Ann: Completion of Placement & SPP Announced, page-54

The agility of the last wall ecollapse - relived

If you reckon Gilman Wong's share transactions warranted closer inspection, then we recommend you cast a gimlet eye over the recent trading record of Troy Resources non-executive director John Jones.

Jones has been a seller in recent times, flogging 2 million units for $615,252 (implying an average price of 30.7¢ per share) in the days leading up to Troy's November 25 annual meeting and then offloading another million last month that netted $269,186.

The very day after (Dec 14) the latter trade was disclosed to the market (Dec 13), Troy lodged a note on the former, saying that Jones' trading in the blackout period before the AGM was a breach of board policy, even though Jones had "verbal clearance provided by chairman" Fred Grimwade And the day after that (Dec 15), Troy announced a material production downgrade caused by slippages in the wall of its Guyana gold mine. The company's shares tanked 32 per cent to close that day at 16¢.


Troy Resources non-executive director pictured in 2005. He stood down as chairman, after 20 years, in 2008. Troy Resources website

Jones has been on Troy's Board since 1988, serving two decades as its chairman. The only other man (as men they all are) on the Board besides Grimwade and chief executive Martin Purvis is one Ken Nilsson, another veteran of the junior producer (Jones brought him on board way back in 1997) and now in charge of that Karouni mine in the Caribbean.

Unsurprisingly, the ASX fired off a "please explain" to Troy on December 21, asking when exactly Jones' old mate Nilsson told the Board that Karouni had problems. After all, mines don't suddenly develop "unstable ground conditions" during the morning smoko. The company responded on December 28 that, despite earlier discussions, the materiality of its revised guidance was only confirmed on the morning of December 15.

Cunning agility has the fox.


Go Gold Go!