ORP 10.3% 3.5¢ orpheus uranium limited

Dear Easter Bunny, Its been a while since I logged on or even...

  1. 107 Posts.
    Dear Easter Bunny,

    Its been a while since I logged on or even looked at the ORP board and I have to say you've created quite a little stir on what is usually a rather boring place to read.

    You raise some good points, however.

    There is little question the historical performance of Oropa has been very poor. Yet that ought not to be a major surprise when one considers the previous management and board and their lack of ownership. A small business (which is exactly what Oropa is) without management having ownership is almost always going to be a disaster.

    Why? Because there is no incentive to perform, no economic drive to create value, no alignment with shareholders and no systems to make sure management run the business in a smart way.

    Clearly the old guard culminated in what was undoubtedly a near death experience for the company late last year. That experience of course led to the subsequent highly depressed share and convertible note issue. One might ask "what is the right price to save a company within a week or two of going out backwards?"; which is exactly what Blackwood and Co did. The answer is a high price (or low one if you're talking about shares).

    So yes, the whole situation was a disgrace and yes someone took advantage of a strong negotiating position to get a cheap entry - that's business in the real world. Who do you blame?

    Previous management. Have they paid the price - yes.

    So today the company has a new power base, nearly all of which are significant shareholders through either ordinary or convertible notes.

    That simple fact reflects the most major change in Oropa's (or Finders Gold's) history ever, period. You can like the new team, hate the new team, but you can be certain they aren't there to waste their own time and money.

    Maybe the new team wont succeed, but at least they are motivated to succeed which is materially better than the past.

    If you accept the new team is motivated, then we need to wait and see to determine what they can deliver. That process isn't something that happens overnight. So perhaps a little patience is required before throwing the new guys out.

    That leaves the question of the quality of the asset which is up for debate....

    1moz open on several fronts, near surface, open pittable, low strip ratio, close to infrastructure, reasonable indicative metallurgy and recoveries......

    All sounding very good. So what would you pay for 75% of that?

    A$11m is the fully diluted price at 3.3cents a share (yes including the notes).

    If you didn’t know anything about the history of Oropa and talked about the project and its basic characteristics and asked some consultants for typical $/oz for inferred resources, you'd probably find a range between US$20/oz and US$80/oz.

    At US$20/oz (ie the low end of the range) the project value would be 1*0.75*20 = US$15m or A$18m.

    That is still considerably higher than where the value sits today and there are many factors at Pungkut which would justify a value in the middle or upper end of that range!!!

    One can argue about the pros and the cons and you can like or hate Indonesia , but at the end of the day despite all the dilution and mis-execution the company still looks to be very cheap when you compare it to most other assets out there.

    If new management keep along the same path as previous management, will you make money? No. Are there risks? Yes.

    Are new management the same as old management – NO.

    The new management are business owners and that difference is not something to be underestimated.

    Time will tell.
 
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