Yes, it is extraordinary that with a team of 8 people they have...

Yes, it is extraordinary that with a team of 8 people they have still not done a single transaction since listing in October 2020. Your hyperbole is not far off the mark as they have essentially only collected 4 cheques a year and "looked at lots of opportunities". To have a full-time CFO and Financial Controller to add up the royalty payments and subtract expenses seems very over-staffed. If they were doing lots of new deals, one could understand the need for a full-time lawyer. Not clear what she would do day to day if they were doing no deals and the basic day to day legal work can easily be outsourced to an external firm on a part-time basis. What the 2 geologists on the team do (other than read BHP's news releases) is another mystery.

It is potentially the simplest way to get good quality exposure to iron ore on the ASX, but could / should be run a lot leaner. I keep on thinking their largest shareholders will put pressure on them to do deals (and if none can be found over 3-4 years then pressure Deterra to scale back costs and simply pass through the Area C royalty revenues). It seems however that the fund managers are not too bothered by all of this (and management themselves will hope to keep the status quo going for as long as possible).

I will be tempted to become a shareholder if they cut expenses and remove the risk of doing overpriced deals (once the pressure of not having done anything for many years becomes too much). I would also not be too happy as a shareholder seeing management paying themselves bonusses when they truly have no impact / influence on the business (other than the quantum of expenses).