Takeovers Panel & Transparency, page-4

Another ingrate that has no idea of the blood, sweat, tears and smarts that have gone into building this company over more than 20 years.

The small shareholders that backed Mr Billis are doing very well thank you very much and contrary to what you say the current dividend policy is very generous, in fact more generous than NST’s current policy.

This action is all about control and exploiting the extraordinary powers of the Takeover panel to open a crack, which the individual involved, is hoping will deliver him control over the two companies and the life-time hard work of Mr Billis who has practically built TBR and RND single handily. Absolutely shameful IMO.

The red or black casino argument that you present about the gold hedging is rubbish. Mr Billis’s strategy of hoarding unhedged gold has worked brilliantly well.

When the Kundana mine started in the year 2000 the $A gold price was about $450 and currently it's sitting at about $1,660. In the same time official interest rates have oscillated around about 5% and in recent years since 2012 they have dropped to 1.5%.

If Mr Billis had have sold the first ounce of gold from the Kundana mine and converted it to cash in the year 2000 you would have got $450 cash (pre a tax on profit). If you compound $450 at an annual rate of 4% for 18 years that money would be worth $947 (and that is at 4% pre income tax and pre inflation). So the cash you got would have been taxed as profit when it was sold and any income from the cash as it compounded over the course of 18 years would also have been taxed. I'm not going to bother trying to calculate those amounts but let's just say that the $947 would actually be worth some significant amount less.

Well that first ounce of gold that Mr Billis hoarded away is now worth $1,660 (pre tax and inflation), a lot more than the monetised Australian dollar equivalent. That’s why the vulture is at then door step with his silver spoon mates.

The share-buy backs have also been very smart because TBR has been one of the most profitable miners on the block. Better investing in your own undervalued shares rather than other overvalued companies or risking the hard earned profits on more speculative and less attractive exploration or mine development projects which carry more risk.

You talk of “true value” as if it is an absolute term. There is no such thing.

What do you think would happen to the “true value” of NST if the US government banned the private ownership of monetary gold like it did for 41 year from 1933 and offered US citizens US$1,000/oz to cash in their gold. What do you think would happen to this company, NST, that trades at more than 5 times its net asset value?

I can tell you what would happen, NST’s value would fall to it’s cash backed value overnight and it would be worth less than TBR/RND. In all your hollier than thou pontification about what is right and wrong you overlook that anything can happen in this world; wars, currency disruptions and yes confiscation of gold.

Well some investors like myself, like TBR the way it is, reflecting its own “true value”. The market is there to discover value. There is nothing currently stopping someone transacting Tribune shares at a higher prices. Give it a go, put a bid up at $8.00 and you’ll probably find that someone will sell some to you. Put a big bid up at $12.00 and I’m sure you will elicit more liquidity. Mr Billis doesn’t create the market, the market is there if you want to buy and sell shares in the company. As a long time holder with a reasonable ownership I’m happy the registry is very tight. Not one share issued since the early 1990s, something that should be applauded not derided. Think about all the dogs out there that have let their registries blow out into the billions. Where does that normally leave shareholders?

I hope the vultures never get control and definitely not in this way. This is a company about gold, it holds what I want it to hold, gold, it produces what I want it to produce, gold and it makes a profit from it and has started to return that profit hadsomely to shareholders. I don’t want another overvalued company run by the real criminals in New York who manipulate the price of everything. Isn’t it nice that there is some differentiation in the market, so that not all gold companies are cookie cut according to the same formula and run by faceless nominees of the US banksters. That’s the other irony here. Those bankster scum that hide behind nominee holdings all over the place to fleece the little guy every day of the week. Where is the lynch mob that is going after them? Take your pitch forks, lanterns and hangman’s noose and move you unruly butts out of this company’s businesss. Esh