Halo Minerals Research
I've bought a good chunk of these since the IPO (~750k shares) and I've been surprised at how few people have heard of it, so I thought I'd put my own research here incase it interests anyone else:
Code: HALO
IPOed: 31st March 2026, raised £4m
Market cap at the IPO: £20m
Market cap today: £13m
Shares in issue: 110m
Current share price: 12/12.25p
Structure:
Major Shareholders:
- MDB Partners: 21.14%
- Atacama Investments: 14.10%
- John Bolitho: 13.50%
- C4 Energy: 8.00%
- Acorn Finance: 3.47%
- Peel Hunt: 3.39%
The CEO owns 2% of the stock via his 25% ownership of C4 Energy.
Crucially, the 10%+ shareholders are locked in for 12 months from the IPO, as a result of AIM Rule 7 and are then subject to an orderly market facility for another 12 months after that.
That means that 48.74% of the stock is unable to be sold, before you add the CEO's stock, giving a free float of a maximum of ~52% of the stock, but realistically more like 44% with C4 energy likely also not selling.
Project:
- They won 100% of a copper and gold tailings project in Chile, called the 'Copper Bay' project.
- This is a beach that was contaminated by the tailings waste from a large mine further up the coast in the past rejecting their waste into the sea, which then washed up over decades on this beach.
- Onshore JORC resouce of 53.44Mt at 0.24% Cu (32.2Mt reserves).
- They also have a 100Mt+ resource under the waterline at 0.19% Cu.
- NPV10: $154m, 50.9% IRR (post tax), using the CPR figures of $5.3/lb Cu, and $4300/oz Au. This is only for the 32.2Mt of reserves.
- Because this project would use a large dredge to effectively scoop up all of the copper+gold, in reality the total onshore resource would be extracted as opposed to just the 32Mt of reserves, so that NPV figure would sit higher on that alone even if you factor in the low copper price the CPR assumes.
Work completed:
- EIS approvals granted
- Pre-Feasability Study completed
- Definitive Feasibility Study completed
Next Steps:
- Project funding
- Construction
The major moment here would be getting the project funded, which they have already publicly stated that they're in discussions for with metals traders, royalty firms and traditional debt financing.
First production is expected in mid 2028 with a final investment decision taken by the end of 2026 (securing funding is a part of that).
CAPEX for the project is $86m, although there seems to be opportunities to reduce that with second hand equipment and vendor financing.
My own cash flow modelling using much more conservative numbers than the CPR has this initially throwing out $32m/year in after tax cash flows.
If you think that they'll very likely be allowed to extract from under the waterline (because otherwise it will wash on shore and contaminate the beach again) it allows for a second dredge and glhugely extends the project life from 7-10 years to more like 20 years.
That then hugely increases the cash flows this can put out.
Most firms that have a defined project and are sitting close to funding said project seem to trade much closer to a £50m market cap than £13m.
I suspect that the opportunity here was created by one or two un-locked in shareholders on the IPO day selling, when the online platforms hadn't yet been set up. Creating a cascade downwards.
It seems that volumes have come right off and it's generally settled down now ~12p.
It's not without risk: the CEO, Andy Dennan, has had a fairly patchy track record in the past with dilutions at other firms, but I think that this risk is significantly mitigated here because they're funded for a year to 18 months from the IPO and he owns enough of the stock that I can't see him wanting to dilute himself.
By the time they come to needing money for any additional G&A spending, they'll very likely have secured project financing, so I don't think his past track record is as much of a risk as it may initially seem.
In conclusion, it seems that this is in the right project, the right jurisdiction at the right time with the copper and gold prices going bananas. The significance of getting the project funded I suspect will catapult the equity up to more like a £50m valuation form the £13m it is today.
It's not without risk, but the major project work has been done leaving only the final piece of the puzzle (project finance) to come in.