One of the great "Buffett" cliches is that you should invest in...

One of the great "Buffett" cliches is that you should invest in a company where the business is so good that it doesn't matter if management is hopeless.

With mining finally starting it looked like that was going to be the case here. Maybe not.

You don't have to be a genius to see what the risks are in each jurisdiction: corruption (Indo) and incompetence (S.A.). Looks like WWI has been hit by both here.

I'd written the Indo operations off and it looks like the company can't do business there without diluting their interests to oblivion. For sure WWI might start mining there but they'll get 5% of stuff all after all the "partners" take their cut. I'm not saying WWI are corrupt but I think to do business in Indo they have to accept offers they can't refuse.

With S.A. as with any mine anywhere there's always the risk that the mining and processing don't go as well as people had hoped. Well that's certainly the case here, and with 2g/t and the SA and Aus gold prices where they are there's no excuse.

I think WWI is like every company ever. They comply with disclosure laws to the minimum extent required because only an idiot says more than they have to, and no ann ever has said "well we're worried it's going to crap but we're not sure yet". When things go wrong they scramble to fix it behind the scenes as quietlyand quickly as possible and only when they can't do they say something.

As always in these situations, it's hard to tell if management acted in good faith and were mucked around by third parties, or if they should have had a better sense of smell and guessed there might be trouble.

I would certainly hope there's news by the end of the month. Waiting for the next quarterly is not going to cut it.