Alvin the Idiot rolling around nursing some questions

Alvin the Idiot has asked me a couple of questions as I am older than him. But I have no claims to being very wise, so I, in turn, had to turn these questions over to the family.

I confess that I have little knowledge in company matters, unlike some members in the Hotcopper, who claim to be very old and to hold directorships in a number of public companies and go fishing in their spare time when they are not trading in their relatives. Such a fun life some old people and some of those rollers rolling around and around and around have. Nice work if you can get it, as the Holymagimon says.

Alvin the idiot was asking me why some people are writing day after day saying that this Eden company is being mismanaged poorly run and complaining about all the things that they did not know.... maybe they should spend a bit of time asking that old fellows his age and what public companies he is a director of and why he is not packing his blankets for the Nursing Home and why some people are always rolling around instead of going to the AGM to ask questions on the floor.

(One would have felt that if these people felt so strongly about mismanagement, they should have made the effort and gone to the AGM and talked to Mr Greg Solomon and expressed their concerns on the floor and asked their questions and found out things for themselves and maybe reported back to all of us in a fair and factual way, instead of rolling around like irritable little kids with wet nappies in some dilapidated nursery.)

I answered Alvin as best as I could, but it seemed strange to me that such concerned people did not make a concerted attempt to go to the AGM. Strange. I guess it could possibly be that the old fellow is bed ridden with his trading relatives and the other fellow is rolling in a paddock somewhere after having too much Red Stripes...it does do that to some people.

Alwin asked me about all these questions that these gentlemen are always asking about the sales and I pondered about it. And I asked Mr Lincoln Augustus and he laughed and laughed. He told me that very few companies would be divulging that sort of detailed information to shareholders, none that he knew. Mr Lincoln said that it was even less likely to be released on a basis by a newly emerging company as this would be feeding vital information to its competitors at an embryonic stage. He felt that Eden is possibly telling us what it wants us to know and not telling us what it does not want to be made public, and that is how things happen. He feels that it is sufficient to know that there is a good sales team at work and the revenue is improving yearly. It is his understanding that setup costs ussually account for initial poor financials, but maybe mister relativetradermon could tell us why that is not so.

At this point, Alvin suggested that maybe these fine fellows who are hollering their collective heads off for a marshal could be coming from some other rival company. Mr Lincoln Augustus thought about that for a while and concluded that it was possible that that was the case, as market sensitive information could be sought in a very devious way.

He added that these same characters should perhaps try haranguing Facebook or Google to try and get detailed information about who exactly is advertising with them and the fees they are charging and their profit margins and all that sort of thing. Alvin thought that would be a capital idea and that would keep the old fellow's hands busy enough that he wont be able to fool around with the relatives.

Then Baboo Runchik, our most esteemed coalman, has asked about this here Tasman and the Eden shares it owns and why is the Tasman share he owns cheaper than the Eden share he owns, if each Tasman share controls about 1.3 Eden shares. This was a very tricky question that we cannot answer. But we could venture some thoughts.

We feel that Baboo's Tasman share is severely undervalued.

It is a fact that if Eden comes good, no takeover of Eden can occur without a previous takeover of Tasman.

And if such a takeover should ever occur, then the offer price for these currently undervalued Tasman shares would be at a significant premium to the then existing Eden price....with a premium added for the 1.3 to 1 ratio. Alvin said that the old man says that he is making money trading relatives everyday, making 100 here and 500 there and Uncle Tobias thought it very strange that a company director of so many companies had the time or the patience to be doing such trading for such little profit in the cross trade, and if he had so many relatives to trade anyway. And he wondered aloud if these publicly listed companies were swirling in the smoke of the Numba One or something.

We sat around and enjoyed a few more Jamicca Numba One Spejil Blen that Holymagimon was happy to share, and tried to work that out about how many relatives one person could be having, but we could not agree on a figure, as Baboo wanted to include all his very distant relatives from the Seychelles, so we let that matter drop. Though it would be interesting to know how one can possibly trades a percentage of a relative. Weird.

Then Reverend Moshe Goldblum stopped by, hurrying on his way to the Church, where we know he is doing some serious groundwork for his Sunday sermon with that fine young lady,Miss Loretta Thamboo, his lay preacher. He was in a hurry to get going but he did venture to impart to us some of his wisdom in passing.

He felt that if Eden started to pay dividends in the future, then each Tasman share would get about 1.3 times what an Eden share would get. That would be a fact. He feels that it would be very possible that the Tasman Board would possibly pay out 1.1 of that 1.3 dividend to Tasman shareholders, thereby making Tasman the better bet for dividends payout any day of the week, as the Board members hold a lot of shares and they need to get the dividends as much as anyone else.

And Alvin the Idiot asked what about the remaining 0.2 part of the dividend?

Reverend Goldblum said that if all the Tasman options are exercised, then there would be about 460 million Tasman shares next year. And 0.2 of any dividend x 460,000,000 shares would amount to a very tidy sum indeed. Enough for Tasman to again start targeted drilling their very prospective Vulcan and gold leases. So he felt that on mathematics alone, a Tasman share was worth far more than an Eden share, with the added value of blue sky the in Tasman leases.

So it would appear that all the conversation on the true relative values are a waste of time. The values would be exactly as implied by the Tasman announcements. Unless some people need to try to distort the known facts for their own gains.

And Uncle Tobias commented that that could probably be the reason the directors are holding so many Tasman shares and options, as it appears to be the better bet any day, and on reflection, I could not argue with the logic of the Reverend Moshe Goldblum's opinion.

I was going to ask him some further opinions but he spotted Miss Tamboo trotting daintily in the distance and took his leave off us rather abruptly.

His parting thoughts were that we should be looking for something coming out of the left field when we least expect it. That is most confusing as all the left fields and the right fields and even the centre fields are growing excellent Jamaicca Numba One and the crops are ready to harvest.

And these, these are just some our thoughts while we lie under the coconut tree with some nice Jamicca Numba One and Red Stripes, watching life slowly passing by.

Blessing of the Lord and may there be the great peace from above.

I remain
Yours etc etc
Uncle Remus Esq