It sounds as if the AGM was fraught; I am glad I didn't fork out...

It sounds as if the AGM was fraught; I am glad I didn't fork out for an airfare. Personally, I appreciated the straightforward detail in the presentation.

Informing the market is one thing; communicating with shareholders another. This presentation brings those shareholders who pay attention to detail into the tent. My specific questions have been answered, and I am impressed with how well a difficult situation has been handled so far. I would have liked to learn some of this sooner, but it is fair enough that the new team needed time before they could provide a reasonably complete picture.

Managing a crisis is a better test of competence than being in charge of things that happen to be going well. There was definitely a crisis and I am impressed with what the board, and the MD, have achieved and resolved in four months. This was a very difficult circumstance in which to come on to a board or, especially, take up a CEO position. It was not an easy situation for Trevor or Joe either, for that matter. In good times managers have everyone cheering them on; in a crisis there is not only the crisis, but also angry shouting from the sidelines. Paramedics trying to work while the patient and his mates take swings at them.

What I now appreciate is how the focus has shifted to a more substantial project. I had been a bit underwhelmed with the thought that paying more and waiting longer for the same (original) project. What I now see is that the extra time and money has the potential to lift the LGP into a bigger league as a more substantial project.

It looks like more focus on larger pits, including the deeper primary ore. Clearly the presentation signals the possibility that the revised plan could involve better strip ratios, higher average grades (perhaps implying higher annual production), and longer mine life.

Updating the resource (I am wondering if that will happen more than once before mining begins) is potentially game changing, excuse that overworked term. A bigger project has the potential to attract a different class of investor and to make borrowing additional funds easier. I am less concerned about further fund raising at a low SP now.

Leaving aside all the angst about the original plan, it seems likely that taking longer and developing a plan involving the deeper primary ore, discovered as the DFS was well underway, is the better way to go. Certainly a larger project completely changes how we could view a higher Capex, and where the SP might go.

There has been no mention of raising further working capital, but last time they gave advance notice, which sent the SP down, and then they made the actual announcement, which sent the SP down again. So I am happy that has been left for anyone who can read a quarterly statement to figure out, but not flagged explicitly. The board has capacity to place shares again, so with luck that can be done after any bounce from the resource upgrade.