3 ASX microcaps trading near cash after asset sales and Rio Tinto farm-ins

We’re in the tail end of quarterly reporting season for miners, and there’s no shortage of small caps now trading close to the cash on their books.

Here are three that stood out. All three trade under $40 million market cap, though liquidity is extremely thin. Most of the assets are relatively early stage, so for all the value on the table, what matters more is making a meaningful discovery.

Desert Metals

Desert Metals (DM1) is a gold explorer focused on Côte d’Ivoire, where its flagship Adzope project hosts the King Kong discovery and the undrilled Nyan anomaly. The company has a market cap of $6.0 million, with $398,000 cash at 30 July 2026.

On 27 October, the company agreed to sell its 80% interest in the Tengrela South gold permit in Côte d’Ivoire to Canadian-listed Waraba Gold for up to $5 million in cash.

• Desert Metals will receive $2.5m in cash by completion, including a $100,000 exclusivity fee already received and a $500,000 deposit on signing

• Up to a further $2.5m is payable on extension of the Tengrela South permit beyond November 2027

• Desert Metals will retain a 1% NSR royalty, which Waraba can buy back for $2.2m

• Proceeds will fund drilling at the 7km-plus Nyan gold anomaly at Adzope, along strike from the King Kong discovery, and initial exploration at the Agboville gold-lithium project

Adzope, in south-eastern Côte d’Ivoire, is the flagship asset. Drilling at King Kong returned 17m at 7.5g/t gold, and maiden soil sampling at Nyan defined a high-grade gold-in-soil anomaly. So some very early-stage stuff.

Taking the current market cap, less cash and up to $5 million in sale proceeds, implies an enterprise value of just ~$600,000, before ascribing any value to the 1% royalty. You’re now left with a company that trades almost at cash.

Fitzroy River

Fitzroy River (FZR) is a royalty and investment company with royalties and equity investments for oil and gas, and mineral assets in Australia, New Zealand, and the Gulf of Mexico. The company trades at a market cap of $31.8 million, with $13.1 million cash at 30 June.

The current portfolio has a lot going on, including:

• Weeks royalty (Gippsland Basin): 1% of a 2.5% hydrocarbon royalty over Bass Strait production, operated by the ExxonMobil/Woodside joint venture. It’s the only producing royalty, bringing in $551k of receipts in FY26, down from $633k in FY25.

• Canning Basin and Lennard Shelf (WA): A 2% net wellhead royalty over the Canning Basin tenements and a 3% royalty over the Lennard Shelf tenements, mostly held by Buru Energy. The key asset is Buru’s Rafael gas project, which is targeting FID by June 2027 and first cash flows in late 2028 or early 2029.

• Snowy River Gold Project (NZ): A variable 1–3% overriding royalty over Endura’s project near Reefton. Endura paid $12.3m to buy it out, but Fitzroy thinks the option may have lapsed. It’s holding the cash in escrow and has taken the matter to the NZ High Court, arguing the royalty is worth materially more given Endura expects 60,000oz a year for over 10 years.

• Lachlan Fold Belt (Molong): A 3% NSR over gold and copper on ground held by Regis Resources.

So there’s a bit of cash coming through, plus the contested proceeds from Endura. On 12 October, Fitzroy announced a special dividend of 5.2 cents per share, a yield of about 15%. Chair Sue Thomas noted intentions to return excess cash to shareholders “in a timely and tax efficient manner”.

More cash followed on 27 October, when the company sold the Silver Mines (SVL) shares it received for its Bowdens royalty, taking total realised proceeds to $15.7 million. The plan to sell these shares had been known for some time, so the announcement was more about receiving the cash.

• Fitzroy sold its Bowdens royalty to Silver Mines for $17.5m, made up of $10m in cash and $7.5m in Silver Mines shares issued at 14.5c

• The Silver Mines shares were sold at an average of 11c, 24% below the issue price

• Total realised consideration of $15.7m excluding costs is about $1.8m below the headline sale price

• Fitzroy intends to distribute surplus proceeds to shareholders, with an update to come

So what's left is a company that’s trading near cash, receives a small cashflow from existing royalties, and intends to return excess cash to shareholders.

LCL Resources

LCL Resources (LCL) is a PNG-focused gold and base metals explorer. It received $7.5 million in total cash after Tiger Gold exercised its option to acquire 100% of its Colombian assets, leaving it debt-free with $7.6 million cash at 30 June 2026 against a current market cap of $9.6 million.

We’ve mentioned a lot of divestments so far, but it’s a pair of farm-in deals with Rio Tinto that make LCL interesting. The latest, announced on 26 October, covers the Liamu project:

• Rio Tinto can earn 51% by sole funding at least $6m of exploration, including 3,000m of drilling, within five years

• Rio Tinto can move to 80% by funding a further $40m, or by defining a resource of at least 1Mt of contained copper and completing a scoping study

• Initial work will target undrilled catchments around the Dada porphyry discovery, where trenching returned 96m at 0.41g/t gold

• Rio Tinto will review Ubei within 12 months, where rock chips returned up to 367.7g/t gold directly above an undrilled IP anomaly

• LCL will be operator and receive a management fee of up to 10% of exploration spend, building on the Ono farm-in agreed in March

It follows the Ono farm-in announced on 23 March 2026, which has a similar shape:

• Rio Tinto will sole fund at least $8m at Ono and $6m at Liamu to earn an initial 51% of each project

• The minimum spend implies a value of roughly $27.5m for 100% of both projects, or about $13.5m for LCL’s retained 49%

• Rio will also pay LCL up to $1.5m in staged cash payments at Ono

• Rio could spend a further $40m on each project to move to 80%

Across both farm-ins, Rio Tinto has committed a minimum of $14 million in exploration spend to earn 51% of each project. That’s about 1.5 times LCL’s market cap!