The descent into hell

I held BAT for a while, on two occasions, and got burnt. I finally cut my losses, which pale compared what I would have lost if I kept holding.

My decision to invest in Battery Minerals (BAT.AX), is the worst investment decision I have made in 20 years of investing, and forced me to re-think my entire approach to investing, companies, company management, and life itself.

What we are seeing here is a lesson to us all, and I hope that the people still holding don't lose everything. I see a very dark future for BAT, as cash runs down, big-company-style staff and directors' wages continue to be paid, market cap falls even further, and with it die any prospect of financing BAT's Mozambique projects. These projects will end up on care and maintenance, and may get picked up opportunistically by a third party for next to nothing, in a few years time. The BAT head office will be mostly shut-down, in the next 6-8 months, and the registered address will be the company's solicitors.

I remember the BAT Company Secretary's words in an email response, a couple of years ago (no longer responds to emails)........"God bless", which I thought was an extremely odd thing to put in an email. The bizarre, brutal irony of those words, is eternally disturbing.