Just returned from the AGM and judging by the relaxedness of all 4 hosting directors, I didn't know whether I was attending a formal Company meeting.....or a day spa!
The meeting was held in a much bigger venue this year to cater for the increased number of attending shareholders but even then, I was still a little surprised with the number of people, given how well our company has done over the last 12 months.
Peter Bowler kicked things off by running through all of the formalities and then we got to the juice with Rob's excellent presentation, some questions from the floor and then a chat with him afterwards,
Points to take away and in no particular order:
1) Given our bloated cash stash, Rob is in no hurry to rush a deal with the Open Pit.
To give interested parties even less negotiating power, Rob intends to do a little more drilling, to try and find even more gold than we already have. This will leave anyone who wants it (and likely the mob who bought our tailings), forced to have to cough up.
2) First lot of aircore samples from Strelley were just dropped off at the lab (yesterday or today). Quite a backlog, but results hoped before the deeper drilling starts on November 15th.
3) Rob emphasised that the aircore drilling was merely to identify the deeper targets and that we most definitely should
NOT be hanging out for the mother lode when he announces their results.
4) Deeper drilling for any said 'mother lode', is starting on November 15th and would probably take just 4 weeks.
5) Tick Hill North drilling also starting around November 15th, but will take a fraction longer.
6) Four institutions now hold shares and word is, they've invested for the long game.
7) Several brokers also now also shares. Neither instos nor brokers even 'knew we existed', until around the placement at 30c.
8) Brokers were ringing Rob left, right and centre to participate in the CR, all saying 26c.
Rob deflected them like Bradman at the crease and then went "3 times oversubscribed" at 30c....in just 2½ hours.
9) No roadshows or promotion have been done.....as yet.
10) Rob heading out to the mine site tomorrow and will be there 2-3 weeks.
11) Rob had heard about Altura Mining going into administration yesterday (tenements next door to Hemi).
12) Rob is now taking an increased number of calls regarding their copper asset and also the Scandinavian nickel assets.
13) Pilbara tenements are all only 5km away from the main highway. Transportation is a snack.
14) The area is simmering and if DeGrey continue with hits and we also make a decent find, that whole region is going to go absolutely bunta.
15) Entire board are extremely focused to keep the register tight. The collective appeal for them since the beginning, is the amount of shares on issue. They said they could not emphasise strongly enough, just how rare this was for a Company in our position.
16) With the amount of cash we have crammed into our bank, we can explore for ages and with no need for further cap raisings.
So, what was my 'take away'?
We have one very relaxed, confident, experienced board and they left me with the feeling that we are in totally safe hands.
A competent team who are all back together again, to simply repeat their successful formula for a third time.
As for Rob, I was watching him closely as he was giving his presentation.
While I had to stop myself from jumping to conclusions, I did make another mental note to self.
As he spoke in detail about Strelley, I remember thinking:
"Better Rob sticks with geology.....and not poker"
(20min delay)