open offer.

That is quite brutal actually!!!

Publication of Prospectus and Circular

bought some @ 22.2145p

why?
Is on a open offer placing situation @ 20p that soon will be over, has moved down a big thing since and should now start moving higher from this point. Order book looking strong now.
---------------
Reality strikes at Sirius Minerals - By John Cornford 04 November 2016
Shares in Sirius Minerals have rightly suffered a major pullback over the past few days, and many private-investor enthusiasts for the stock have been badly burned. The trouble with Sirius is that there is a lot of questionable analysis out there in the public domain right now. Here’s my attempt at setting the record straight…
https://masterinvestor.co.uk/equities/reality-strikes-sirius-minerals/

21.125p =

Very level today on the share price but slowly the buys are taking over the order book, still plenty of shares for sell on the offer side, so I do not expect to change YET.

Now there was a post on III giving a good detail of the stock from "1328745" ......

I'd just like to make it clear that I'm not an employee of Sirius Minerals as some have assumed.

I'd also like to answer your question in relation to why I believe that the current share price doesn't reflect the 'shovel ready project' value. The share price immediately before the launch of stage 1 financing (37p) in some part factored in the expectation of successful financing. The 20p placing price of course doesn't include any element of 'shovel readiness' as the institutional investors aren't funding a shovel ready project.
They're funding a great idea with mineral rights, planning consents, project plans etc. Without that funding it's not going to be shovel ready. Of course the share price was going to converge with the placing price as private investors sold shares to take up their open offer allocations. Institutional investors aren't going to be picking any shares up in the low 20's though until those two resolutions are passed and the project is genuinely shovel ready. Now it isn't. If those resolutions aren't voted through then they get their placing money back – no additional risk due to the uncertainty of private investor behaviour.

Buying shares on the open market now at a similar price to the placement price is a risk too far until that vote goes through (even though the placing was oversubscribed at 20p). Once it does, the re-rate starts. In theory, based on the 37p share price immediately before stage 1 financing launch and the 20p placing price, the share price should be 29.5p when the new shares start trading. This was detailed in the circular. That's still very much on the low side though as the 37p only partly reflected the shovel ready value so I'd expect it to climb quite quickly beyond that.

Remember that figures of 15p – 20p/share have been forecast for a long time for the equity raise. The link below shows the figures from Sirius Mineral's DFS and Liberum's own figures – albeit before the capital funding reduction was announced. The model's most optimistic setting allowed for 30p/share but the default was 15p. Shore Capital's research note on the 27th May used 20p/share.

http://liberum.com/models/sxxj79vi8n502m

And no, I don't work for Liberum either!

Bought some more @ 21.475p

Looks like the roller coaster is now ready to go much faster as the order book on the bid side is weakening on size

The chart below is showing the bounce for the last couple days, once was marked down heavily last Friday and bounce back more than half the fall.

Serious worries on Sirius Minerals chart? - By Alistair Strang | Tue, 22nd November 2016

A chartist's take on Sirius Minerals polyhalite mine project share technical We last viewed this a couple of months ago and speculated a scenario where weakness toward 19.5p was possible. At time of production, Sirius (SXX) was trading at 39p and thus, it appeared a silly prospect. Needless to say, the AIM market has obliged!
Currently trading at 21p, it's sufficiently close to our 19.5p and in a region where we'd hope for a bounce if some strength remains. Unfortunately, share prices sometimes almost insist on bonking against trend lines and currently, 'red' on the chart is a nuisance 19.5p!

This is where things risk getting seriously nasty. Should this share price actually manage to close below 'red', it opens the first chapter in a magical tale called Fantastic Bottoms and Where to Find Them.

Or, in plain English, it starts a cycle toward an initial 12.7p with secondary a hopefully trampoline level of 8p.

However, at this point in the game, it's probably worth keeping an eye open if any spike downward at the start of trading breaches 19.5p. We'd tend to look favourably on such a ploy.

Near-term, in the event of the share bettering 22.25p, we're able to calculate an initial expectation of 25p. While in the great scheme of things such a small movement is useless, if 25p is beaten, it sends the first signal of the price actually having experienced a bottom.

In such an instance, we're able to calculate a longer-term secondary at 31.75p and a need for us to update our projections.

For now, we hope it bounces. Soon.

21.875p +0.375p

Sirius Minerals set for the stars? This is what our chart guru says

Cautious investors might look for Sirius to break the 200-day moving average of 23.75p before jumping on board.

Sirius Minerals set for the stars? This is what our chart guru says
The charts are predicting a brighter future for Sirius investors.

Shares in Sirius Minerals PLC (LON:SXX) should move to “better levels” in the trading range, according to a well-followed technical analyst.

Zak Mir, in his regular slot for Proactive Investors, said he is expecting a spring back following a fundraising round that hit the price.

WATCH: The 'king of charts' in his own words

He is also hoping there won’t be any “sustained action” below 20p.

“There is an uptrend line there from the beginning of the year running through the twenty-one pence level,” he said.

“That at least appears to have temporarily halted the pullback from forty pence-plus that we’ve had since the summer. Ideally there won’t be any sustained price action back below twenty pence.”

Cautious investors might look for Sirius to break the 200-day moving average of 23.75p before jumping on board.

“If that breaks relatively soon we should see the shares back towards the better levels of the range,” said Mir.

Shore Capital on the fundamentals
Sirius owns a giant polyhalite fertiliser deposit in North Yorkshire and recently completed the first round of funding to build the mine.

In a recent note City broker Shore Capital provided some insight into the worth of the mine once the first phase of development is complete in 2018.

Analyst Yuen Low also doffed his cap to chief executive Chris Fraser and the team, who have sewn up just under £1bn of financing with investors agreeing to stump up £370mln of that.

“Sirius has attracted myriad detractors and doubting Thomases over the years, who have tried to find fault with the company and its paradigm-shifting North Yorkshire project from virtually any and all conceivable angles,” he said.

“For example, [the detractors said] the global market for polyhalite would be a few hundred thousand tonnes at best, that permitting would be impossible, that the Stage 1 funding requirement was too large to be successfully raised.”

“To its credit, Sirius has made its critics eat humble pie at every step of the way thus far, systematically proving false their claims (which in our view range from simply unresearched to maliciously poisonous).”

Worth £7.4bn?
Anyway, having moved the project into development, its net present value is now £7.4bn, according Low.

This equates to 129-166p a share fully diluted on the Shore analyst’s base case assumptions.

The risked NPV, which factors in all the potential hurdles between now and 2018, comes in at a more modest 65-82.5p a share. That lower figure is still roughly three-times the current share price.

As ramps go, not bad. However, development costs highly likely to exceed current estimates.

Results of open Offer

Sirius Minerals Plc (the "Company") announced on 2 November 2016 the details of a proposed Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer to raise gross proceeds of £370 million (approximately £352 million, net of expenses), in connection with its Stage 1 financing requirements to begin the construction of its North Yorkshire polyhalite project. On 3 November 2016, it announced the results of the Firm Placing and the Placing.

Capitalised terms not otherwise defined in the text of this announcement have the meanings given in the Company's announcement of 2 November 2016.

The Open Offer closed for acceptances at 11.00 am on 23 November 2016 in accordance with its terms and was modestly oversubscribed. The Company therefore announces that it has received valid acceptances under the Open Offer in respect of 185,089,529 Open Offer Shares representing 100 per cent of the Open Offer Shares available pursuant to the Open Offer.

Chris Fraser, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said:

"I would like to thank our shareholders for their continuing support and playing their part in this important moment in the Company's history. It has always been our intention to make this provision available and it's good to see so many existing shareholders taking part."

The Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer are conditional on (i) the Resolutions being passed at the General Meeting and (ii) the Placing and Open Offer Agreement otherwise becoming unconditional in all respects and not having been terminated in accordance with its terms prior to Admission. The conditions contained in the Placing and Open Offer Agreement include, inter alia, (i) the Royalty Financing Agreement (which comprises a US$250 million royalty purchase amount and a US$50 million equity subscription) not having been terminated prior to Admission, (ii) the subscription agreement in connection with the Convertible Bond Offering having been entered into and not having been terminated prior to Admission, and (iii) Admission becoming effective by not later than 8.00 am on 29 November 2016 (or such later time and/or date as the Company and the Joint Bookrunners may agree).

An application will be made to the London Stock Exchange for the New Ordinary Shares issued in connection with the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer to be admitted to trading on AIM. It is expected that Admission will become effective, and that dealings in the New Ordinary Shares will commence on AIM, at 8.00 am on 28 November 2016.

New Ordinary Shares issued under the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer in uncertificated form are expected to be credited to CREST accounts on 28 November 2016, and definitive share certificates for the New Ordinary Shares issued under the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer in certificated form are expected to be dispatched within five Business Days of Admission.

The Enlarged Share Capital of the Company following Admission will be 4,164,514,405 Ordinary Shares in aggregate. This figure may be used by shareholders (and others with notification obligations) as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Sirius Minerals Plc under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

A General Meeting is to be held today at 11.00 am for the purpose of passing certain Resolutions in relation to the proposed Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer, the Convertible Bond Offering and the Royalty Financing Ordinary Shares. The results of the General Meeting will be announced later today.

This announcement is released by Sirius Minerals Plc and contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 (MAR), encompassing information relating to the Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer and the Stage 1 Financing described above, and is disclosed in accordance with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR.

For the purposes of MAR and Article 2 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1055, this announcement is being made on behalf of the Company by Tristan Pottas, Investor Relations Manager.