Yep, I definitely understand your perspective hottuna regards QIN. It is difficult when there is a lack of complete disclosure about the 'not so good'....for any small company that's a pretty difficult signal for investors to ignore.
I guess why my perspective remains positive (apart from satisfying myself regards the negative issues you and others have bought up) is The Trees Man, The Trees! No matter who is in charge, QIN does have control over a remarkable asset. It doesn't really bother me about survival rates for earlier plantations, forecast heartwood yields changing, because QIN's forestry people are improving what they do and the trees are generating oil-bearing heartwood.
We know there is a substantial market out there....news of a single tree being poached is worthy of a comment in an Indian newspaper, there are 'sandalwood fairs' and smuggling rings in China, QIN is already selling to fragrance customers. So I'm confident that over the next half decade, before harvest volumes really crank up, that QIN's management team will find ways to distribute this wood.
And I'm also supportive of the thesis that supply/demand are elastic...for example no fragrance company is going to spend $$ on developing new sandalwood product lines unless they have long-term contracted supply rather than irregular auctions of dubiously sourced product in India.
But at what price for volumes of wood/oil? I believe in essence that's what the shorts and the longs are arguing about. If anyone labels QIN a ponzi scheme, well at the end of the analysis that's attributable to expecting oil pricing to be well below QIN's book value basis of $US2,800/kg (in turn this gives us $1.25 NTA/share, so the stockmarket is already voting that way).
BTW hottuna, given you've done a fair bit of work on MSB ($1bn market cap and $0 revenue), would you assign any value to Santalis?
QIN Price at posting:
$1.07 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
