Follow the money, page-6

I think the lads have been incredibly generous to you, I'm not inclined to overlook several aspects of your contribution:

1) You joined Hot Copper yesterday. You have a lot to say for a dude who has just come onto the boards, not posted anywhere else, seemingly has been in Neometals for a good while, and in your heavy-handed downramp at a time when the short-sold vol of NMT has tripled in the last three weeks you have referenced another dude who has made a single contribution - a negative one - over an issue which was not only dealt with by another poster by contacting the company at the time your refenced poster was created (and posted), but has apparently been referred to in several announcements since you seemingly bought into the company. This has been discussed, and not discarded but kept under notice. Why would you sell your shares over this? As I've said before, 'coincidence' as we know it is characteristic of large population sizes, but coincidence-squared narrows the odds considerably and is worth scrutinising.

2) you haven't made mention of when you bought your NMT shares, but are you the recipient of several dividends from this company? At what price did you buy into the company? You make reference to the company selling chunks of Mount Marion as if it were a blunder. Did you buy into NMT at 2c? Certainly if you thought it was a good idea for your BoD to retain Mount Marion in its entirety you have been the recipient of dividends on a regular basis, yes?

3) You have completely wowsered the court proceedings. According to you, the claim only has to "get to court" for NMT to be defeated, when the only thing as far as I understand it that has been defeated is their request that they don't provide correspondence for discovery. you don't think you're putting the cart, the driver, the carriage, the passengers and the shotgun before the horse? Unless, I guess, you have other reasons for jumping a whole heap of steps to the worst-case scenario?

4) There are laws in place to inform shareholders when directors sell shares in the company in which they are a director. Did you sell after they sold shares, or did you give them the benefit of the doubt? If you did not give them the benefit of the doubt, then why did you hang onto shares in a company in which you as a shareholder were not the first priority? If you did, then why wait this long to launch into a tirade against it? The timing of this is very much on the nose, man, combined with your limited contribution to the forum.

5) I wasn't a holder of the company when NMT began the buy-back scheme, but I did keep one eye on them and it did seem to go on for an awfully long time, and it didn't seem to be a secret. Did you sell when the Bod announced they would be engaging in a concerted buy-back season, or did you wait until it was all done and dusted? Again, why would you wait until this long after it had finished to join Hot Copper and spill your proverbial guts?

6) I can think of several reasons why a company who is carrying $75million in cash under a market capitalisation is $150m would want to tweak their capital structure. Can you? you seem to have jumped straight to the conclusion that the Bod are incompetent, without using your same self-confident insights to take a stab at why they might have done so. I would honestly be scratching my head at this observation of yours were it not nestled comfortably among other seemingly one-eyed positions on the behaviour of management.

7) I can think of a reason why a company that is not yet mature would pay a dividend when they have cash sitting in the bank, especially a small-cap company that has several long-term projects that are still being derisked and are subject to the impatience of the market. Can you? If so, it would behove you to provide them to add balance to your position.

I am also struggling to find a coherent picture in your quibbles about this company. As far as I can tell, with reference to your long post:

- you think they should have retained ownership of Mount Marion (without reference to the associated debt it would have brought, and who would have loaned them the money).
- you believe directors selling shares is a vote of no confidence in their company, yet you continued to hold?
- you allude to a belief that there is a difference between having $75m cash and having $33m cash with respect to self-funding the Barrambie project. What difference is that? Do you think they could fund it themselves?
- you believe Barrambie will not go ahead. Did you buy into NMT believing it would? If so, what changed your mind?
- you believe the hydroxide plant will not go ahead. Did you buy into NMT believing it would? If so, what changed your mind?
- you don't believe NMT should have paid dividends.
- you don't believe NMT should have engaged in buy-back.
- you believe that plaintiffs need only appear in court to receive a favourable verdict.
- "finally, we found out from Grandpa's post (but not from the company)" We? Are you saying that after all of the above you still owned NMT and have only sold out since that first-poster's first post?

Happy to discuss your reasoning behind just about all of your post, starting with the perspective as an investor you had when you bought and when you sold.

Just wait up though, lemme get another beer