General discussion, page-9583

The things one forgets, until you stumble over them again when going down the worm hole of an ASX listed company . .. .. ..

We were all (well mostly all) critical of Fraser and his $2,000 a day remuneration after Cowden left and personally I think we were justified in that criticism.
Basically, my thoughts were (and still are) he contributed to us being in this predicament, even being as simply as being a member of the board that displayed and / or actioned poor judgement on numerous occasions and as such there should be monetary gains for poor performance.

The arrogance of trying to justify the sale of the Leo Lithium shares at an incredible loss, with 2 comments standing out ...
~ we sold them as we were trying to assess what funding we needed, and
~ they were sold at a good time as the share price depreciated post the transaction.

I, for one would be really interested to find out who the buyer of the block trade was.

Fraser learnt from Cowden!
The conflicting reasons that Chris Evans departed after the company pivoted to gold, are concerning that a board can approve for release to the market.
https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20200406/pdf/44gqkn7n1snd43.pdf

6th April 2020, the Company announced a Board restructure and Cost savings, reducing the Board from 5 to 3 members, leaving Borg, Hepburn and Cowden. Evans will resign as Managing Director and O'Brien will resign as a NED.

With the renewed focus on the gold assets, and given Cowden's gold experience and there being no need for a full time Managing Director, Cowden assumed the role of Executive Chairman (part time basis), Evans agreed to step down.
++ first paragraph of the announcement, Evans will resign, 4th paragraph he agreed to step down, with his role being diminished I would call it made redundant?

Cost savings and fees;
Evans will leave the company on 30 April and receive his entitlements and a termination payment of 4 months' salary. (circa $120,000)
O'Brien was retained for 4 months as a mineral processing consultant at a rate of $4,800 / month, this position was perplexing as "hello" what was the company processing?
Board fees were reduced by 20%, and a reduction in hours of the remaining senior management equivalent to a 20% cut in remuneration.

~ the senior management remaining was
+ Hughes - CFO
+ Rowley - Project Director
+ Madel - Group Metallurgist
+ Semega - Country Manager


Other cost saving measures included staff redundancies.

Cowden in his role as Executive Chairman was remunerated @ $1,000 / day for time in addition to his normal duties, these additional payments were deferred for at least 3 months.
Borg & Cowden both deferred receiving fees and salaries with a consideration of equity in lieu of payments.

All these cost saving measures were implemented in April and 4 months later, the company announces the acquisition of the Morila gold mine .. ..

The way the Government of Mali works, the shrewdness of Bristow (Barrick) and the time frames that would have been required for
~ due diligence for the acquisition;
~ stake holder engagement and approvals,
~ legal processes,
~ institutional investor roadshows / meetings
~ capital raising / SPP

In his / their wisdom, Cowden (& Board), after acknowledging that the Lithium market would rebound strongly, get rid of a Lithium driven managing director but 4 months later they will need a managing director, no one can convince me that the Morila acquisition wasn't already in progress when Evans departed.

Oh what could have been .. .. .. .. ..

cheers