Astron - ATR: A zircon player in Aus and China

[lakeys]

ADA are doing active long term large buy back at bargin basement prices.
where main shareholders are directers, smart move when forward contracts are all in place for this company. Should be taken over one day for a masive premium?

[weasel]

Well the buy back doesn't seem to be going too swimmingly.. share price is sliding away. Anyone have any thoughts on this company's direction?

[lakeys]

atr or ada?

[weasel]

astron..atr

[herbert240]

It would seem that the market was less than impressed by the profit guidance and business outlook released on July 14!!

[The Big Ease]

anyone still following this one?

[lakeys]

Yea, the buy back has been good

[herbert240]

Yes, still hanging in there waiting for something to happen....but when?!

[Damo79]

Wow! I surprise myself, over 2 and half years since my last post on this thread and I still hold. I hope this is an indication that I am finally becoming a patient investor rather than an impatient speculator

Believe it or not, I've actually increased my holding a couple of times, and once again ATR is my biggest investment. During the whole GFC, I shifted money into ATR as a defensive play due to it's cash backing. Of course I can't say it's paid off, although I think I'm about even based on the current price (ignoring inflation and 3 years of opportunity cost!).

Slow and boring as ATR is, I continue to view my holding comfortably (on the odd occasion when I think about it). Thought I'd check back in on the ol' ST to see if anyone had picked up on todays announcement. Some resource/reserve estimates are out that show some big numbers for recoverable valuable heavy metals at Donald. Does anybody out there know enough to do some math and put some dollar figures to the numbers?? The most important thing is that it's finally getting close to mining. The mining lease is advertised now and should be finalised in August. Of course there is still the Chinese based business that should be chugging along making a decent profit (based on the last report) as well.

At some point, this year, next or the year after, I'm convinced this will hit 5 bucks.

Patient and bored
Damo

[Damo79]

Update: Donald mineral sands license was granted today. Here's a post I put on the NTA thread, which should be copied on here -
Net asset value: 210 mil (327 cps)

- 166 mil cash (259 cps)
- receivables, inventory and investments of 4.5 mil (7 cps)
- total liabilities of 4.5 mil (7cps) of which only 1.6 mil are current

...so this leaves NTA of 259 using a very conservative definition of "tangible".

Then on the less tangible side:
- 10 mil land use rights (16 cps)
- 33 mil invested in the Donald Mineral Sands (DMS) project (52 cps)

... giving the total of 327 cps

Apart from the DMS project, they had revenue this year of 15 mil for a small profit of 1.2 mil and a positive cashflow of 3.5 mil.

Regarding the DMS project - mining license expected to be granted this month. From the feasibility study, the initial project area will generate 130 mil EBITDA, and the net present value of the DMS at a base case is 646 mil (compare this to the 33 mil on their balance sheet).

Current share price is 180, for a market capitalisation of 115 mil.