agm

Last nights AGM was pretty much as expected but I saw a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

The passing of the agenda motions took well over an hour and was far longer than planned.

Prior to the vote on the CEO's package a few punters stated their disapproval at the amounts involved given the SP performance. The Chairman got visibly flustered at the statement of himself getting free shares (he in fact doesn't get any) and the lack of progress since his time at the company. Acknowledgement by the Chair and CEO that things had gone pear shaped since 2006 was forth coming and they stated they had spent the last year initiating processes to change this situation.

During the discussion on the capital raising the CEO explained what they had been up to this year and why. As I stated a couple of days ago I thought ORG may be causing issues and this is the case but probably in a good sense. The CEO is bringing in a culture similar to a miner/IT company where everything has to be checked, validated before going to the next stage. ORG has been acting as the sanity test during this period. The end result from this process should be that the company learns the lessons before embarking on the next expensive exercise and that we end up with the equivalent of JORC resource which are in effect bankable resources.

The Capital raising will happen as they won't sell their rigs in time to stop this. The way I see it is, this will be announced some time around the commencement of drilling at Hab4 (Jan/Feb). This is good and bad. I don't like the idea of it happening before a major milestone but it is better to do it now in case Europe drags everything off a cliff and they can't raise money at all.

What I took from the meeting:

1. They are aware they haven't perfomed (I wasn't sure how blaze they were prior to this meeting)
2. The CEO has brought in a project management rigour that will at the very least lessen failure and really should get results if the technology is viable
3. The CEO took on board communication needs to improve and this may come via the website
4. Cap raise is a done deal
5. Drilling to start earlier than I thought, probably early Feb
6. Gov't putting in around 60 mil in next 2 years along as they hit targets (earlier and more than proviously announced)
7. CEO seems up to the job

All in all it's a small glimmer but a lot more than has been there for a couple of years I think. I realise many people have lost earned here but I think if they get steam out of a hole early next year the SP will be much higher.