Hi Ian,
Interesting post, just wondering if I could ask you a few questions in relation to your post? Especially since you said you went back and reviewed the entire 10 years of ASX releases since Ryan came to Axiom.
First one is your statement that Ryan “Pretty well went straight onto $500,000”. How is that correct? I have just looked at our 2010 Annual report, and in actual fact Ryan worked but was not paid at all for 2009.
Another fact from 2009, Ryan invested and loaned his own money to the business to keep it alive and Ryan eventually got it back listed on the ASX. Ryan’s was then voted in as CEO, and the remuneration was set at $150,000 a year.
But you would already know this, because like you said and I direct quote you “I went back and reviewed the entire 10 years of ASX releases since June 2009 when RM came to AVQ”.
Are you deliberately trying to mislead readers/shareholders/investors?
Another question is about this statement of yours “also from that moment of MD in 2010 it was constant litigation against the competitors, landholders and Govt depts”, ok so what’s your point? There was litigation in September 2010 – it was up to the Board and shareholders if they wanted to defend the claim by Sumitomo.
I recall when you were the MD at Mantle Mining, you won the court case against Calcifer or should I say Calcifer folded on the steps of the court, Mantle was awarded costs, and you collected zero.
Or maybe I am reading this wrong and you are congratulating Ryan for his tenacity in pursuing correctness. To that I would have to agree, immensely.
Facts are Sumitomo only offered the Landowners 3%, Axiom offered the landowners 10%.
Sumitomo never acted on proper exploration/development of their tenements – the judgments are clear that they were in breach of the land banking provisions. Reasons can be speculated on by the readers, but my opinion is the same as those who posted back in those times, which it was a blatant move by Sumitomo to secure tenements (through out the pacific) without ever developing them.
Sumitomo never sent their drill logs to a third party laboratory, all of their testing was done in house. Why? Were they hiding something? And if they were then what or more importantly WHO would they want to hide or potentially manifest the drill result to?
In my opinion only, regardless of the Court if Appeal “resetting” the Kolosori tenement, I honestly believe Axiom saved the landowners of Isabel from Sumitomo.
Govt depts you say. Ok so are you aware that in April the High court ruled against Bradley Tovosia the Minister of Mines who cancelled a ML of another Australian Mining Company?
The Mines Minister who cancelled our LOI at Kolosori, and then amazingly awarded it to another company on the 24th of December.
Bradley Tovosia is the same minister of mines who publicly revoked allegations of corruption made against him from Ryan. Bradley went on to say that if Ryan didn’t apologise then he would consider legal action Ryan. Ryan replied by saying he most certainly will NOT be apologising and he invited the Mines Minister to accompany him immediately to the courts. Bradley was no where to be seen.
I could write a whole essay on Bradley, actually I already have previously.
As for executives, you do know that the courts stopped the Kolosori project in 2011 so one would assume prudent action needed to be taken and such “executives” get laid off. It happened again in March 2016 as we all know in the Court of Appeal rulling. And it took us two years to get our mining lease – so yes, one can assume it is difficult to get good “executives” or managers to work in that jurisdiction.
As for your statement about the Landholders. Are you aware that the former Axiom Joint Venture Landowners from Kolosori split into two and started their own seperate Chinese backed companies? One call KNSI and the other SIRC. Well, both of those companies have taken each other to court, and both currently have a successful injunction against each other over Kolosori, effectively stopping their respective operations.
Another statement of yours is “Very little expenditure towards reducing risk aka JORC”. Well initially I may have agreed but It’s a wet laterite deposit. If it was a sulphide deposit with 200, 300, 400........... metre overburden, it would need $400 Million plus for Capex then yes, definitely I would agree. You need a JORC to secure that sort of initial start up, but been a laterite deposit we have nearly zero overburden which gives us a rough Capex figure of only $20 Million. Axiom provided one in 2011 for a small gold deposit in Nth QLD and also produced two for Kolosori. So I am not sure why you make such statements.
The majority of the tenements in Isabel have had historical drilling data. The drilling done by Axiom at Kolosori confirms and shows the historical drilling was pretty accurate.
Axiom has done enough drilling to confirm that there is a commercial asset, as per conditions to apply for a Mining License.
Also from what we learned from JORCing Kolosori is that it is a double edge sword. If you spend all the money and JORC it, the data legally becomes the intellectual property of the Solomon Island Government. Couple that with questionable ethics of certain government officials, raises the debate of the value/benefit of compiling a JORC.
I have noticed a number of your post seem negative towards Ryan, I can’t help but wonder why? I too was a holder for a number of years in Mantle Mining. Even though I sold Mantle at a tremendous loss, I watched in horror as you took $2 million off P.M (name withheld for obvious reasons) and the share price crashed more than 10 fold. Yet you seem fit to castrate others. Seems odd to me? Unlike when you were a MD at a ASX company, Ryan in recent years has reinvested what I can only assume (obviously I don’t have access to exact wage figures) to be nearly 70% of his disposable income back into the company.
April 2016 - $200,000 @ 18 cents
August 2016 - $200,000 @ 28 cents
October 2018 - $100,000 @ 10 cents
May 2019 - $350,000 @ 4 cents
Total - $850,000 AUD (source ASX announcements)
It’s seeing actions like this which keeps me invested in Axiom and a follower/supporter of Ryan. I assume his tax bracket would be around 48 cents in the dollar, so over the past 3 years I come to the conclusion that Ryan has invested roughly 70% of his income back into the company. So he has put his money where his mouth is, unlike a lot of other MD’s out there.
I also believe if Bradley Tovosia didn’t magically make our LOI for Kolosori unsuccessful and then magically hold a mines board meeting over the Christmas break where there was only a caretaker chairman who signed the LOI for Kolosori to another company on the 24th of December. Then I do believe we may have had the PL issued for Kolosori, and the share price and our current position would be totally different. I certainly do hope we do seek a judicial review over this. If Landowners say they don’t want us, then I will respectfully accept that, it is their land. But if it’s anything to do with outside influences and potentially corrupt behaviour, then justice must be sought.
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