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  1. #1091
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balance View Post
    Holy Shxt - this dog has had a 5:1 and a 10:1 consolidation in the last 4 years and it is trading 2.5c?

    The directors and management of this company has turned $10m in 2006 to $264k today - a loss of 97.36%!

    How much of that has gone to them in salaries, fees and benefits?

    What a freaking waste of time!
    Balance: I think what is interesting, is that perception is everything. AXG doesn't seem to be compelling at the moment, yet they have taken in something like around C$32mill of shareholder funds since 2006. There are not too many who will supply cash funds now, yet in early 2013 there was quite a bit coming in from investors, including me. The difference is that instead of spending most of the cash on exploration that didn't quite make it, from 2013 they scuttled about $4mill on (what turned out to be) a doomed alluvial project. It seems that might be their last chance in the current format.

    It's not unusual for greenfield explorers to raise $2-$4mill, and spend it on exploration over a two year period, often to no avail. GEL/AXG managed that several times over, still to no effect. Bad luck? It's true that Simon Henderson and Peter Liddle earned reasonable salaries over the duration, plus travel and the use of some toys. Most of the capital was spent on external contractors, the govt for permits, company staff including geologists and students etc. And in buying gear and permits from Otago people, who were smarter than Mr Henderson and Mr Liddle.

    It has been an interesting journey.

    On the TSX yesterday, AXG announced that they have given up on the raising of more capital via shares. Instead, they are in negotiations with an unnamed third party. Considering Newmont are owed the most from AXG contract commitments, and that the AXG permits that remain are on their Waihi doorstep, it doesn't take too much of a sleuth to guess who the party is.

    http://web.tmxmoney.com/article.php?...&qm_symbol=AXG

    There was apparently no need to post the same info on the NZX today, two days later.
    Last edited by elZorro; 27-11-2014 at 07:54 PM.

  2. #1092
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    So how much have the directors and management stripped in fees, salaries and benefits from this company?

    You must know, elZorro, since you follow it so closely?

    Genuine question.

  3. #1093
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balance View Post
    So how much have the directors and management stripped in fees, salaries and benefits from this company?

    You must know, elZorro, since you follow it so closely?

    Genuine question.
    I would estimate say up to $50k in travel, $450k in salaries and directors fees (they paid very little to directors), per year. More recently, the directors have had to pay cash back in, and no pay for part-time staff. Not a big proportion of the funds that came in, were spent on directors and management. They usually had about $3mill a year to work with, on average.

    About C$32mill came into the company as shareholder funds.

    http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showthr...l=1#post427314
    Last edited by elZorro; 27-11-2014 at 07:14 PM.

  4. #1094
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    Quote Originally Posted by elZorro View Post
    I would estimate say up to $50k in travel, $450k in salaries and directors fees (they paid very little to directors), per year. More recently, the directors have had to pay cash back in, and no pay for part-time staff. Not a big proportion of the funds that came in, were spent on directors and management. They usually had about $3mill a year to work with, on average.

    About C$32mill came into the company as shareholder funds.

    http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showthr...l=1#post427314
    So if you add up the number of years they have been listed, a big chunk of funds have gone in salaries, fees, travel, cars, health & life insurance etc.

    Also, considerable amounts have gone to investors' relations - $392,000 eg in 2011.

    As for the C$32m, most of it was a write up of minerals prospects.

    Anyway, good luck.
    Last edited by Balance; 28-11-2014 at 07:24 AM.

  5. #1095
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balance View Post
    So if you add up the number of years they have been listed, a big chunk of funds have gone in salaries, fees, travel, cars, health & life insurance etc.

    Also, considerable amounts have gone to investors' relations - $392,000 eg in 2011.

    As for the C$32m, most of it was a write up of minerals prospects.

    Anyway, good luck.
    What do you mean, good luck? My reason for continuing to post about AXG is to inform anyone else who might be thinking about investing in the company, to take a careful look first. I am not a shareholder anymore. There might be a lesson in how to get a reasonably large (for NZ) exploration company off the ground, even if they didn't make it. While I know they left out, or hid away, a few pertinent facts sometimes, I didn't catch the directors or managers outright lying. I also think their salaries were sensible in the scale of the company.

    A large proportion of the funds raised was spent on exploration activities, with drilling crews, aerial surveys etc. More ended up in the economy as wages and lease fees.

    The big lesson is that before starting out on a mining operation, make sure there is a good margin. No solid margin, don't start.

    ACC sold a few shares and is now holding slightly less than 5% of AXG.

    https://www.nzx.com/companies/AXG/announcements/258017
    Last edited by elZorro; 28-11-2014 at 08:19 PM.

  6. #1096
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    Quote Originally Posted by elZorro View Post
    What do you mean, good luck? My reason for continuing to post about AXG is to inform anyone else who might be thinking about investing in the company, to take a careful look first. I am not a shareholder anymore. There might be a lesson in how to get a reasonably large (for NZ) exploration company off the ground, even if they didn't make it. While I know they left out, or hid away, a few of pertinent facts sometimes, I didn't catch the directors or managers outright lying. I also think their salaries were sensible in the scale of the company.

    A large proportion of the funds raised was spent on exploration activities, with drilling crews, aerial surveys etc. More ended up in the economy as wages and lease fees.

    The big lesson is that before starting out on a mining operation, make sure there is a good margin. No solid margin, don't start.
    Don't waste your time then would be the advice - lost cause stocks like AXG (or more accurately, GEL) are a dime a hundred.

    Nobody half smart is going to sucked in and contribute to the directors and management mining lifestyles.

  7. #1097
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balance View Post
    Don't waste your time then would be the advice - lost cause stocks like AXG (or more accurately, GEL) are a dime a hundred.

    Nobody half smart is going to sucked in and contribute to the directors and management mining lifestyles.
    I've seen the shared services office in Auckland, Balance. That wasn't a lifestyle spot, they were fairly careful with office overheads. They made some big mistakes with equipment at Drybread though.

    Most of the exploration money was spent with contractors and in writing up the required reports and data to be handed across to NZPAM. Including the large aeromagnetic surveys, now available to new explorers.

    5/12/2014 — General
    The big Government spend on exploration will be airborne
    By Simon Hartley
    Most of the $8 million the Government is putting into mineral, and oil and gas geotechnical studies will be spent on aerial aeromagnetic surveys - including more over Otago.
    In its Budget in May, the Government set aside $8 M to spend over four years on studies around the country, with Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges saying yesterday about $6.4 M was for new aeromagnetic and specific geotechnical studies.
    The findings go into a data base of permitting agency New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals, which international exploration companies can access, to encourage them to apply for exploration permits.
    Combined with previous aerial surveys, including the biggest which was around Otago, the new surveys would lift coverage to about 30% of New Zealand's total land area.
    “The data collected will have a wide range of applications in fields such as geological mapping and geological hazard assessment, as well as potential mineral exploration,” Bridges said.
    One of the most active explorers in recent years former Glass Earth Gold - now Antipodes Gold Ltd (TSX-V & NZAX: AGX) - combined with the Otago Regional Council in a $4 M aeromagnetic survey of Otago in 2007, covering 1.3 million hectares, used for broad use, not just exploration.
    Glass Earth had spent more than $40 M prospecting around mainly Otago, but sold its boutique alluvial operations in Central Otago in mid-2013, switched its focus to central North Island tenements, then rebranded as Antipodes.
    Following the earlier Otago survey, the Government had since surveyed Northland and the West Coast in recent years, with the next aerial programme shifting focus to Nelson-Marlborough, Southland and parts of Otago, Bridges said.
    Providing comprehensive data to potential investors helped New Zealand compete on the international market for petroleum and mineral exploration and development, he said.
    “Good data can tip the balance of investment decisions in our favour,” Bridges said.
    The Government would spend $1.6 M on petroleum data projects and studies, including a national project to audit well outcomes and by gathering additional (offshore) frontier basin data through NIWA's research vessel, the RV Tangaroa, he said.
    *Simon Hartley is senior business reporter and assistant chief reporter for the Otago Daily Times.



    Companies mentioned in article
    Antipodes Gold Ltd
    New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals

  8. #1098
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    Further to the above post, in this 2008 article it's obvious that a big chunk of the raised funds was spent on exploration. Back then, Simon Henderson was convinced that only good drilling results would keep the funding going.

    http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/9942/glass-earth-drilling-under-way

    It was probably only when general interest in greenfield explorers dried up worldwide after the GFC, that the idea of doing some placer/alluvial mining for extra cashflow gained more prominence. The gold price had reached a high by then, and was only to trend backwards. If they'd been lucky enough to find a pocket of good grades close to the surface, this would have worked well. But the gold at Drybread was very fine, locked into clay, quite a way down, and generally a shallow layer at low grade. They excavated it and trucked it to GRUs. Looking back, it was a big ask to make it profitable.

    As far as permits go, well Glass Earth has had a few. At the moment they have just two locked into their name at NZPAM: Sparrowhawk in Otago S.I, and Waihi West in the Waikato, N.I.

    I've always suspected that the Waihi West permit, being under most of Waihi township and right beside the gaping Martha Hill mine excavation, is a proxy for Newmont's holdings. Newmont are of course tunnelling away under the East part of Waihi township in a highly directed and safe way, to extract a high-grade gold resource from their own permit, after gaining approvals. They will need this to work, to keep their mining staff levels as they are now, with other nearby gold resources being run down over time.

    Perhaps, over time, Newmont will look harder at the Waihi West permit, currently 100% held by Glass Earth (no name change on record). Sparrowhawk in Otago had some drilling when it was a bigger permit, and I've forgotten the details about this one, but it was more prospective than most of the GEL permits that we heard of. There has to be a reason that this one wasn't surrendered or traded in lieu of accounts owing.

    Antipodes /GEL also have the one or two joint permits with Newmont covering the WKP exploration area north of Waihi, which at one stage they were mentioning could hold over 3Moz of gold. It is not permissible to make these kinds of official statements without qualifications under TSX rules, so now the market is being told about the 101 figure of an estimated 290,000oz of gold in one area of WKP that has been drilled enough to measure it approximately.

    With their backs up against the wall and nothing happening at Antipodes without funds, while debt payment deadlines from creditors approach rapidly, I guess we'll see some kind of announcement soon. Newmont would seem to be in the driver's seat here, although OGC is also looking for underground mining investment propositions in lower wage countries.
    The Company’s cash position as at September 30, 2014 was $13,000 (September 30, 2013: $423,000)
    with Trade Payables of $1,357,000. Payment of $595,000 of these Trade Payables is subject to deferred payments (up to December 31, 2014) while the Company refinances.

    A further $677,000 of Trade Payables is owed to joint venture partner Newmont Mining, repayable by sole funding exploration activity by October 2015.

    The Company has reduced its staff down to three office holders who are part-time and are unpaid since
    December 2013. The Company has reduced its non-exploration expenditures to the absolute minimum.
    Last edited by elZorro; 13-12-2014 at 01:24 PM.

  9. #1099
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    At least GEL was not as short-lived as MCAM Ltd (another greenfields explorer) appears to be.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...-to-recover-1m

    Although MCAM Minerals had a good write-up in the ODT recently.

    http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/3...atinum-gravels

    GEL took over some Platinum/Gold-style permits from Bob Kilgour down in Southland, even had one or two of their own, but I think these were let go or transferred in lieu of creditor payments.

  10. #1100
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    Start of the new year, which means AXG needed to repay some old debts by now, and their Sparrowhawk permit EP 53189 in the S.I. also requires a 30 month report to NZPAM, which is to include drilling and trenching results (90% owned by AXG). Meanwhile the shareprice is getting hammered, down to C1.5c on the TSX. No major volume being sold, of course. But the market values the company and its net assets at about the same as a beaten-up state house in a provincial town.

    There are no doubt some big shareholders who have put in over a million dollars of cash each, wondering if Simon and co. can pull a rabbit out of the hat. And also, perhaps, wondering what the initial market valuations were based on.

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