@edgescape - I recently bought back in - in one portfolio - and added - in another - at around $60/share, which I thought was reasonably priced for MIN, even though they did get down towards the low $50s soon after. They do tend to trend well, both up and down, once they get going, so I reckon there's a better than even chance they'll go lower again in their next big downtrend - maybe not to $50, but maybe down to $60 next time; They have plenty of Bears that don't like them, especially among the brokers where Chris Ellison tends to attack them personally - and as a group - by suggesting on one occasion that they were lazy and expected him to do their work for them - in response to some questions, and that some of the "rubbish" that they had been writing in reports and client notes was sloppy, unprofessional, and just wrong. And he had a blunt message for MinRes balance sheet critics recently as well - see here: Chris Ellison's Message to Balance Sheet Critics | Daily Mining Show (youtube.com)

And here: MIN ASX: Mineral Resources founder Chris Ellison slams critics over balance sheet (afr.com) “Not so much investors, but there are a few cowboys out there who throw a bit of shit at me and every now and then I call them out.”

“We have so many friggin’ levers we can pull.”

“The pressure I’m under at the moment with everyone whining and bitching, [I’m] going to go out and sell half of it [the haul road] just to put the money in the bank and go like ‘f--- you’,” he told analysts.

There are plenty of analysts who take some of that sh!t personally and are therefore more than happy to leave MinRes as a "sell" and just keeping finding reasons to justify that position. Even the analysts who are bullish on MinRes tend to only value certain divisions of the company and leave other parts in the "too hard basket".

@mikebrisy - I think if you try to value MinRes just on current production, or even on future production from current assets, they can look expensive at times, however their track record is of innovation and deal-making, so they buy distressed assets at bargain/fire-sale prices, sell assets at commodity high points, usually tend to get the better of much larger global players (like Albemarle), and always have a number of irons in the fire. It's hard to predict exactly what Chris will do next with MinRes because he occasionally admits he doesn't know himself - exactly. But he knows a good move to make when he sees it, and up until recently he has had the balance sheet and the control to make pretty much any move he wanted to make. More lately he has been getting some push-back on high debt levels, and I reckon the push-back that bothers him most is the push-back from the banks, because nobody else would really matter to him. He's just pissed that constant highlighting of MinRes' high debt levels by journos and analysts was fuelling the banks becoming more unsettled about it. Which would have pleased some analysts no doubt! And so, Chris is divesting some non-core assets to tidy up the balance sheet and get the [insert descriptor here - plural] off his back.

I don't think MinRes often looks like a slam-dunk investment decision to anybody coming across them fresh. It's more if you've followed the company for a while (like a decade or more) and seen what they are capable of - and experienced some of those TSRs.

They have a core mining services division that mostly does iron ore crushing, loading and hauling, with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure associated with that, including earthmoving equipment, crushing plants (including a "graveyard" of old decommisioned and abandoned crushing plants and parts that MinRes has accumulated from various failed miners and minesites, often alongside site rehabilitation contracts), trucks, trains, port infrastructure and ships. Around that mining services business, where MinRes own most of the plants and equipment that they use within those contracts, MinRes have a mining business, that has mostly focussed on iron ore, and occasionally ventures in and out of other assets, more recently lithium. They are also building an energy business (oil and gas, with a strong focus on natural gas). They also have a trading business, which involves buying stakes in other companies - most recently in lithium companies, and then selling them later, usually at a profit (but not always, you can't win on every trade), and they also trade assets, which can take a few years to play out in many cases. And they have a few other projects on the go, but most of those have not progressed to a stage where they are considered material to the company's valuation now.

In summary, I'm looking at their track record and that, short of a sudden health emergency, I don't think Chris is going anywhere else, any time soon, and so I'm backing the man and the company to continue to deliver for shareholders. Hard to translate that into a spreadsheet, but I can put it into a written investment thesis, and that's good enough for me.

Thanks for all the thoughts. I think it is clear many misunderstand what MinRes is about and that's why I think the analysts and perhaps traders are getting it wrong. In short, MinRes is taking a big picture view of mining, and looking at the pieces that are missing in their business and what needs to be done to fill the gap. A bit like getting pieces sorted on a jigsaw puzzle.

That strategy does come with some risk as everything needs to be acquired at the right price with the right resources. So I guess that is something to be aware of and requires a deeper understanding.