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ALS.TO - Altius Minerals


Guest Dazel

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Given how much the price of iron ore and other commodities have fallen since Altius' secondary, I would say that Altius' intrinsic value is lower

 

Interesting that they estimate most of their investments with conservative long term commodity prices. I thought they were not into the mark to market business?

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Given how much the price of iron ore and other commodities have fallen since Altius' secondary, I would say that Altius' intrinsic value is lower.  And they're talking about "accretive acquisitions", which implies an overvalued currency in the stock.

 

I agree, that the intrinsic value of ALS is lower in comparison to the times when IronOre was $100+/mt. Accretive acquisition does  however not imply to me the overvaluation of the stock. There are many, many undervalued mining stocks out there. Plus, if one was creative, one could imagine an acquisition of a single royalty that by itself isn't worth as much as in a package of multiple royalties with a lot less risk. It's the kind of arbitrage Silver Wheaton uses for its advantage.

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Things seem to be on track regarding excelsior mining's Gunnison Copper Project, on which Altius has a royalty following its takeover of Callinan:

 

http://www.excelsiormining.com/index.php/news/news-2015/466-excelsior-s-preliminary-metallurgical-tests-fully-consistent-with-prefeasibility-results

 

Aside from the royalty, the corporate presentation on the Excelsior website indicates that Callinan owns 5.1% of the shares.

 

N.

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  • 3 weeks later...

ALTIUS TO ACQUIRE LARGE STRATEGIC LAND POSITION IN MICHIGAN VIA TRANSACTION WITH BITTERROOT

 

ALTIUS TO ACQUIRE LARGE STRATEGIC LAND POSITION IN MICHIGAN VIA TRANSACTION WITH BITTERROOT

 

St. John’s - Altius Minerals Corporation (“Altius”) (TSX:ALS) is pleased to announce the signing of a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) with Bitterroot Resources Ltd. (“Bitterroot”) (TSXV:BTT) for the purchase of an 80% interest in Bitterroot’s Michigan, USA incorporated subsidiary, Trans Superior Resources Inc. (“Trans Superior”).

 

Trans Superior’s assets are comprised of extensive freehold mineral land rights that cover geological units associated with the mid-continent rift system within Michican’s Upper Peninsula. Two key project areas (the “Properties”) are included:

 

• The 250 square-mile (~65,000 hectares) Voyageur lands, which are considered prospective for high-grade, conduit-hosted Ni-Cu-PGM deposits similar to the Eagle, Eagle East, BIC and Tamarack deposits.

 

• The 100 square-mile (~26,000 hectare) Copper Range lands, which are prospective for sediment hosted copper and other rift related mineral deposit types.

 

As consideration for the acquisition of an initial transferrable 51% interest in Trans Superior, Altius will commit to funding a first year C$600,000 exploration program that will be designed to define and prioritize exploration targets. Altius will also subscribe for 4,000,000 Bitterroot common shares for C$400,000 following a 10:1 share consolidation, which will result in Altius owning 19.99% of Bitterroot.

 

Following the initial vesting, Altius will have the transferable right to acquire an additional 19.9% of Trans Superior by completing C$2.5 million in exploration spending on the Properties over 6 years, plus the right to acquire an additional 10% of Trans Superior by completing exploration spending of a further C$5 million, or completing an NI 43-101 compliant pre-feasibility study on a mineral resource on the Properties, within 10 years.

 

Trans Superior will also grant to Altius a 2% net smelter return (“NSR”) royalty on the Voyageur lands and will assign Altius its right to purchase a 1% NSR held by a third party on the Copper Range lands.

 

“Despite working with limited resources over the past several years, Bitterroot has done an excellent job of identifying a number of nickel-copper-PGE exploration targets on their Michigan properties. Altius will bring both financial and technical resources to this collaboration and is confident that our collective efforts will generate several attractive targets that can in turn be marketed to prospective joint venture partners,” stated Altius’ Vice President Exploration, Lawrence Winter.

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Surprised this isn't already posted:

 

ALTIUS INCREASES QUARTERLY DIVIDEND by 50% TO $0.03 PER SHARE

 

http://altiusminerals.com/press-releases/view/305

 

Also, just saw this in the MD&A for the year.

"On March 31, 2015, the Corporation sold all of its common and preferred shares in 2260761 to the noncontrolling

interest in 2260761, Cranberry Capital Inc., in exchange for cash and investments. The sale

resulted in a deconsolidation of 2260761 and a loss on disposition of a subsidiary of $5,839,000. The

Corporation holds 0% ownership in 2260761 post March 31, 2015"

 

Also surprised not to see this mentioned, but this explains the "sale" to Altius of some of the investments within 2260761. I think there was some questions on why this was done when they announced the transactions, but it looks like it was an "in kind transfer" of the shares in exchange for the ownership interest. It does make me wonder why they shut it down though - the $5M loss that was booked as a result of the unwind might be the answer.

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TwoCitiesCapital

 

I think you must be right, that the 31 March/1 April transaction was an in kind payment. From what I can work out:

 

ALS and Cranberry used to jointly own 226.

226 had large stakes in: Kobex capital, Evrim, Synodon, others.

ALS gave its stake in 226 to Cranberry in return for the shares that 226 owned in Kobex and Evrim (at least).

 

I'm fairly sure that ALS did not take the shares in Synodon, as this would have needed to be disclosed, like the kobex and evrim tranactions were:

 

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/altius-investments-limited-acquires-stake-in-kobex-capital-corp-2005745.htm

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/altius-investments-limited-acquires-stake-in-evrim-resources-corp-2005751.htm

 

So my guess is that ALS has, quite rightly, decided that it needs to focus its investments on its area of expertise: mining. Not other stuff like pipeline leak detection (synodon).

 

Paul Van Eeden is now the Executive Chairman of Synodon and has been organising a rights issue to recapitalise them. Through Cranberry I think he will significantly increase his stake in Synodon as part of the rights issue. So I think all of this is a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby ALS gets to focus more narrowly on mining related investments, and PvE gets a bigger stake in Synodon (which as executive chairman he has more control over).

 

(I have an interest in all this because I have shares in both kobex and synodon, as well as altius.)

 

N.

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Guest Dazel

Quiet is good...

Dalton and his team (including the board) have continued to do everything right....Our predictions (i did tell you so) and our confidence in them have been rewarded and then some. They are the future of this sector and there is no one smarter than Dalton...I have checked. The rewards here over the years will be enormous as their efforts are now turning Altius into a global royalty powerhouse. The depression in commodities will allow them capitalize on the carnage...

There will be naysayers as there always is....just as there was when we were buying Fairfax at $80 (those were the days!)...ignore the noise. Great business, great management, and the right environment....they do not come along very often.

 

Dazel

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Ahhh...Fairfax @$80. I looked and passed. Someone had to play the village idiot around here. Waited until the $200's. I've got the 45-day delay guest membership on VIC and a long recommendation on Labrador Iron Ore Royalty just showed up. Some interesting discussion of competitive dynamics in the iron ore biz there for those interested and with a membership.

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First let me say that Altius is one of my top positions, I like the management and the business model.

 

...but there is a (likely) probability that we out of the commodity super cycle.  What does that bode for Altius.  I should add that they make their money in downturns i.e. deals, land, from cash starved juniors, but suppose that the upturn is much more anemic?  Then what?  (I'm trying to "kill" or stress test this investment.)

 

Thoughts?

 

.

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First let me say that Altius is one of my top positions, I like the management and the business model.

 

...but there is a (likely) probability that we out of the commodity super cycle.  What does that bode for Altius.  I should add that they make their money in downturns i.e. deals, land, from cash starved juniors, but suppose that the upturn is much more anemic?  Then what?  (I'm trying to "kill" or stress test this investment.)

 

Thoughts?

 

.

 

I would say the longer the downturn, the more investment opportunities that will come to Altius, and the bigger their outperformance on the turn. If the turn ends up being outside your investment horizon (and there's no reason it couldn't be 10+ years) that could be an issue. Myself, I consider someone like Franco Nevado opportunistically buying them at a low price during a downturn as the biggest risk.

 

The other concern I have (and they are a big position for me as well) is that royalty and/or prospect generation is becoming a more popular business model, which has the effect of increasing the competition for deals.

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With respect to its royalty creation biz, I expect Altius will step up acreage acquisition when there is less competition. This is very long-range value creation if they are successful with a project or two down the road. This is the season to plant those kind of seeds and they can do that inexpensively. But they also will try to acquire more producing royalties as well during this downturn with a nearer-term benefit to cash flow.

 

It will be interesting to see if a non-precious metals royalty company giant can emerge or if a Franco or Royal Gold decides to acquire Altius. The big PM players are serving as finance houses to PM miners with streams and royalties--no one is doing that in the non-PM space right now. Altius wants to get there. Julian Treger and Anglo Pacific would like to get there, but really big scale is necessary to be in the business of financing that type of mine. That's long-range stuff for Altius to consider if they stay independent. In the short run, they'll build up their land position and optionality on the cheap. In the intermediate term (maybe short term) do another producing royalty/royalty portfolio acquisition. 

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I would look at the last 4 years of the commodity downturn and ask yourself if Altius has created value for shareholders. Would you be ok if the next 4 years were like the last?

 

I could care less about a commodity supercycle and whether or not we're in it or out of it. If we're out of it, we get better prices for commodity properties/royalties, etc and a longer runway for growth. If we're in it, we get better forward looking revenues. I'm ok with either.

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We take a similar long term view on ALS as do most on this board. But we also recognize that with sizeable weightings (for us), one has to keep these things hedged on a more or less rolling 6 month forward view. To some this is market timing, to others it is just prudent risk management.

 

We also take the long view on Newfoundland, and see no cause to warrant reducing our total investment. Hedge gains on ALS simply flow into other Newfoundland assets, and there are quite a few very good choices.

 

We don’t much care whether it takes 3, or 5 years, for iron ore to turn around. But what we do care about is that we have a significant position on hand, for when it does. Obviously the longer nothing much happens, and the better our hedging results; the easier and less risky the whole affair becomes.

 

Not a lot different to what ALS does.

 

SD

 

 

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We do it the old fashioned way .... Sell some of the position at higher prices, keep the proceeds in cash, & repurchase at lower prices as/when it occurs. The change goes into other newfoundland equities.

 

We are really just doing the same thing as a market maker, without the regulatory obligation to support the market; liquidity trading against the market.

 

Selling when the market is flush, and buying when the market is starved.

 

SD

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