Ann: Develop Agrees to Acquire Woodlawn Zinc-Copper Project, page-10

Woodlawn is unlucky but far from cursed. I'm a multi generation local in the North East Canberra area. The extended family owns heaps of land in the area and I personally know it well. I also know a fair few of the oldies that ran Denehurst/Woodlawn previously. My parents generation basically. The area is endowed that at least know and take comfort in.

HRR as a company itself, now that has some bad juju spanning decades. For an explorer It's been around for a very long time. In fact you will be hard pressed to find a more unfortunate explorer in the ASX; not because it could not find any assets. But because they can't get their sh1t together to be a producer. In fact it's found a handful over the decades and that is how it's been able to exist for a very long time...

- HRR found the first intersects of Mungari (now one of the crown jewel of EVN) in the late 1990s. A young Exised has fond memories working for HRR bagging and tagging soil samples when Mungari was being explored and drilled.
- HRR had a hand in the current ARL and SKY assets practically following the same story as Mungari above.
- As an exploration company. It would find stuff in the ground, talk that it would bring it to production.. drum up SP demand then at the last minute sell the assets to a different company (other examples... A1 Gold mine, Kalgoorlie Nickel Project, Jump Up dam... I swear anything HRR finds then sells (to continue exploring) becomes a winner.

Fast forward to Woodlawn (2014)... From the get go HRR already had corporate issues since the disastrous TriAusMin merger. A disaster for everyone involved including Legendary Canadian investor Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management (on the HRR register as Castlelake). In fact Sprott instigated a board spill and a very top heavy board resulted. If you think that was bad. To get build financing 2 more parties had to be brought into the registry in the form of Orion Mine Finance and Nomad (a streaming/Royalty company) and still more directors got added to the board to represent the different parties interest...that folks is how hard it is to get projects moving in a nadir of a commodities cycle. But that is a story for another day.

Too many cooks spoiling the broth in the boardroom. An ineffective Chairman in the form of Stephen Dennis who can't rein in the board. Even worse management in Wayne Taylor, Lawry and Hearn... Add CIMIC/Sedgman as build contractors into the mix. No wonder I lost money in HRR.

However good the asset is. It is no match for board and management stupidity.... However fast the racecar is. If the driver and pit crew don't do their part. It ends up in a fireball mess.