Fulcrum / Panther
Hallelujah, we have a successful IPO coming to the stock market this week. Apparently, it will be listing on AIM on Valentine's Day too, so even more to celebrate. In fact, it is perhaps not too surprising that Fulcrum Metals (FMET) has got over the line, when rather too many of late are still in the waiting room. The management of CEO Ryan Mee, and director Aidan O’Hara, are “been there, done that” people, and the assets in Canada, next to producing zones or rich deposits. But perhaps the most interesting part of the story here is the effect on Panther Metals (PALM). Post the IPO and £3m raise, Panther has 20% of Fulcrum, with a value of some £1.75m, plus a chunky number of warrants at the 17.5p listing price and 26.5p. Oh, and PALM retains a 2% net smelter return royalty over the Big Bear Project and is on the receiving end of £200,000 cash payment from Fulcrum.
So on this basis one would clearly expect FMET to get off to a good start this week, and also have expected all of these developments to really give the PALM share price a decent boost. Well, so far, not quite. In fact, it is quite a head scratcher as to why the share price of the company is near its lows for the year? Of course, it could be the case that the market is just waiting for Valentine’s Day, to see who everything goes. But the reaction is harsh, even by 2023 standards.
Cizzle
Another company which has been treated somewhat harshly, in this case, since its IPO, has been Cizzle (CIZ). This is said, even on the basis of London investors generally giving any stock in the biotech area something of a haircut, purely because it is not a resources play. However, it has been pointed out to me, and was something which I was already aware of, that a lot of progress has been made by Cizzle since the spring of 2021 when it came to market. Perhaps the most obvious of these of late was November’s news of a clinical study for lung cancer detection in China. While we may be seeing the first stirrings of share price movement in reaction to this in recent weeks, this seems to be another situation where investors have been slow off the mark.
Bradda
Finally, I usually mention one or two of the stocks I have interviewed over the week. Interestingly enough, during the week I received the critique that most of my interviews with companies are around 7-8 minutes. Well, this is my preferred length for a short form interview. While one could go on for a 20-30 minute stint, I prefer that for webinars where one has the visual impact. Earlier in the week I interviewed Charles FitzRoy, CEO of Bradda Head Lithium (BHL). What was of note here is that despite the progress made by the company of late, the shares unlike most of its peers are near recent lows. This is despite the way that being based in the USA, and having well located assets, it does have something of a head start over rivals. Perhaps, value investors in lithium will divert from some of the recent outperformers, and take a look at Bradda.