A strange announcement, completely out of left-field, from someone who has been committed since 2013. This seems to have happened all of a sudden, so perhaps it's due to an unfortunate personal circumstance, like a medical reason or some other life changing event.
Heeks never owned many shares, which was a potential talking point, but he did have some good options available should they be converted, which would have increased his interest.
This probably brings to a close, the end of most original founders in Woodlark, which is disappointing. Bojanjac still owns 22 million shares, as far as I can tell, and seemed really committed, before leaving a year ago to guide PolarX.
Jerkovic was the chairman for 5 years, and he also left in May 2019, and now the exodus continues today.
If you have a look back at the history of this company, there has been an almost complete changing of the guard now since May 2019, in the time of a rising gold sentiment environment, so it's hard to fathom out why there has been such instability. I guess some companies, and projects, are just plagued this way.
I think it's time they settled down the board, now they need a new MD/CEO, and personally I'd also appoint a New Guinea national to the board. I'm always in favour of having a board member from the country in which the gold is going to be mined, as a matter of principle.
A year ago the company was run by Jerkovic, Bojanjac and Heeks - now they are all gone, and it has given a sense of corporate instability to the project, which (potential) financiers will not view as beneficial, unfortunately.
And the project financing has been a long time coming, for whatever reason.
It may be interesting to know if Heek's resignation is linked with the (proposed) new PNG mining code, which has been talked about for the past 2 years, but has as yet come to nothing, and may not.
There must be a reason though, why they are unable to attract debt finance, and during the time they've been trying to get debt finance, they've had 3 retail capital raisings to get the project construction started. I expect that it is frustrating them, and would be particularly frustrating for Heeks, who appears to have now finally given up.
This project (and company) needs some dynamic new leadership, with skin-in-the-game, who are fully committed and firing on all cylinders, given the gold price environment, and they will need to be rewarded. It's time someone took control of this project, it appears to be drifting, with no debt finance on the horizon.
Will this ever get into production?
Personally, it appears undervalued to me, and so may be a good project for another company to pick up at a discount price. I wonder if anyone is looking at it?
I wonder if Heeks resigned because they've been unable to get finance, or I wonder if he resigned because the other board members are wanting to put the company up for sale. Who knows, it's all a mystery, and very frustrating for shareholders, who very rarely seem to find out the truth of these matters, a truth they deserve since it is the shareholders who are paying for the company, and who quite often get treated with contempt.
Maybe it's time to open up the data room and let some potential acquirers run their numbers over the project.
Gw
Add to My Watchlist
What is My Watchlist?
