I met up for dinner on Wednesday night with Paul Atherley of Leyshon Resources (LRL). Paul needed no reminding of the share price but was not complaining. He is enough of a market veteran to know that there is no point bleating you just have to deliver. He is not allowed to give me inside information on the Chinese drilling but we sort of talked around it.
Clearly if the drill results had been dire he would have said so. Clearly they have not been spectacular. The Ordos basis prospect is – based on what we know – probably commercial but we must await more drill data. That however is only half the story.
Leyshon is currently demerging its legacy mining assets. The board post demerger will have Atherley at the helm but also on board Kim Howell ( ex BG and Arco who is a real heavy hitter) but of more interest to me, as its chairman, John Manzoni who is still a young man ( mid-fifties) but had a spectacular career at BP in the post Bob Horton era. I have followed Manzoni from an arm’s length for my entire career and he is an A-lister. He is the sort of man who can call up an institution and get a placing away in 30 seconds or call a bank to secure finance. He really is a BSD in oil.
So what the heck are Howell and, more pertinently, Manzoni doing on board a small cap exploring for gas in China? Make no mistake Leyshon is a corporate vehicle. The 8.625p share price is the wrong share price. We very much hold onto this stock in the growth portfolio and the temptation is to buy more. - See more at: http://www.shareprophets.advfn.com/views/1945/leyshon-dinner-with-paul-atherley#sthash.tNY8vnef.dpuf
LRL Price at posting:
13.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held