This is the HUGE elephant in the room, isn't it? Why are they so damned obtuse the entire time (well at the moment anyway). Even if there were genuine problems, the secrecy doesn't help, because the market just assumes the worse and beats them up anyway. If things are ok, but there are issues to address then secrecy doesn't help because their good strategic management doesn't have a chance to shine as the down-rampers will seize on every apparent problem and beat them up and they give themselves no defense. If things are great secrecy doesn't help because nobody knows how well they are doing. If the sector is in a cyclic decline, secrecy doesn't help because they need to show how they are not as badly off as everyone else. There is no scenario in this space where secrecy seems to be a good strategy.
Take the pricing question today, for example. What a completely stupid answer to give: "You can work it out from the revenues...". Just say the damn price, already! Because work it out we will, and then come up with a range of numbers from awful to maybe ok, and they will get beaten up again. They have already justified why they are getting more than others, so what is the stupid mystery?
Take the secrecy over whom the customers are...but
@Jerrylibra worked it out by reading Chinese customer websites - so now we know, because the Chinese told everyone. And it turns out to both be good, and explains what was happening with the shipments (plant upgrades and such) - what was the point of hiding all that. It's not like we were not going to find out the shipments were being stockpiled, we already knew that from watching the shipping reports.
Take the pit changeover - they knew they were facing that last year, and that the old pit grade was falling - why hide it until the end of the quarter so everyone can freak out about falling grades, when all they had to say at the end of the previous quarter "this quarter we will be running down the old pit and starting a new one, so there will be a dip in recoveries and higher costs for a couple of months while we change over". It's a mine for heavens sake, we expect that every year or two.
The secrecy is a huge wank, it achieves nothing and costs everyone money that doesn't need to be wasted, and feeds the shorts - so we end up with 17% shorting on no news, and every good announcement has to be countered by the shorts to protect their position, so the company management feels they can never get their heads above water and morale is stuffed because they start feeling unappreciated by the market... but it is all their own making. If they treated the retail shareholders like adults instead of children, we would make adult decisions.
The secrecy is unnecessary, and destructive, and seriously the competition doesn't care - they have enough of their own problems to be worrying about what GXY is up to. It is seriously like a bunch of six year olds in a playground, trying to trick the adults that they are not doing something naughty. GXY management needs to grow up fast on the communications front.
Now that we have most of the information it is much better than some were thinking, a number of really important and wise steps have been taken, with excellent results under difficult, if short term, market conditions and most would agree with most of management's and the board's decisions - including the central one - the price & recovery down turn is artificial, minor and a consequence of a number of temporary conditions like pit changeovers, process improvements, customer converters having to upgrade, geo-political argie-bargy, etc. Why didn't they just trust us to come to the right/same conclusions as them in the first place and be open about it all.
So why the secrecy? What exactly did the board think they were going to achieve by this - because it has destroyed shareholder value, for no benefit to anyone, and no strategic advantage...and it has finally cost AT his job as MD - all completely unnecessary... and now we start the road back up to true value, and I am left shaking my head, once again, at the stupidity of so many Oz corporate boards and management - great at the tactical stuff, can make a buck, can dream up an excellent idea/invention but unbelievably childish when it comes to the strategic stuff and hopeless at risk management, petty, infighting, always focused on the wrong threat, agendas within agendas, and too bloody arrogant to listen to those that have been there before. Reminds me of too many years consulting to these types.
