groundhogs day for kmc

Changes?

Wake up thrillseekers, it is 6am again, and again, and again...

New controlling shareholders. Kwok and Lee and associates hold 50.1%, with an additional billion shares added to the register. KMC are apparently debt free (for the brief moment), but with exploration plans to spend about $5 million. Where are they going to get the money from? New capital raising coming?

Today's presentation is so good, the shares have sunk a further 17%. Why? Because we are getting more of the same. Yeah, same old, same old.

This is like Groundhogs day? It is always 6 o'clock in the morning. After this presentation today, shareholders would like to do to KMC what Bill Murray does to this clock. How do you feel? "We got you babe (again)!".

Groundhogs Day for KMC

No significant change to the personnel on the board (swap previous MD for Kwok, but no Lee).

No change to management (still no current CEO/MD).

No change to mining strategy (still using the contracting strategy - high cost with no "skin in the game" from employed staff. #Note: This was the first thing that BB at NST changed and it resulted in an immediate 30% decline in cash costs. We have spoken extensively about this, and it is crucial for a cost effective operation. So this board knows nothing. They are repeating the same mistakes. It looks like they have not even had the foresight to go out and find the most successful gold miners in the state and ask them how they do it. So they still come across as a bunch of amateurs who have learnt nothing).

So where is the letter to shareholders which details what they have learnt, what they now know, what they plan going forward, why this strategy will deliver the forecast results etc..

Where is all of this? (in a presentation to some Asian conference?). How do you feel shareholders? Still treated with contempt? Will you give them more money, for them to re-employ the same contractors, on the same rates, to re-start exploration in the same fashion as before, without being told how this will improve the operation?

Not enough has changed, for these losers IMHO.

Why did they not bury their egos and go and learn what is best practice? Why not talk to the experts and use that knowledge? Are they too ashamed to do so? And why have they not engaged shareholders? Why have they not issued a comprehensive apology to shareholders? They have not issued an information letter to shareholders detailing what they have learnt from the experience and why they can justify the new way forward?

I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain, "show me a mine, and I will show you a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it".

The KMC board and management also remind me of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, especially when Ygritte talks to him ("You know nothing Jon Snow"). She could have been talking to the KMC board of directors ("You know nothing KMC board").

You know nothing Jon Snow

This board seems to have learnt nothing, and they seem to be advising Kwok and Lee accordingly.

Punsxutawny Phil has seen his shadow and returned to his hole, which indicates that the Winter of loss and discontent for KMC will continue unabated.

"As I look at the crowd on Gobbler's Knob,
Many shadows do I see,
Six more weeks of Winter it must be",
(And a never-ending Winter for KMC).

Groundhogs Day 2012 for KMC

Gw

Houston, we have a problem.
(Tom Hanks - Apollo 13 - The Movie)