Thanks @Noddy74 and @Bear77 for the discussion, some interesting points. I also think MSV is cheap and hold the stock, but sometimes it feels like I am the only one that exists! Now maybe I have some new friends here to share the frustration of waiting for the market to re-rate MSV. :)

Thanks @Bear77 and welcome aboard! I think your intervention may have been the reason why I didn't get my full starter position IRL, and didn't trigger my buy on Strawman as I capped it at 36 cents. I got most of what I was after IRL @ 35 cents so no big deal, but it is reminder to get myself properly sorted before opening my pie hole about a stock.

In pointing out that the Exec Chairman owns about 20% of the Company you reminded me that I should have put that in the writeup. I considered putting a section on Management into the piece, which is where I would have noted that but I felt I'd spoken a bit about him in particular in other sections. Good pickup. Notably the second largest shareholder @6.7% is Dream Challenge, which is beneficially owned by Scott Tunbridge, who was the owner of Deepcore Drilling, which Mitchell Services acquired in 2019. Scott continued to run Deepcore after the acquisition and took a seat on the board. He stood down from Deepcore early in 2023 but remains on the board as a non-executive director. That's an example of the little things that don't always make a write-up, but point to a good culture, particularly when you stack a few of those tidbits together.

Anyway, hopefully it treats us nice over the next 12-18 months. That's probably the timeframe I'm putting on it at this stage. Management have flagged a softer first half so expectations are tempered in the short term.

Shoutout to @stevegreenycom and @Ewan486 who jumped onboard earlier, particularly the former who has been a very patient investor!

You're right @Noddy74 - I did not realise you were buying yesterday arvo, and I saw there was low liquidity, so lowest offer at 36.5 cps and a few more @ 37 cps, so I placed an order for 93,000 MSV @ 37 cps and took out the 9,717 @ 36.5 cps and got 82,283 @ 37 cps for a combined 93,000 @ $0.369478/share ($34,361.42 + brokerage). That order went through at 3:57pm I reckon it was.

I also have a low-ball bid in now at 32 cps for another 27,000 MSV shares, which would take me up to 120,000 shares, but I don't expect that one to go through - it's just an opportunistic top-up bid that can sit in the market for a month. I will likely move the price higher at some point to get that one to go through. I have my starter position anyway (93 K of shares worth around $30 K to $34 K).

I always try to ensure my buy or sell orders have settled before I share the details here or anywhere else because just one trade can move the price with low liquidity companies, as happened with my order yesterday arvo where MSV closed at my higher buy price of 37 cps because mine was the last order processed yesterday for MSV - there were zero trades in the Closing Single Price Auction (CSPA) with MSV yesterday because the highest bid was 35 cents @ 4pm and the lowest offer was 37 cents, with zero overlap between the bids and offers during the CSPA.

I was prepared to pay up for that starting position because the valuation is around double those levels so there is a very substantial margin of safety there.

I also needed to lock in some dividend income for the next couple of months because I had rotated too much money into shorter-term trading opportunities that do not pay dividends and was in profit on all of them - that almost never happens so I seem to be in a mini-purple-patch right now which I'm certainly not complaining about - I know it won't last. I know the argument about income being income and it doesn't matter where it comes from, capital gains or dividends, but I like to keep a base dividend income per annum just to help prove to my accountant that that portfolio is predominantly an investment portfolio, not a trading portfolio, as trading is treated differently in terms of the tax accounting. Long story short - I like to maintain a minimum dividend income p.a. and MSV is going to contribute to that, despite zero franking at this stage.

As expected, MSV dropped back this morning - currently 36 cps - but I'm fine with that - I expected it - as this one is a 3 to 5 year minimum investment for me (that's the current plan anyway) that I intend to add to on SP weakness when given the chance. There's a good chance you'll get the rest of your order filled today if still at 36 cps max price @Noddy74.

Firstly great post on MSV @Noddy74, love your work!

@Bear77 MLG is a super interesting business right now. It's not really my style but I respect Murray is sticking his growth guns despite the market's demands for capital returns. Everyone other mining services company (MSV included) has received the message from investors that they don't want to see excess capital deployed into growth and would prefer maximised capital returns. Stocks like ANG and MAH come to mind as doing well over the last couple of years increasing their dividends and maximising free cash flow.

On the other side of the equation is MLG with a 50% founder at the helm ploughing $30m of cash (1/3 of current market cap) into new capex for future growth:

Is it the right strategy? Who knows but I can't help but think of CEO's like Wes Maas at MGH or dare I say it Chris Ellison at MIN who have both disregarded to anguished demands of the market and moved forward with the strategy they thought was best for the long term growth of the business.

Good points there @Wini - MLG remains on my watchlist. They are certainly working for some heavyweights in the Australian gold industry, such as NST and EVN, and investing for growth as you say.

Correction: In my post this morning about MSV, I stated my buy prices yesterday were 26.5 and 27 cps (cents per share) when I meant to say 36.5 and 37 cps, which meant my post made zero sense. I've corrected that now.

I'd expect companies like MLG and MSV would be difficult to accumulate positions in for a fund like Merewether Capital @Wini, but then again I also have thought that about LBL and others that you no doubt hold, so perhaps you just have the patience of a saint, and are prepared to take small nibbles frequently, or perhaps the patience of a crocodile; just waiting for the right opportunity and then moving super-quickly to snap it up before anybody can react.

Personally, I see myself more like a koala - prepared to put in the work to find the right eucalypt trees - but then happy enough to eat and sleep and appear to do next-to-nothing much of the time after that work has been done (and the shares have been bought). Letting compounding do its thing. In theory... For the investment portion of my portfolios anyway, not so much with the shorter-term trades.

But yeah, there would be some interesting liquidity challenges associated with being a small cap fundie I reckon.

Hi All

First proper post from me after quite a while as a member very actively following the forum and very much enjoying it.

Thought I would jump on this thread having been a previous holder of MSV and working within the same industry as MLG, in fact having had dealings with the business.

I think Mitchell services is a great business however it was one of my very first holdings which resulted in a quick loss after I panicked about the share price retreating and sold, being a very inexperienced investor at the time. (I still am, but I at least have Strawman and hours and hours of Scott and Andrews waffle on my side).

At current levels I am very interested in getting back on board. The drill market in WA is very tight, I assume this spreads to other jurisdictions.

As for MLG, I see their haulage and general site services business as well run and with good prospects, however for me I would like to see how they perform in the Civil and Mining segment over the next 12 months, generally a capital intensive business that needs to be very well run to make a profit. With some major project announcements for their Civil and Mining division coming recently we will see from their results how well run they can be. A poor performing Civil and Mining division could weigh heavily on the core business.