I’d be expecting more equity (shares) to be awarded as part of an FID. And being realistic I think we’ll be raising capital again at some stage, me personally, I
I’m allowing for up to 5 billion shares and a share price above $4 down the track, based on my view we will be worth $20 billion by the time we start producing
If AVZ's offer to Cominiere is accepted and implemented at the current shares outstanding of 3.529b then I expect 307m shares to be added to the AVZ register for the DRC government taking total AVZ shares outstanding to 3.836b.
3.836 (100%) - 3.529 (92%) = 0.307 (8%)
The 307m shares would be worth $239.4m AUD at the current share price of 0.78 which at today's AUDUSD exchange rate of 0.67 is worth $160.4m USD. Which leaves a balance of $5.6m USD ($8.3m AUD) left to be paid in cash for a total of $166m USD.
I have rounded these numbers and they are sensitive to the moving exchange rate so they could change a bit. Also the offer was made at a significantly lower share price which would have meant the 8% was worth less and more cash would have been part of the deal.
Will the DRC government be happy with less cash up front?
Not sure and maybe this has been part of the hold up. Again my belief is the preservation of the value of the 8% is a part of why we have been in suspension. There was a major drop in our share price after the Ministerial Decree on May 4th 2022 from around 1.20 to around the current price of 0.78. I don't attribute all of that to just concerns about the Zijin rumours as AVZ never held or claimed to own the 15% in question. Other forces were at play in my opinion.
Just over a year ago Zijin bought around 80m AVZ shares through a subsidiary of a subsidiary called Bellamel (Norton Gold Fields is the middle company). They got salty when we announced the CATL deal and sold enough of those shares to get out of the top 20.
My belief is Zijin didn't sell all of their holdings and possibly had more shares in other subsidiaries that they were using to push down the value of our offer to the DRC government on May 4th. Management would have been aware of who was selling that week as they get the updated register once transactions have cleared. So the timing of the suspension the week after matches my theory.
Also in general more shares being issued by a company is a dilution of value for existing shareholders. If we do get up to 5b shares and a $20b market cap then those shares would be worth $4.00 each as you say. If we get to the $20b market cap at the 3.83b shares I'm expecting then those shares would be worth around $5.22 each.
Nigel said in interviews earlier this year that the boards preference moving forward is to use debt for financing future costs rather than issuing more shares to maximise future shareholder value. Also we have secured $500m USD in financing for the construction of the mine according to Christian Lukusa in the interview the other day. If we do need to issue more shares then so be it but I can't see us needing to go over 4b shares total.
I'd say this is the best estimate on timelines presently. Of course, we have had these expectations before and been disappointed due to various delays. Third times a charm they say. The Fox 
