Is this normal practice at this stage of the companies development and growth?
What does this tell us about the company and what can a shareholder expect from this development moving forward?
There is usually less buyback activity for a microcap company like ABI for various reasons, which could include illiquidity, priority for reinvestment, and other forms of capital return (such as special dividends) being more efficient, etc. With that said, in this case, historically, ABI has never bought back stock. In fact, the company has issued shares to fund operations due to negative cash flow for years. In addition, sometimes companies just announce authorization that allows them to repurchase shares but never actually execute it, which we think is likely the case in this situation.
ABI is a microcap mining company without established operations yet. Though the upside could be huge if ABI can improve operations and accelerate growth, we think investors are better off looking for companies that have generated positive cash flow for a certain period of time, as small-cap mining companies are usually quite speculative.