We need to give the NTM board time to sort this out. The Chairman Doug Daws is a very decent, honourable and no-nonsense man who will make sure we get duly compensated.
To compensate shareholders maybe the NTM board could extend the NTMO by granting a free 1:1 new option expiring in 2015 to compensate option holders for the ongoing delay. Afterall the delay has been caused by the NT government and has further caused a lost opportunity to share and option holders.
Hang in there. The government cannot steal an economic asset from its rightful owner without full compensation for the lost economic opportunity. Commonsense will prevail here, eventually. The leases were applied for and then granted for the sole purpose of NTM carrying out exploration, discovery and then mining of manganese and other resources, which are so obviously prevalent there given that NTMs granted ground is a geological extension of the 9th most profitable mine in Australia. To suggest that by covering NTMs costs of achieving the granted leases will be enough as compensation is ridiculous. The NT govt must compensate NTM holders for the lost net profit from the lost mining opportunity.
If there is potentially $2b of manganese on the leases then they must pay whatever amount would have been achieved as net profit from mining that resource because that is ultimately what has been confiscated by the government. If $200m would have been the net profit effectively stolen from NTM shareholders, then that is what must be paid to NTM shareholders by the confiscating government. That is simply the cost of securing the Reserve and preserving this area. The cost is not just the reimbusement of NTM's costs.
Imagine if in the early days of FMG, after FMG had applied for the leases in the Pilbara and had them granted, the WA govt then confiscated them all to create a national park. What would be fair compensation: 1- FMG's costs of securing the granted leases to that pont in time; or 2- The $17b FMG has created in real value on those leases in the decade after having them granted?
NTM Price at posting:
2.4¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
