This is an old video but it gives you some insight into Lev's...

This is an old video but it gives you some insight into Lev's character.

The board of CLH are clearly trying to paint him as some kind of villain. Speaking from personal experience, I've had my fair share of interaction with Lev through another shareholding - we were once even at war where myself and another shareholder were trying to flush out some of Lev's board - he took it professionally and never once wavered from his determination to stand up for shareholders. I respect him continuously for that, as I was trying to do the same. I was totally wrong about him at the start. Now we see eye-to-eye on that company and it has absolutely flourished thanks to Lev and the team he assembled. Rade Dudurovic, one of Lev's current CLH board nominees, was Chairman of this company during this time. You can read up about it over at ANO (now Advance NanoTek) circa around June 2016. Having seen what they have done there, the culture of shareholder-first within the business, and then the shareholder wealth they have created, I can only hope that we get to experience that with CLH.

This is not simply a matter of Lev's men can do a slightly better job than Leigh et all. If you scratch beneath the surface here I do not think things are all as they seem. The obfuscation of the company's performance, in particular driven by the Balbec partnership is pulling a bit of a fast one in my eyes. Rivas is acting like a saint by only keeping $1.3m worth of the $4m bonus he would have never achieved without anyway. When you exclude the "portfolio enhancement programme" wizardry you are left with a result that would not have entitled Rivas to any bonus shares. I think it is interesting he is being applauded by some shareholders for still taking $1.3m from their pockets - he's collecting alright!

I'm unclear whether the Balbec deal is recourse, but the comment from the May release states CLH may repurchase the remaining arrangements at the end of the five year agreement at a market price determined by the performance of the accounts. This is all sounding a bit like it works well in the short term - but shareholders will be up for some damage later.

To me it seems Balbec have provided a convenient way to give the illusion of good times to provide a stay of execution and trigger some bonuses on a technicality.

Given this, I'm far more likely to trust the guy who has a lot of his money tied up in this company than the guys tying up a lot of our money from this company.