This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runners of the Week is… Ovanti Ltd, after the company scored a buy now, pay later maestro to guide its US expansion. Olympio unveiled visible gold in its first drill hole in Canada, Codeifai flew on a poorly kept takeover secret, and Sunrise unveiled high-grade scandium results at its NSW critical minerals project.
A whole week without mentioning President Trump in our Runners column was never going to sit well with the leader of the free world, as he made his presence known in a week of turmoil to close out the financial year.
Starting with a literal bang, ‘the Don’ began a war with Iran on Sunday morning, while simultaneously declaring that it was time for peace. The interesting tactic seemed to work by Tuesday, with a peace deal brokered between Iran, Israel and the United States.
Peace didn’t last very long, and neither did Trump’s patience, with Israel and Iran back at it again and Donald seemingly losing his mind on social media.
The global unrest resulted in markets remaining near all-time-highs - go figure - though ‘peace’ saw the oil price dive by nearly 15 per cent, with energy claiming the biggest losses on the index this week.
Markets were up overall as consumers breathed a sigh of relief. Australia’s inflation rate continues to cool, falling to 2.1 per cent over the year to May and reaching an underlying 2.4 per cent. US data was also predictably soft, signalling the lowest inflation rates we’ve experienced since the 2021 COVID lockdowns.
With soft data, the chances of interest rate cuts in July are almost inevitable, causing the market to ramp up to finish the week, despite looming tariff deadlines awaiting Australian exporters in the new financial year.
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runners list was an eclectic group of resources and technology hopefuls, with the top spot going to a fintech firecracker making the ultimate gear change and adding a seasoned buy now, pay later (BNPL) veteran to head up its US divisions.
OVANTI LIMITED (ASX: OVT)
Up 500% (0.2c – 1.2c)
This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is BNPL fintech Ovanti Limited, which shot out of a cannon on Wednesday by unveiling its new US leader - fintech heavyweight and former Zip Co maestro Peter Maher. The company says the incoming chief executive officer of its US BNPL division is set to spearhead its payments and embedded finance push into the States, as he did with multi-billion ASX blue-chipper Zip Co.
With a resume also boasting senior roles at Capital One and HTLF Bank, Maher is no stranger to forging lucrative partnerships and navigating the regulatory jungle to seek a BNPL prize out of US consumerism. He will look to build on his predecessor at Ovanti and previous ZIP colleague Simon Keast’s effort to turbocharge the company’s US market expansion with an innovative BNPL product that “empowers consumers with real-time affordability insights”.
Maher was in charge when Zip skyrocketed to a $6.2 billion valuation in February 2021 after orchestrating a triumphant US invasion. As the company’s senior director of high growth, he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with co-founder Larry Diamond to coordinate the company’s masterstroke acquisition of QuadPay in 2020 to enter the US.
Merchant deals with giants such as Webjet, Peloton and Amazon soon followed, fuelling Zip’s US transaction volume to $2.8 billion in the 2021 financial year.
Riding the wave of COVID stimulus and zero-rate money, Maher helped transform Zip from a local player into a transcontinental titan, setting the stage for Ovanti’s push into the $122.3 billion US BNPL market.
The market loved the news, just as it had done with Keast’s appointment in October last year. Ovanti’s share price shot to 0.8 cents on Wednesday, before the news spread far and wide on Thursday, when it peaked at 1.2c per share. This was a whopping 500 per cent rise on last week’s close on nearly $10 million in stock traded.
With Maher at the helm and Ovanti’s sights set on cracking the US BNPL jackpot, this plucky fintech’s shares might keep zipping along – that’s if Maher’s vision for AI-driven, consumer-centric payments can couple with his previous proven playbook of expansion at Zip.
Olympio Metals has logged visible gold in quartz veining with sulphides over a 9m interval from 183m in its inaugural drill hole at the company’s Bousquet project in Quebec, Canada. Credit: File.
OLYMPIO METALS LTD (ASX: OLY)
Up 255% (3.8c – 13.5c)
Bulls N’ Bears’ second-place Runner of the Week is gold prospector Olympio Metals, which ignited a frenzy on Tuesday when it uncovered visible gold in quartz veining in the company’s first drill hole at its recently acquired Bousquet gold project in Quebec, Canada.
The gold specks came within a band of smoky quartz hosting five to seven per cent sulphide mineralisation across a 9-metre zone from 183m downhole at its Paquin prospect.
The company says its drill hole also revealed additional quartz veining, sulphides and alteration stretching down to 286m, with the step-out hole pushing mineralisation west of prior high-grade intercepts, such as a stunning 9m at 16.96 grams per tonne (g/t).
Olympio says three more holes are due to test Paquin’s western reach and it expects assays for the current hole by mid-July.
Bousquet sits astride the Cadillac Break, a legendary regional structure teeming with world-class gold deposits, with more than 110 million ounces to its name.
Fortunately for Olympio, its Paquin, Amedee, Decoeur and Johannes prospects are all perched on this fabled fault, suggesting the first hole is not a fluke.
It took a moment for the market to digest the upside of this Canadian explorer in a humming gold environment. The company’s share price surged on just $150,000 worth of stock traded on Tuesday before things got humming on Wednesday as it hit a 13.5c high. This was up 255 per cent on last week’s close.
Bousquet commands a 10-kilometre stretch of the Cadillac Break just 15km west of the Bousquet Mining Camp, where heavyweights such as Agnico Eagle’s 15-million-ounce La Ronde and Iamgold’s 2.4-million-ounce Westwood reside.
The company says its Paquin mineralisation echoes the nearby O’Brien project, which has one million ounces of gold and just 15km east. Paquin’s visible gold in smoky quartz veins may be a telltale sign of high-grade riches. The company is also touting its infrastructure advantages in difficult-to-navigate Canadian terrain.
Olympio’s Dufay gold-copper project, 60km west, adds another 10km of Cadillac Break exposure, with drilling imminent on a high-potential porphyry gold-copper target, giving the company a commanding 20km stake in this golden corridor.
If its maiden holes continue to turn up the goods, Olympio could unearth a game-changing discovery in a world-class region, that would have its current valuation of $10 million looking like an absolute steal.
CODEIFAI LTD (ASX: CDE)
Up 75% (4c – 7c)
Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week’s bronze medal was nabbed by brand solutions technology group Codeifai Limited, which had no news to the market this week. The company’s share price went on an absolute tear of unusual trading activity before the party was cut short by a trading halt on Friday pending the announcement of a potential acquisition.
A level of knowledge around the apparent acquisition seems to have pushed the company’s share price since early June.
Codeifai released a corporate update after a few days of suspicious trading on June 6 that outlined the two companies in hot pursuit. Trust Codes Global is a New Zealand QR code powerhouse with a serialised platform rivalling Codeifai’s ConnectQR, while Credissential Inc’s QuantumAI Transfer is a Canadian quantum-secure payment and file transfer platform that could supercharge Codeifai’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings with BNPL features.
Codeifai recently pivoted to become a brand solutions specialist that develops and sells digital solutions using QR code technology through its SaaS offerings ConnectQR and ProtectCode. The company says its ConnectQR with AI-generated QR codes produce revenue 24/7 and seamlessly integrate with its own cloud-based platform.
It has already generated millions of codes, and has apparently caught the eyes of global competitors.
Since being hit with a speeding ticket from the ASX constabulary earlier this month, the company has surged 1000 per cent before finally putting an end to one of the worst-kept secret in market history.
SUNRISE ENERGY METALS LTD (ASX: SRL)
Up 65% (73c – 120.5c)
This week’s final Runners spot goes to critical minerals developer Sunrise Energy Metals, which sparked a market wildfire this week, surging on Tuesday, following a capital raise to an insider mining magnate last week. Then on Friday, it announced it had run into some high-grade scandium results at its Syerston scandium project in New South Wales.
The inferno was ignited with Monday’s news of a $6 million placement at 30c a share, with a 1-for-1 option at 40c, backed by mining titan and co-chairman Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Capital Holdings. Ivanhoe committed $3 million to the raise with two further cornerstone investors, alongside a $1.5 million share purchase plan (SPP) with no doubt strong uptake.
Some punters may have been kicking themselves for missing the early bird special, given shares hit $1.20 intraday by Friday, up an astonishing 300 per cent above the prescribed SPP price.
The funds are set to supercharge an updated feasibility study and exploration at Syerston, where Friday’s assays from 1997 drill pulps unveiled substantial intersections, including 6m running 553 parts per million (ppm) and 18m at 528ppm scandium in shallow laterite soils just begging for cost-efficient mining.
The grades were well above the project’s 390ppm scandium average within 60.3 million tonnes for 23,554t contained scandium.
The company says its results confirm Syerston as a global scandium heavyweight. It has a 5000m drilling campaign targeting high-grade zones around a dunite intrusion and a feasibility study update due in the next quarter.
Sunrise says it is perfectly positioned to supply a critical minerals market begging for new feed sources, following China’s scandium export curbs on what amounts to about 90 per cent of global supply.
With 99.999 per cent scandium oxide fetching $500,000 per kilogram - that’s $500 million per tonne - and demand soaring for aerospace alloys and 5G semiconductors, this critical mineral isn’t going to go away. If mid-July assays and offtake talks with alloy and chip makers pan out, Sunrise could be soon on its way to forging Australia’s first standalone scandium mine.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
