AGM was attended by the most people in quite a few years. About 20 and the mood was decidedly upbeat compared to the past.
Tom Percy summarised the company position as one that has survived where others have not and had very good prospects that were thwarted by the issue with Stone. In his opinion we had a very, very strong position to win the case in the Surpreme Court but at what cost and when we gained judgement how would we enforce. Stone's balance sheet could turn the entity into a company of straw. It was deemed prudent to agree to walk away.
In any event the butterfly lease was sold to keep the company afloat.
GZ: basically the heap leach was progressing however the chance to toll treat the Butterfly pit ore via Stone's mill became available and this would (and I emphasis "would" ) have produced greater cash flow at a quicker rate which could then fund ongoing heaps leach cash flow. As such the leap leach was put on hold and we got screwed. (my description, not Tom or Kens).
Ken covered the financials and the current projects. The plus side is we do not have a lot of stock on issue and there have been no dilutionary raisings. A lot of the progress has been done via R&D and the current focus of processing the old tailings dumps looks very profitable. The low tonnage proprietary processing on site (no new harmful chemicals) works but the real money is large tonnage toll treating by a third party mill. Discussions are continuing with a number of parties with hopefully a contract in the near future.
The dumps have been drilled and assays are expected before christmas. Grades are expected to be economical.
A couple of other points clarified following my questions:
Directors have not been paid for over four years.
The holders of the convertible note (very substantial Malaysian entity) are happy and supportive.
Numerous new projects continue to be put to the company but unless it is for the benefit of shareholders the focus will continue to be monetising the gold in the waste dumps short term.
In summary, I was almost at a point of crystallising a significant loss on this one but I think the sun is coming over the horizon. It has a laughable low market cap but with a very low number of shares on issue it won't take much to make this run. They still have some good historical ground and I think Ken is one of the more ethical MD's around who has a point to prove in making his shareholders some profit.
I'm buying more.
NME Price at posting:
2.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
