My interpretation is Nic went overseas to seek institutional...

My interpretation is Nic went overseas to seek institutional investment. He made it very clear that he wanted to see more instos on ALK register as he pointed out (few times) that retail holds around 57% of ALK shares and he wants to change that.

His own comments did not point (to me at least) that he went overseas just to raise awareness and interests but not expecting to bring any investment. Yes, he did mentioned with Crux that he also wants to make instos aware of ALK.
And one should expect that some instos will place ALK on their watchlists and start researching it while monitoring SP performance. But one should also expect these trips to bring some investment as well. All we see is persistent selling.

And how does he manage the SP performance when he is positioning ALK as explorer with positive cashflow? I would think by running more than 2 exploration projects.

Allendale (said this few times now) is showing promise but ALK is not showing interested to fast-track it. The second round of exploration booked in around 7 months from the initial promising results - if I remember correctly.

And Nic's comment along the lines of them being in the M&A mode since 2018. How many M&A deals did they close? But everyone around them managed to grab a deal.. some two. Partial move on GMD and CAI with GMD running away so ALK sold (lucky at profit) while getting stuck with CAI holding a bag.

I've seen few CEOs being fired (or forced to resign) after failing to find M&As while declaring they were after such deals. Especially if some peers showed being successful at negotiating such deals during same period.

Bottom line is - the MD's and BoDs responsibilities are to ensure long term future for the company while preventing prolonged decline in the SP. ALK's SP has been struggling for while now and the MD seems not to be concerned at all.