Ann: Sale of Lady Loretta Interest for $30M , page-9

Hi all,

At the risk of offending everyone on the CFE forum I think Xstrata got a pretty good deal here. Being an ex CopperCo holder that came over to the 'dark side' (haha joke) I know that resource is the best quality zinc/lead/silver in the world...prob 7 figures when mine up and running over a long period. Silver alone is going pretty well and Century mine will be dry in a couple of years only adding to that in the medium term. Xstrata would be only too aware of this and know what is going on.

Getting that out the way, I remember a poster on one of the forums here said he was a salesman. The key for him to a good sale was to leave upside for the client to benefit in the future. This is definitely the case here and with Lady Annie. Xstrata is a big player there is no doubt, and we have no idea the crazy dealing going on all the time in the background re TS...he is constantly spinning many plate's at once. This area of the world isn't the main focus also. Therefore i will take a short term pain (if you can call a 30m deal for not much effort pain haha) for long term gain re my first paragraph here.

So, these couple of deals would be I think allowing TS to establish himself as a Win-Win sort of deal maker for those who want to deal with CFE re selling of assets. Sort of setting some precedents of past results. I don't think he is a pushover at all (plays hard obviously when needed re CDU) but someone who will look out for the other party too. I think this will be also a relationship builder with Xstrata which may be even more important down the track, so future dealings (who are ramping up over in Africa too) are smoother too with the big players.

It looks like breaking 63 is within reach...Keep up the good work management.

Good luck all