The problem isn't the lack of resources, its the lack of...

The problem isn't the lack of resources, its the lack of reserves. Most companies with such a resource book would expect to be able to string together a sensible amount of reserves - Focus seems unable or unwilling to do so.

If they aren't doing a deal to treat third party ore through the Coolgardie mill and they are doing nothing to increase reserves, then they are either working on buying something (god help shareholders in that scenario!), selling the Coolgardie project, preparing the entire company for takeveover, or simply doing nothing at all.

There are several parties who could use the mill, we discussed Hanking above but Coolgardie Minerals also immediately springs to mind (https://thewest.com.au/news/kalgoorlie-miner/mine-camp-fight-ng-b88873040z) not to mention the fact their immediate neighbour, FMR, makes a killing out of toll treating. Focus has gone completely quiet on this apparently logical strategy, so I don't think they're serious about it at all. That leaves us with a purchase, sale or the status quo (nothing).

If Focus is buying, let's hope they don't take a page out Shandong Tianye's book and overpay as badly as they did for Southern Cross. Or as badly as Shandong Gold overpaid for Focus, for that matter - they've lost around 90% of their investment in Focus.

If they're selling, let's hope they find a buyer with similar (mis)conception of value as them and deep pockets because other probable buyers like NST and EVN are probably much more value driven and its unlikely the smartest people in the room would be on Focus' side of the table in those negotiations. That all said, shareholders should get a nice little return out of any asset sale in this environment.

The average EV/resource transaction multiple has been between $8 for explorers and $33 for developers recently (numbers from PCF Resources Thermometer) so depending on whether you consider Coolgardie an exploration or development asset, you're looking at $16-$65 million in a sale. Bear in mind that the average trading multiple (i.e., what shareholders could expect if the market valued Focus the same as the 'average' ASX gold company) is $46 per resource ounce for developers, implying Coolgardie would be worth around $90 million under different management. Producers average $112 per resource ounce but will Focus shareholders see that $200 million plus value? The old quote from The Castle comes to mind...

Whatever direction they are going, directors have some questions to answer about their decision making. Right now it'd be good to hear anything at all.