The following is correlated information received from attendees at the Annual General Meeting.
Fraser advised that the meeting was being taped, they were asked why the never streamed the meeting (but took on board streaming for the next meeting)
~ maybe the could put the tape up on the website?, someone else can try ringing them - I give up.
~ respondent to questions is Fraser unless indicated.
Fraser's opening address would have made me vomit, reassuring shareholders that every decision made was in the best interests of shareholders!!
Some numbers
@GARETH78 -- FYI the Company received 527 proxies representing 450,371,620 (38% SOI) that the Chairman (Fraser) voted in favour of the 2 resolutions.
Fraser was directed to a list of questions that were presented to the Company prior to the meeting, and was happy to discuss various aspects but stated all that has needed to be said was in Company announcements and or the Company's web site, and they have been available to discuss anytime (pick up the phone or email) and have been in close contact with all shareholders.
They were pretty adamant that shareholder communications are good!! I hope their idea of good doesn't reflect on what the would consider value for any transaction??
As most these questions were relating to the past year, Fraser wanted to move on to discuss the future, but was reminded that the meeting was for the period 1 Jan 2022 to 31 Dec 2022 as per the Annual Report.
Questions:
1: Why was the decision made to sell the Leo Lithium Shares at a $7.1m loss?
~ Fraser didn't confirm the $7.1m loss but said it was stated in the question, the decision wasn't taken lightly, they were trying to assess what the financial position the Company was in and if they had enough funds moving forward, it wasn't a large holding and they weren't escrow shares and it was only a small part of the holding.
2: Why was the Recapitalisation Package pulled?
~ Used the macro environment, price of gold & exchange rate, able to respond in short timeframe as they were across all their requirements at that point in time.
Interjection from shareholder, query on Frasers comment about being available to all shareholders as PR Company that has emails ending up in junk folder.
**It was an unfortunate thing, Fraser again stipulated if you wish to contact and not getting a response, through whatever platform, please reach out through phone calls but they have responded to many shareholders. The have and will continue to make themselves available, Citadel-Magnus refer all correspondence.
3: How is Firefinch currently attempting to sell its shares in Morila when it claims they have no internal knowledge of Morila since walking away.
~ Answer is simple and straight forward, we are shareholders and are canvassing parties interested in the project, it is up to them to do due diligence.
-- is it true the Company are waiting on a letter of no objection from the Mali government?
~ we are engaged with the government, other stakeholders and interested parties.
4: Update on the Commercial Court of Bamako situation and was it extended?
~ we are not involved, it is up to Morila SA, but we have been informed it has been deferred until July.
Q: You are an 80% shareholder of Morila SA
~ yes
Q: And you have no idea whats going on?
~ no we don't
Q: and you are selling with no idea?
~ yes
5: How many days did Fraser charge $3k a day and who authorised it?
~ the board authorised it, doesn't know how many days or how much it was. All in the financials.
6: Why didn't the Company stream meeting?
~ there is no obligation to stream, and will take onboard and stream next time.
7: What was the outcome of the legal or commercial action against the contractor that under performed?
~ No longer involved in Morila SA, vendor contracts had nothing to do with Firefinch it was all Morila SA, no parent guarantees.
8: Question of related party payments in Quarterly Cash Flows weren't answered but said they are in the announcements.
9: Question on tenement spending or being surrendered?
~ not spending and not surrendering.
10: In the last quarterly report, Corporate spending was $2.2m, can you break down the specifics.
~ short answer, I don't have specifics but this lead to debating -- vast majority spending was on lawyers, we have taken pay cuts, keeping share holders up to date.
~ cut costs by moving office, Company disclosed it is into an office managed by Fraser, cost of office undisclosed as it hasn't been negotiated yet, spending on lawyers will be the same as they have 2 processes running (a) disposal of Morila (b) Corporate Process
~ Treadstone payments to date is confidential within the agreement with Treadstone.
~ reduced overheads by reducing staff.
Lowe:
Going back to the 80% shareholding in Morila SA and not knowing what is going on. Has worked in 6 countries with 20 years experience and all governments are different. We don't have control of the Morila SA board, we only have 1 member on the board and get sporadic information.
11: There was no approval from shareholders to start these processes, most shareholders want the LLL shares returned.
Lowe:
~ we have had meetings with shareholders & had feedback from shareholders, there are two types of shareholders:
(1) that are happy to sit and wait - there are many
(2) those that are wanting to realise liquidity now -- there are many, and thats why we started the process. If we can't deliver value then cash and LLL shares will be returned to shareholders.
Q: When does the process end, its been 6 months
Lowe: Fair question, starts of with a market search, interested parties, do preliminary due diligence, it is an active process and if there was no chance of a suitable result the process would have ceased. There are interested parties we are engaging with and we will update the market by the end of June if not sooner.
Q: You mentioned a transaction that will provide value and liquidity, can you advise on what that looks like.
Lowe: No we can't, it is confidential, we can't tell you who we are in discussions with nor what any offer have been made.
12: What is the ultimate outcome you are looking for with the Company? Are you looking to wind up the Company, or sell the assets and get another project.
Lowe: Not looking for another project, we are seeking a corporate transaction that provides value and liquidity in a timely manner, if we can't provide value and liquidity then we will abandon the process and return cash and shares.
13: You were happy to propose a Capital raise at $0.06c, dilute the shares and have a value of 6c per FFX share, what value do you put on it today?
for example, at $0.90c Leo Lithium per share puts FFX at $0.14c per share, there are broker reports out there that place $ 1.95 on LLL shares.
What economic value do you place on on our Leo share today?
~ what ever transaction that is agreed to as better value and liquidity, any outcome will come to shareholders "most likely" to vote what ever transaction is proposed. Last night LLL shares were worth $0.16c and don't forget we have already delivered $591m value back to shareholders from the demerger.
Lowe: we won't bring a deal to shareholders unless we are confident shareholders will approve it.
14: What value is placed on the equipment we purchased?
~ we understand they are still operating over there but can't put a value on what we spent on all the equipment, but the equipment that we acquired sits with Morila and is all part of the Morila transaction.
15: Understand why we walked away from Morila but don't understand as a 80% shareholder we ended up with a minimum board representation. What is the rationale behind only having a minimum board representation.
~ the decision to cease funding wasn't taken lightly, impact was significant, when we walked away the decision was to cut ties completely and after a month the directors resigned from Morila SA Board.
Lowe: Important to point out to make, any creditors of Morila SA have no legal claim against Firefinch or its assets.
16: How many directors were on the board of Morila.
Lowe: 4: Bill, Tom, Andrew & Seydou. I had to terminate 3 permanent employees.
17: Why was FFX blind sided by the sudden drop off in production but still reporting to shareholders all the new equipment had arrived and was getting assembled, but then we find out equipment wasn't ready and throughput through the plant was grinding to a halt?
Lowe: I joined the Company 17th October, read through all the records and completely satisfied that as soon as the Board were made aware of the difficulties on site, the market was notified immediately.
~ on throughput, no happy but happy with recoveries, before the decision worked on what was happening operationally, how to get maximum ounces, how to get cash generation. Operationally could see a turnaround story and we could get to really good production.
18: Why didn't the Morila SA directors notify the Company and why didn't you know the production rates
~ ECOWAS sanctions had kit sitting at port, operator assembled inefficient equipment and found we were missing targets significantly, entered into a Trading Halt.
~ Mali directors operate under Mali law, and the General Manager can commit the Company to things outside the directions of the board.
~ all systems and structures were in place to keep us informed we were not reaching target, this was attributed to not having the right equipment on site.
19: Were FFX directors concerned with any improprieties in regards to management on site?
~ No could see no evidence of that.
Fraser on close:
Take on notice that there has been some recent difficulties in communications.
We are available to talk to people and feel free to come to talk to us.
All the above is based on information compiled from notes of attendees at the AGM, thank you to all the contributors.
cheers
ps: but there is now more questions than answers .......
