Ann: Results of Annual General Meeting-AVB.AX, page-279

Gawd, I don't think anyone wants to post on this dog, look at the SP Anyway some of you guys should pay me me for (little joke) content

Hi Gus,

A question worthy of some thought and genuine response. Please don’t take this out of the AVB context because not all my investments have these points as any consideration at all.

Looking back (did not own) I had a concern with a certain director, we all know that story, but my concern was a little different to some, had the full box and dice been thrown at this with the right motivation it could have worked perhaps even better. I need to say that managements do not concern me much at all in the doing of the tasks, I have made this clear before I think. I believe trouble on the staff front only ever comes from gross stupidity naturally occurring/learned or remarkable intelligence and drive, both extreme’s lacking in most boards I have ever come across, sit and sat on, so I do know a thing or two about boards.

All sorts of grades up and down the scale of course, but you can take it that working boards do not my money make, unless they have some greed and drive to reach higher ground, again think Twiggy, I would sit and listen if he talked.

Consulting fees and a worry about monthly cash flow is not something the driven greedy will ever ponder on. As it turns out my early concern about drive has been proved to some extent, just looking at what actual beneficial ownership has solidified the greed our directors have in this pile of potential gold, the answer of course is virtually none, which is a great shame, but no more than the way the world is.

So where does my “investment vision” as you call it come from in this respect.

Firstly shut your eyes tight, enough to make them water, then say a few hail Mary’s and repeat “the market does not always know the future value of things, in fact rarely IMO”.

OK, on I go, putting the metal, it’s finding, digging, shipping and billing aside, what is key then for someone like me? In a word “greed” and “circumstance” the effect of which I expect will benefit me, in the protection I see in all the possible scenarios, of that greed and many exist I believe. I have a watchful eye out on that front over the coming months, no ones card hand is ever as heavy on the shoulders as when you hold four of a kind, thing about it, do you raise.

Greed will always come into play, if spoils are to be made, absolutely without question, Greed is good as Gordon would say, I got clobbered over the head for what seemed like decades until my penny dropped. So I watch for things that others don’t, here I see great change, I see a great giant metals company next door to Vale and even one-day folk saying Vale is next door to Avanco. First the asset, which we know about, but above all I look at the register, the position in the cycle, the cost of capital (limited operating histories have high cost of capital), what effect I see happening with the price of the thing that sells, in our case here copper (X), the place X is in the future. Is it possible to buy it cheap, do I have time, cash flow, where is my number etc.

I do not want to delve further here, but I hope at least some of these points help with why I am in this tiddler.

Cheers
Phil.

You probable see now why directors (not AVB ones, still better than most) find me as not the best sort to have tea with while counting the proxies J