10 STEPS TO $1 BILLION +
For those of us long-term investors who are interested, this is an attempt to provide the start of a roadmap on the steps to $1 Billion and beyond. I for one, given some of the (fixable) problems which have been highlighted on this forum, would rather be proactive than just ‘wait for a year or two’ as those who bought in early like to suggest. Unfortunately, a lot of their views and comments have mostly proven to be quite naïve and self-serving imo e.g. :
“if you have questions you should discuss with management rather than post on HC” by @Alexandria07. (However, @Mr joey's posted experience in trying to ask questions of the Chairman debunks that).
“wait for the AGM when you will get the chance to have your questions answered” by @ Alexandria07 (however, @paulgf went to the AGM and his post 25/11/23 debunks that).
"nothing will be accomplished by discussing problems and opportunities on HC" by @Alexandria07 (except that it draws out different people's views, experiences and suggestions for the benefit of all...)
"the problems that need fixing don't matter it's all about the Lassonde curve" by @ Nippy (?!x?*!?)
"we don't need top class management/Board because the production and processing at K is easy" by @nippy (?!x?*!?))
" we don't need marketing to gain some international awareness because the Chairman has lots of personal followers on Twitter" (?!x?*!?))
Etc. etc.
Anyone who has been following the posts on Lindian for a while will see a very distinct divide between those who got in very early for a few cents and so even though the SP is down 70%, they are still up many bags and are happy to simply wait a year or two until hopefully into production.
Versus:
those poor sods who got in much more recently and are losing big time despite the resource supposedly being
the world's biggest.
We're the ones that would like to see management that is capable of more than just waiting ‘for a couple of years’.
Then, of course, there is a group of those ‘early in’ who are very happy with the status quo and don't want anything to change and especially for us newcomers to criticise their management friends - "how dare they"? They're the vicious posters recently labelled "attack dogs" who arrogantly bully and try to intimidate and demean anyone who dares to make suggestions or criticisms (e.g. @NTN750 who called me a ‘turd’ in his post on 30/11/23 (and ‘No’ Alexandria, unlike, you and your pack continue to do to others, I didn’t report him).
So, as many heads are better than one, positive contributions are welcome. Let's try to ignore the attack dogs inevitable attack of this post and remember they hunt in packs, backing each other up in calling us newcomers dumb or panickers or whatever?
So, following is an initial attempt to put together a list of 10 steps to $1 Billion for fellow shareholders to input:
1)The Resource - amazing and full kudos to the Chairman for finding and securing it and the CEO for proving it up so quickly.
However, I'm confused, and I follow this very closely so it’s likely others might be too?
Is Kangankunde the biggest RE resource in the world?
I know investors who've talked to the CEO and been told that it's easily the biggest and greenest and that he constantly tells his family to keep buying shares as it is a multi-generational asset and soon the dividends will be more than the purchase price etc etc.
Have others been told this too?
If we think it is the biggest, why aren't we saying it?
Sure, there are the usual rules and regs which need experience to navigate but where there's a will, there's a way?
Imagine what Robert Friedland or Tolga or Elon or Twiggy or any good marketer would do with that has already been shown to exist at Kangankunde AND it is still open 1,000m down?
These guys would be falling over themselves to bring world-wide attention to what could be the discovery of the century?
Now, maybe the U6 Koalas coach doesn't understand that if you've discovered a Sam Kerr maybe it's in everybody's best interests to properly promote it, which in Lindian's case would greatly increase awareness and interest in the key international markets. This would then insulate us, at least to a degree, from the blatant manipulation (CXA) which is currently made so much easier given the small following that Lindian currently has.
If the Chairman wants to be the next Twiggy then he needs to show a bit of courage and promote this thing (And please, this does not mean yet another Proactive Investors video or a few tweets).
Marketing is a professional skill which Lindian definitely needs to acquire.
Not that it will make any difference to the attack dogs, but others might be interested to know a bit more about my post on 25/11/23 about another Shareholder I know whom, with the Chairman’s support, put together an international marketing plan which featured significant international support from Benchmark (which took weeks and many late night phone calls and conferences with different people in various divisions of Benchmark to first vet Lindian and then agree to his Lindian support proposal).
In fact, Benchmark lauded the proposed Lindian campaign as a fresh and unusually good approach to what was otherwise a tired and old-fashioned mining industry where everyone else was doing exactly the same thing i.e. “x metres at y% …blah, blah, blah…”).
Can you imagine what this campaign would have done for Lindian’s international awareness?
In addition to securing a speaking spot at a Tier 1 Battery Minerals conference in Japan, this shareholder negotiated the only interview in Benchmark’s current quarterly magazine (plus digital) which goes to 20,000 C-Suite Industry execs around the world (a 4 page feature on Lindian no less)!
Now, despite having the Chairman’s support and despite the fact that the whole program took months to put together and was ready to go, it was stopped at the last minute, apparently because the CEO threw a major tantrum, and the Chairman couldn’t manage it?
Not that it would matter to the attack dogs who criticised not only my post but also the value of marketing full stop, but this shareholder has 40 years marketing experience at the highest level and was judged to be one of the 10 best in Australia and awarded with the grand prize award for the most effective marketing campaign in Australia (for one of his other campaigns for one of Australia’s leading brands).
The attack dogs think and act like they own this HC forum. They post many times each day and immediately attack any view contrary to their own. If you look through their history, you’ll see that they have hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of posts which proves their obsessive need to try to control the narrative.
2) Management
The next segue now to management is unambiguous.
Once again, fantastic by the Chairman to find and acquire K and arrange the offtakes for RE & bauxite.
Fantastic by the CEO to prove it up so quickly and get into production next year.
However, after that things become questionable.
Both are strong characters and I doubt that they get on or can work well together (there have been lots of clues over time with the latest being the CEO's non-appearance at the AGM).
Unfortunately, the AGM most probably in microcosm, illustrates everything wrong with management.
Clearly (as per @paulgf’s report after attending it), the AGM was poorly organised and instead of it providing a showcase to shareholders about management's capabilities, it proved to be the opposite.
Not only wasn't there the much heralded once a year “opportunity for shareholders to ask and receive answers” befitting their role as part owners of the company, but there also wasn’t even a proper presentation by the CEO about the resource, with the normal opportunity to ask questions?
@Inner West - The U6 Koalas might even put on a better AGM?
This seems quite dysfunctional and clearly not in the best interests of all shareholders.
3) The Board
There already has been quite a lot of discussion about the need for courage to bring in accomplished people from outside with the necessary (currently missing) skillsets.
The fact that some (of the attack dogs) are trying to shout this down speaks much of the vested interests at play here.
This is a Tier One Asset and needs Tier One Management/Board if the opportunity is to be fully realised.
4) Marketing
Would you let the U6 Koalas' part-time, rag tag "management" group manage the world's best soccer team?
What could possibly go wrong?
I believe we have the world's and biggest, and greenest and best rare earth resource but there is one overwhelming problem.
It's a secret.
And management are playing secret squirrel with it.
Here's another way of looking at it:
World's Biggest/Best (as commonly known internationally):
Phone = Apple
Population = India
Mountain = Everest
E.V. = Tesla
Entrepreneur = Elon
Lunatic = Putin/Trump
Copper = Escondido/BHP
Lithium = Greenbushes/IGO/Abermarle
Rare Earths Resource = ??? LYNAS/MP/MEI/China?
Question) - the question here is how many people (internationally) have even heard of Lindian let alone understand how big it is?
Answer) 2/5 of FA....?
Can anyone else see an opportunity here?
IMO this amazing resource is being totally wasted/mismanaged because the U6 Koalas "friends and family" are totally out of their depth (and nothing the attack dogs say will change that over-riding perception).
5) Institutional Support
Another natural segue.
Even the attack dogs acknowledge the need for insto support to move the SP to the next level.
Those who have an insto background have highlighted on here that in order to get instos on board, there cannot be a disconnect between the resource and management of it.
We have a Tier 1 resource but U6 rag tag management?
Again, courage and leadership is needed here by the Chairman (or whomever is actually in control)?
What can shareholders do to help put some lead in the pencil?
6) Fund Raising
A dark and difficult art, but unfortunately, @Dumaguette seems 100% correct in his (perhaps too emotional) criticism of the way it has been done to benefit the inner circle at the expense of retail shareholders.
When the last raise at 33c was announced on July 10, LIN was trading at 41c on July 10 and July 11.
This meant that anyone who secured an allocation in the raise at 33c could immediately then sell existing LIN shares at 41c for an instant 24% profit.
I know a shareholder in this position who contemplated doing this but had a moral compass and therefore decided not to.
However, anyone looking at the LIN SP chart would see that others apparently didn’t have the same morality conflict and the raise precipitated a large amount of selling which has continued unabated to knock the SP down by almost 70% to where we are languishing today.
NB - These are the simple (easily verifiable) facts of the matter so ignore the attack dogs mandate to criticise and support their vested interests.
7) TIME / TIMING
Yes, hopefully things will be better next year or the year after but also the current very obvious problems could fester and get worse.
Whilst the work going into the small-scale plant seems very impressive, close followers will see the timelines shipping.
The updates have quietly gone from first production Q4 2024 to now maybe Q1 2025?
Attack dogs aside, there are clearly fundamental problems and issues which need to be addressed now not just hopefully put off in the hope that the planets will all come into alignment in the future.
8) NEXT STEPS
This post will be strongly criticised by the group of attack dogs as anyone lurking has seen over the past few weeks (and they do hunt in packs).
If there is anyone else who would like to add or question anything then please do (for the benefit of all)?
However, based on recent history here on HC, I imagine this thread will be destroyed - but the goal is a simple one: to try to come up with a list of shareholders’ thoughts for the steps necessary to take to get Lindian to $1 Billion and beyond (i.e. other than just "waiting" for a few years and hoping that the management issues and skill shortages are eventually addressed).
In the alternative, @Inner West's analogy of Lindian being like the U6 Koalas soccer team is a good one.
Can you imagine instos supporting a Tier One resource which is being managed by a rag tag group of people like an under 6 soccer team?
So, this is where the initial list is awaiting a few (hopefully positive) contributions:
1)The World Class resource
2) Management
3) The Board
4) Marketing
5) Instos
6) Fund Raising
7) Time / Timing
8) Next steps
9) ?
10) ?
(20min delay)