Meeting with Tempo

We met with Tempo management last Thursday in Adelaide. Charlie, Max and Daniel were keen to meet with the Adelaide chapter of investors, four in all. Charlie was passionate about what they are creating at Tempo - a dynamic mining services company that has ultimate respect for the workers at the coalface ( Charlie was a boilermaker) , an operation that cuts red tape and has no middle management, and a company that has successfully implemented SAP systems with no legacy issues. The quality of the team was impressive - Daniel : the quiet achiever that has done an amazing job of getting Tempo to where it is today. Max - very impressive, passionate CEO that without doubt will take Tempo to the next level. Charlie - mining services royalty with vast experience, respect for the worker, hates wasting money, just "knows" the path and would have management consultants shaking in their boots if they ever got within a mile of Tempo. Which leads me to the next point - their competitors are spending millions on consultants to assist them in making their operations, contractors and supply chains more efficient as the majors demand cost savings and productivity gains. The majors know that there's no point on "tendering to the death" - refer Coles / Woolworths $1 price milk and what the end game of that strategy would be. Tempo's offer is an extremely efficient technological savvy mining services company that is open to sharing the productivity gains with the majors - more akin to a partnership if you like. Going forward Max seemed confident that the run rate of the last two quarters will continue but in line with their policy no guidance was given or will be. I have complete confidence Tempo will be a much larger company in the next 2 to 3 years and what started out as a trade for me is now a long term investment.
I never thought a mining services company would end up as a core position in my portfolio. At the end of the day it just keeps coming back to one thing thing - excellent management fully aligned with workers and shareholders alike.