stokes breaks silence, page-79

from the BCI boss in The Australian..

"Mike Young, who oversaw BC Iron’s growth from an early stage explorer into a fully fledged iron ore miner, takes heart from the fact his peers were so deeply doubtful about the Padbury package.

That sceptical view throughout the industry, he says, shows how much Perth’s resources sector has matured in recent decades. “In the 80s this sort of stuff was de rigueur, but all the rules have changed to prevent it. These guys are clearly still stuck in the 80s,” he said.

“Most people I know in the ­industry were dumbfounded by how silly the whole thing was.

“That shows you that the (standard) in industry is a lot higher than it used to be.”

Mr Young is hopeful that the market will see the Padbury saga as an outlier, rather than representative of how small Perth resource companies do business.

“It was so bizarre in so many ways,” he said.

“It will become part of the lexicon now: people will say ‘let’s not do a Padbury’.”

The two companies Mr Young is currently involved in, Energy and Minerals Australia and Cassini Resources, have been trying to tap equity markets in recent months.

The response he has had from investors suggests to him that there’s still plenty of money available for companies with quality projects and quality management.

“I think most people will see (Padbury) as an isolated case of muppets, and people are not going to tar the junior industry with the same brush,” he said"