Thanks all for helping to answer some of my questions, and thanks in particular to Dazel for getting this board going. As time goes on I become increasinly convinced that there is significant (and increasing!) value in this stock that is not recognised by the market. However, I think biaggio is right that it is important to think about and be aware of all potential negatives - even if, like me, you believe they are massively outweighed by the positives.
For me the negatives are:
1. They are overweight industrial metals and underweight precious metals. If the global economy falls off a cliff I would feel more confortable if they had a royalty stream in precious metals. (That said, given their cash pile, I think the downside is limited)
2. Their track record is excellent, but not perfect. The NLRC was a mistake. Hindsight is a great thing, and maybe at the early stages of the project they were completely correct given all the available information, but they should have cut their losses sooner (I have read an interview in which Dalton admits this). So it is not possible to image that they could again get drawn into some mega project that does not work out. (However, I take the view that they have learnt the lessons from the NLRC experience, plus if in the future they do decide to get involved in some mega project that puts a lot of the equity of the company at risk, I can always decide to exit at that point).
3. Cranberry capital. For me, I invest in Altius so that they can put my money to good work based on their real underlying competative advantage - prospect generation. I don't like the fact that they take some of my money and give it to someone else to manage (irrespective of who that person is and how supportive he has been to altius in the past). Sparkfly?!! Stick to mining.
Any disagreements? Any negatives missing?
N.
