It has been an odd, roller coaster of a week for investors in Amur Minerals Corporation (AIM:AMC, OTC:AMMCF).
The completion of the mine developer’s exit from Russia was swiftly followed by a bid approach from one of its rivals – and, based on the latest update, it appears others have been sniffing around the mine developer too.
Amur has spent the best part of a decade developing the Kun-Manie nickel-copper operation in the far east of the former Soviet state.
Given the international pariah status of Russia in the wake the Ukraine invasion it wasn’t surprising to see Amur part with its prized asset.
It is being bought by mining entrepreneur Vladislav Sviblov, the owner of Highland Gold, which was formerly listed here in London.
A £28 million windfall, worth 1.8p a share, is being handed back to investors. That’s not bad if you picked up stock in March when it was worth less than half that price.
However, if you’ve been holding since June 2015, when the price spiked up to 37p, you’re probably crying in your beer right now.
What now for chief executive Robin Young and the Amur team? Well, there’s interest from Ascent Resources to assess, though the company is saying take no action now.
On Thursday it tabled an all stock offer worth 0.175p a share, a discount to the current share price of 0.2p (which values the business at just shy of £2.9 million).
The share price ended the week off around 88%, which reflects the fact the stock is now trading without the entitlement to that one-off dividend payment.
Turning to the wider market for small-cap stocks, the AIM All-Share was off 0.55% at 789 points over the trading week, which meant it modestly underperformed its benchmark – the FTSE 100 – which traded sideways.
Sticking with the week’s losers, the bloodletting in the healthcare sector continued.
Oncimmune was down 45% at 21.2p amid a corporate reorganisation that will see it focus on its ImmunoINSIGHTS business going forward.
The overhaul should leave its balance sheet in better shape with cash of around £6.7 million in the bank – so we should see a rebound of sorts at some point.
The week’s list of losers was heavily weighted towards health and wellness with Advanced Oncotherapy, Oxford Biodynamics, Deltex Medical and Provexis (AIM:PXS) down between 17%-23%.
That said, the natural resources sector (mining, oil and gas) wasn’t immune to ‘risk off’ attitude among investors with any sniff of bad news taken as a big red sell signal.
The leading casualties were Capital Metals, Enwell Energy, Empyrean Energy and Kefi Gold and Copper off between 23%-38%.
However, there was some good news from the prospectors – though the fuel for Rockfire Resources’ 55% ascent to 0.33p was provided exactly a week ago when it said it had uncovered bumper zinc mineralisation from drilling on its project in Greece.
Edenville Energy, the Africa-focused mine operator, shot up 45.5% to 8.06p after it secured just under £1.5 million in new funds from two strategic investors. A day after this it announced a name change to Shuka Resources.
A modest fundraiser for Versarien, which is focused on developing products made from the supermaterial graphene, has seen tyres reflated. The stock rose 44% to 2.64p over the week.
And finally, the pieces of the jigsaw are starting to fit into place of Active Energy, which jumped 17% this week to 6.87p and is up 62% in the year to date.
The latest catalyst was news from the other side of the Atlantic. Specifically, it was an announcement by Player Design that it has received the permits to create a CoalSwitch manufacturing facility in the US.
CoalSwitch is a process pioneered by Active Energy that turns low value left-over wood into biomass fuel pellets that can then be burned in traditional coal-fired power stations.
AE said it is actively working on additional joint venture production licences in the States to further accelerate production volumes, while CoalSwitch enquiries are increasing.