I watched CDU unfold from only an observers point of view (never held or worked for or directly with anyone at CDU). I know some people who had some issues getting CDU to pay their bills for work done but never published or announced. Have never met Wayne McCrae in my life or spoken with him and I don't know enough about the background of what really went on in the loss of control of CDU by him, I would reckon Wayne would be a great guy to have a beer with and I personally think he's worn the opprobrium of the sins of many others that led CDU to the position in which it ended up. I think there would be a fantastic story if someone had the time to research all the goings on with CDU and I view CDU as just as much a regulatory failure as it was a spectacular geological / recource estimation / lack of feasibility study, rather than necessarily being entirely a management failure.
As I understand it Wayne McCrae is a substantial shareholder of AMG and his background of working at DMR was clearly flagged in various media interviews that he gave. There's no doubt he knows his rocks, but I think even he would agree that he would have room for improvement in investor relations and management of other people and money.
The only thing that AMG and CDU have in common is the similar geology, some issues with reporting results, some issues with timelines that tend to slip and an occasional lack of focus and sticking to a strategy. None of these issues are unique to AMG - there are just as many other ASX listed explorers with similar problems, and they share a similar share price trajectory. Some of the same themes that people saw in some of the weirdness of the CDU days have repeated themselves in AMG, so that tends to raise questions in some peoples heads about what AMG are doing..
I think that AMG actually do hold some decent exploration ground, but you would be hard pressed to understand it, and to make profits from it due to the continual loss of focus and the fact that whenever they do drill something decent, they seem to run away from it and are reluctant to drill test anything along strike or down dip. This peculiar pattern of behaviour seems to suggest that either they are incompetent explorers or overestimate , or lack the focus to back themselves and deliver on follow up work in a logical manner and just like producing occasional spectacular drill intercepts that never develop into a long term success. Either way its a frustrating stock to be holding because they have some really good ground but waste a lot of their opportunities for progress that would translate into shareholder value or returns.
I have been highly critical of AMG management in the past, but also have appreciated some of the things that they try to do, and as a consequence of my lukewarm support, and calling out bad/lazy reporting, I have been accused of being a Newcrest insider, an AMG plant and a disgruntled ex-shareholder or ex-employee. None of which is true.
Hope that explains a few things.
I continue to hold a very small number of AMG shares as the comedy value of seeing what happens next is almost worth the price of admission, and there is always the chance that they could accidentally drill into a world class ore body and manage not to hide the fact from the market.
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