bazzard2?, page-4

Hi Doc..!

On the e-mail thing,, perhaps i can offer a helpfull hint..!!
I have'nt tried to contact STU, as i never hold the stock for long periods, however, i do contact many companies and experience has proved to me the following :-
If you use the common company e-mail address, you'll get lost every time..!
That address will get hundreds of e-mails per day, and it will depend on the vetting efficency of some secretary to pass it on..!
I always use the personal business e-mail address of the CEO, keep it very short, polite and to the point,,,, and so far have never failed to receive a response..!!

On the directors:-.......No shortage of experience imo, Clarke has a degree in geology and physics, 25 years experience with capital markets..
Branson is a member of the advisory board of the Bank of South Australia, 30 years in law and management.
The CEO....Tino Guglielmo is an engineer with 20 years expierence in petroleum exploration, and very familiar with the Cooper Basin and it's diverse reservoir complexities..!

They have been responsible for employing the six man management team who run the day to day guts of the whole show, and that team looks better than ok to me..!!

If directors have the best interests of shareholders at the core of their actions, then they'll use their skill and talent to generate the funds needed to run and progress the company,,, instead of continually returning to the marketplace, issueing more script , diluting everyones holdings.
STU have not done any of that rubbish, and after 9+ years of operation, there is still only 63 million shares on issue,,,,67 million diluted including employee options etc..,,,,,,,,,,,Thats nothing..!

I don't know who's personally responsible for the hedging strategy, but i urge you to take a carefull look at it, in the Quarterly report on 28-1-09 on page-5..

Generally speaking, hedging is an imposed thing from financing institutions, as a kind of guarantee, but can also be used as a usefull financial tool by the companies themselves, to protect their business against donward trends as you already know, but only if they have the skill and also the courage..!
It can be very damaging to ones personal business reputation if it goes wrong, so it's much safer from that point of view, to just do nothing, and then if that goes wrong, one can just blame it on external factors which are beyond the companies control..!...simple..!!

In that document, mentioned above, you'll see that they have entered into some recent currency hedging also,, in order to protect the companies income, because they get paid in American dollars for their product,,,, or at least,,, the US$ going rate..!

They are paying off debt, in troubled times,,, some $12 million of it.

I would site the above as reasons for believing that the directors of this company act in the best interests of their shareholders, but this should be considered as a personal opinion , and i'm sure that there will be others who will differ..!

Cheers..!!