Embattled ruby miner Mustang Resources plunged as much as 67 per cent this morning after coming out of suspension as news of its disastrous first ruby auction began to sink in.

The stock opened at 3.9c, down 63 per cent from the last trading price of 10.5c on Monday before shares were suspended.

The shares rallied to close on Thursday at 4.6c — down 56 per cent — with over 200 million shares changing hands.

Since hitting a 52-week high of 20c on October 16, Mustang shares have lost as much as 82.5 per cent.

Mustang shares are down as much as 82.5 per cent. Source: Investing.com

It’s been a horror run for Mustang.

As reported yesterday by Stockhead, Mustang (ASX: MUS) sold only eight bid schedules — comprising multiple lots — from a total of 21 schedules offered at the auction which took place over the weekend in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.

The auction netted a disappointing $713,456 for Mustang with only 7 per cent, or 29,463 carats, of the total 405,000 carats on offer being sold.

A request for a trading halt sent on Saturday, October 28, wasn’t received by the ASX for reasons unknown, resulting in Mustang trading on Monday morning.

Its shares plummeted from 14.5c on Friday to 9.6c on Monday, before they were suspended.

Sealed bid auction

The company said the tender was undertaken by way of ‘sealed bids’. The results weren’t known until the tender had closed after market close on Monday, so Mustang had no information it could provide to the market.

“MUS reiterates that the trading halt request was intended to ensure an orderly market pending the announcement of the tender results, albeit that the results of the auction were not yet known,” Mustang said.

“For this reason, MUS had determined to take a cautious approach to lodge the trading halt request until it had been informed of the results of the tender and it could make an announcement to the market.”

The auction result also forced Mustang to delay timing around an upgrade to a processing plant at Montepuez to increase the available processing capacity of the project from 432,000 tonnes a year to 2 million.

The new plant and upgrades to the existing plant were expected to be installed and commissioned by July 2018, however this has been pushed back.

No new timing for the upgrade has been provided by Mustang.

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