Ann: Jervois and GTP sign MOU for U.S. Cobalt Refinery, page-18

"Time and again people pointlessly pile on with character assassinations and sledging from the sidelines."

Poor old Bryce, only scratching out A$941,707 p/a and pocketing millions of performance shares, whilst acting as the MD of a company whose share price is down -80.8% in one year, -97.8% in two years, and -92.8% in five years. That's without mentioning the rest of the executive team who, in addition to Bryce, took home A$4,927,693 in total comp. How dare we?

Characterizing any performance like this as largely the result of a 'cyclical downturn' is generous in the extreme. If one (whether a current or former holder) cannot rightly criticize the well-paid managing director of a junior company for its abject performance across a range of years, then what a cushy world those directors live in. As @Deme has noted before, they are custodians of shareholder capital and a range of decisions made over quite some period has led to destruction - even if on paper - to that capital. I say this as someone who read the writing on the wall in July 2022 and exited my position more or less at breakeven so none of my criticism comes, I think, with any bitterness or agenda, except to lay the blame rightfully where it is due (this was an important lesson for me and one I am very grateful for).

As for wanting a succinct post on how management might have played the cards differently, it's hard to know where to start. Some things I don't see the point in critiquing as it's just hindsight talking - for example, buying Kokkola, taking on the Nordic Bond, etc. They happened, the market turned against them, it is what it is. But many others deserve just critique. For example, I believe management were totally pigheaded about the reality of the cobalt market for far too long. How is it I, a mere retail punter, was able to see the clear threats to the cobalt market as far back as mid-2022 (when pretty much all commodities except lithium were rolling over) and yet JRV management spent the next 18 months carrying on calls about how they were "constructive" about it, prices would rebound, etc? Why did JRV management elect to push all the way through with the development of ICO when the market had turned long before, only for them to put it into C&M mere weeks away from commissioning? What about that disastrous A$231M / 42c raise in November 2022 which - Bryce boasted on an infamous Crux Investor interview - provided them all the capital runway they needed, including for their ambitious SMP plans? At what point should they have acknowledged SMP was dead in the water and cut their losses on it, and gone into a much speedier capital preservation mode? At what point should JRV management be holding some honest discussions with investors to explain why none of the promised government, OEM or other third-party deals have been forthcoming despite years of noises to the contrary? Is it right for a management team who have presided over such shareholder value destruction to stubbornly remain in their roles and not look to refresh the team and the ideas coming out of it?

Whilst one must absolutely acknowledge they had both cobalt and nickel markets turn against them in a savage way, this is the same management team who made their pitch to investors numerous times that they were the cobalt and nickel trading gurus from way back when, and nobody understood the market better than they did (again, reference numerous 2020/2021/2022 fawning Crux Investor interviews). Turns out that was a load of codswallop; the cobalt market is just another super-volatile minor commodity with spikes and dumps, and Bryce and co. fell for their own "this time it's different!" kool-aid, as did many unfortunate investors who believed the hubris they generated.