Why has there been a change in my opinion of the executive of this company in the last post? Because I had been led to believe that they were prepared to clean this mess up for a token salary amount, considering that they had been well paid by shareholders earlier on, two of them since 2007. The shareholders got kept out of the information loop far too often, so any major issues weren't of the shareholders making.
Let's have a look at the EOY 2014 report: the bit about related transactions. Here are the salaries they were prepared to accept last year, and the settlement date for the loans. Very low salaries, but understandable in terms of the massive losses that the company had suffered under their watch. About then, I figured they were running the company much more like an ordinary business. If things go bad, everyone feels the pain.
By August 25th 2015, the executive and the board must have decided to roll out the repayment terms of the small loans, but also to boost the salaries of the three company employees back to fairly close to their historical level. Then, shareholders have to ask, with little or no exploration going on (no point anyway) just a few crusty old bills - that can't be paid yet- to look at, and perhaps a few meetings to chew the fat, what are they going to be paid for? How does anyone justify over $150,000 of salaries being accrued in six months when the company is effectively not trading?
These golden handshake salary payments to three staff will be made at the cost of the remaining shareholders, people who have seen almost all of their investment squandered in short order. Even in the last big capital raising, there was one NZ party who could have lost over a million dollars. I put it to the executive members, this is not funny money.
Further to the post above, I had a bit of a look at the Q1 report, and in this one the salaries for the three executives were well screwed down, and that report was put out around the end of June 2015. See below. At this point the possibility of the company being able to easily settle its old debts wasn't looking good at all.
By July 20th, however, Newmont/OGC had ridden to the rescue, and the far better real offer was announced. By 25th August there had been a rather miraculous improvement in the pay scales of the three executives for the previous six months, which appeared in part to be backdated. Well, I noticed it, I wonder if any existing shareholders did? They should make some noise at the next meeting.
Meanwhile, the ODT has some background on the permitting regime as it applies to Otago and NZ, noting that GEL/AXG has exited Otago. They have left behind plenty of data at NZPAM, hopefully some new operations will make use of it.
All of the proposed motions at the AGM were passed, which means Antipodes Gold will provide a back-door listing on the TSX-V for CRP, while at the value end of the deal Oceana Gold will pay the old Glass Earth bills, and obtain 100% of what's left of the permits. These are under part of Waihi township, and to the Northeast of Waihi, up in the hills at and around WKP.
I also saw this snippet in the management information circular sent out before the AGM.
ANTIPODES GOLDLIMITED
NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL AND SPECIAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS To be held on November 24, 2015 Management Information Circular (Dated October 23, 2015)
The Company had employment contracts with Messrs. Henderson and Liddle but these have been cancelled by mutual agreement and replaced with a time based contractor rate of NZ$700/day (C$600/day). Mr. Rabone is also on a time based contractor rate of NZ$800/day (C$680/day) since his appointment as CEO in February 2014. Other management services for the Company are not, to any material degree, performed by persons other than the senior officers of the Company. No pension plan or retirement benefit plans have been instituted by the Company and none are proposed at this time.
Of course at this juncture, the three people concerned are the most likely to know what's going on with the company business. But they also helped put the company in a very bad position, and lost a whole lot of shareholder cash. Some of this capital was apparently lost through a minority of untrained or unsupported staff who were being paid only around $25 an hour. Even then the staff did a lot better out of the deal than the shareholders, who actually paid good money to watch all of this unfold. Our return =NIL.
Oceana Gold is firing ahead with drilling into the Waihi West permit, where they have a new vein discovery called Quattro. Note that this didn't get 'discovered' while Glass Earth had any money or ability to do anything about it. It just sat there, while GEL shareholders helped cover the permit holding and overall mapping costs.
NTL also seems to demonstrate a similar lack of action... Perhaps, as one poster mentioned, they also may not know how to drill.
Yes, it all goes to show how goldmining is certainly a game for the big guys. Newmont just stalled Glass Earth on Waihi West (surely always a good bet), waited for them to run out of money. They were outfoxed in Otago by an older operator, but they were well and truly done up in Waihi. Drilling costs a heap, you have to drill a lot of holes to get good data reliable enough for mining. GEL only had to pay a smaller percentage, but that was always too much for their budget at WKP, and Waihi West was not really started. Then they lost the new capital Brent Cook brought along (or the potential for it) at Drybread, and they were sunk. Lots of the SI permits were probably never adequately checked out, they had too many permits for the funds available.
I still think that they were unlucky not to find a rich spot in their few contracted drills, but when it came to alluvial mining, they were inept compared to people who had been doing it for a living. That's what finished off the game as far as shareholders were concerned.
Yes, it all goes to show how goldmining is certainly a game for the big guys. Newmont just stalled Glass Earth on Waihi West (surely always a good bet), waited for them to run out of money. They were outfoxed in Otago by an older operator, but they were well and truly done up in Waihi. Drilling costs a heap, you have to drill a lot of holes to get good data reliable enough for mining. GEL only had to pay a smaller percentage, but that was always too much for their budget at WKP, and Waihi West was not really started. Then they lost the new capital Brent Cook brought along (or the potential for it) at Drybread, and they were sunk. Lots of the SI permits were probably never adequately checked out, they had too many permits for the funds available.
I still think that they were unlucky not to find a rich spot in their few contracted drills, but when it came to alluvial mining, they were inept compared to people who had been doing it for a living. That's what finished off the game as far as shareholders were concerned.
Yip, Yip and Yip.
Can't wait for this little thread and my AXG holding to disappear.
Thanks for your insight and your continual postings elZorro.
A lot of lessons have been learnt. My future cash will stay away from the directors involved in this failure.
No problem Carpenterjoe, guess you were as optimistic as me for a long time. If I'd been a bit more informed by the company as to the true state of affairs, I'd have posted a lot less. Their carefully worded press releases remind me of that slug gun and motorcycle brand, BSA.
One outfit I will be keeping a good eye on is OGC, they could do very well around Waihi, as the gold grade appears to be close to 1 oz/tonne in parts of the Quattro vein alone.
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Originally Posted by youngatheart
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