Ann: Managing Director & CEO change, page-57

I agree, IMO the biggest mistakes of the previous CEO was the ravenswood acquisition (nothing worse than investing in a high cost mine) / dilution / debt / then getting rid of it at a loss, bad judgement and costed shareholders dilution of their shares/investment value, the hedging of gold price was also too aggressive at 1400$ and short sighted (everyone knew in 2019 that the financial markets are on a bubble and will burst anytime which was bullish for gold, so no need to hedge at low prices, a lesson or two from the austrian economy business cycle theory would have helped the previous ceo).

However to his credit, syama and mako were great investments by the company (nothing beats in vesting in low cost mines), even the automation and solar panel / batteries I wouldnt criticize it, its a long term investment and will pay dividends in the future (I see the benefits of automation beyond saving on human labor, and rather in terms of planning efficiency spillovers, to automate you need sophisticated long term planning of your mine / ore extraction / exploration / processing / road paths...and this sophisticated planning by itself will improve overall efficiency and reduce costs).

Finally he should have focused more on spending to improve recovery rates for syama (more important than investing on automation), and also on reducing debt.

to keep a story short, neglecting for a while recovery rates of syama and focusing instead on automation, wasting money on ravenswood, aggressive hedging at a bad timing, dillution and not enough efforts to reduce debt, all contributed to RSG loosing money in the biggest bull year for Gold (crazy but true) and hence the ousting of the CEO as a consequence of this unacceptable result of 2020. it was a no brainer for the board really. having kept his job would have been an oddity. you just canty loose money on gold in 2020 but yet he did it !