Firstly a shout out to all that attended the meeting and have taken the time to relay their thoughts here ......
I agreed at one point with his value as a contributor on these threads, and the Technical In-depth narratives have been extremely helpful ........
Unfortunately, opinions change: When he makes a suggestion "to grow up" and then reverts to telling un-truths (as confirmed by the Company in email exchanges) gets called out and promptly has the post moderated ...... ~ then onto the "cheer leader" "company can do no wrong" "twist the facts to suit an unabashed pro company ethos" pile you go....... along with any respect!
@franky1 ~ it is my right to be able to question and/or be critical of the board if it is in my opinion warranted, so if that makes me a keyboard warrior then so be it, but I will continue to do what I do ~ the board has big pants ............... ~ it can be the demise of a company if the board are never called into question, and you know that as well as I do and a glaring example being We all loved Kevin Joyce, his passion for the company (his baby) and as such we tolerated the other 2 directors and it was going along nicely right up to the point IT WASN'T, you remember that point? right when the Company tried to sell the Goulamina Lithium project for the princely sum of $109M ~ again, I think anyone that never has any concerns or at times feels justified of being critical of the board are being derelict to their investment capital
re: "Two New Directors to be appointed Monday. Exceptional experience in Africa and beyond. I hope they’re female." ~ I am assuming the FFX board going from (currently) 4 directors to 5? allowing for the resignation of Borg from FFX? ~ I personally hope that the appointments are based on merit and the best persons for the position as per the Company's "Diversity and Inclusion Policy"
These are the type of things that brings out my criticisms of the board and a plethora of related questions, including if they are increasing the FFX board why (i) now, that the Morila Mine is up and about, running smoothly, with in budgets, production guidance and increases on track, cash flow positive next year, maintenance is completed on time minimising downtime ....... (ii) is that why the company wants to increase the director fee pool? as per Resolution 5 of the upcoming General Meeting, and quite honestly, if that had of been included in the explanatory note to the meeting, then maybe I wouldn't be so against the resolution as the current pool is more than adequate inclusive of the increased director salaries $104,500 plus committee meeting payments ($3,014) for 2022. Quite a substantial raise from the circa $80,000 last year...... but falls inline with industry comparative salaries.
Fun Facts: after corresponding with the Company (i) The Directors do not have a set amount of hours per week dedicated for their salaries, they have all indicated that they are able to dedicate sufficient time to Firefinch to carry out their duties (ii) The members of any given committee are paid an allowance, there is no deduction or retention of that allowance for non attendance at a committee meeting (iii) Committee meetings have no time frames, not bad earner (allowance $3,014 for an ordinary member and $6,027 for the chairman of the committee) if it only runs for an hour. (iv) Cash Short Term Incentives July 1 2020 - June 30 2021 were paid to reward contribution to the Company for reaching milestones: ~ Anderson commenced 6th April 2021 and was paid a cash bonus of $50,000 for his role in reaching milestones, I am not criticising Anderson but the board on how they justified the payments based on the criteria of the STI program for an 11 week tenure, and what contributions Anderson could of made in such a short period to the foundations of reaching milestones that had already been laid down by the board and KMP's prior to his commencement date? ~ Under Anderson's terms of employment the STI program is tested annually but he was paid a cash bonus after 11 weeks ~ His Total Fixed Remuneration (TFR) is $550,000 per annum, the STI comprises a target of 30% of TFR (with a stretch target of 50%) > 30% of TFR equates to $165,000 (or 50% equates to $275,000) so how was he paid a cash bonus of 1/3 of the STI 30% target after only 11 weeks if you also consider there is 4 components of the STI each with a contributing value of 25% - unfortunately the previous measuring components are no longer available to be able to measure what milestone/s were achieved to warrant the cash payment (v) Both Taplan and Hughes also received cash bonuses, but neither have STI based payments in their service contracts that were announced on their respective appointments, only Long Term Incentives are reported. ~ although the company in correspondence inferred that the STI program is for everyone which begs the question of why didn't Cowden, Borg & Hepburn also receive the STI cash bonuses?
Shareholder Participation & Shortfall ~ although on the surface shareholder participation was disappointing, I think the already mentioned "contributing factors" are all relevant but don't underestimate the efforts of the very Companies that wanted the Shortfall Shares as previously posted @tinyventures broker reports, I think they achieved their goal with shareholders opting to purchase on market versus subscribing for their entitlements. I had contemplated the same but as I already have more than enough FFX shares, I channeled funds straight into LLL shares, now all I want all the Shortfall I applied for ~ I am also uncertain whether the likes of the EFT Gold fund would have taken their entitlement offer, as they will also look to offload LLL shares post listing, with proceeds of sales going back to their clients as dividends. ~ does anyone remember what the VanEck Gold EFT fund paid for FFX shares? with the anticipated drop to the FFX share price post LLL listing, the VanEck fund may look to exit? unless they maintain a higher forecast share price? ~ the first 14.29m of shortfall shares will be allocated to eligible Firefinch Shareholders with the remainder subject to the policy as outlined on pages 76 & 77 of the Prospectus, the Board in agreement with the Lead Arrangers reserves full discretion to allocate Shortfall to exisiting Firefinch Investors or Eligible Institutional Investors. In my opinion, the Board should look to allocate remaining Shortfall Shares firstly to Firefinch Shareholders that have applied before releasing the rest to brokers. ~ saying all that, Shareholders had their chance to minimise the allocation of Shortfall Shares to brokers (yes there was an abundance of reasons why full entitlements were not taken) BUT at some point down the track Leo Lithium's share price will be put under pressure because the broker/s will instruct clients to exit positions as they themselves will be doing. ~ are the numbers being bandied around ($36m participation) inclusive of the $10m Shortfall Shares?
@Red Baron surprised that you were unaware of Capital Drilling's involvement, they have taken shares in lieu of payments, (erasing $1.25m worth of debt owing to them) they have underwritten equity rises and have been a large shareholder (circa 17.95m shares) placed in the Top 20 since being contracted to drill.
A couple of questions for anyone that attended: (1) Were questions that were submitted via the company link prior to the meeting, actually read out, discussed and/or answered? (2) Resolution 1: Non Binding resolution to adopt the Remuneration Report ~ was there any discussion and/or explanations and/or concerns from the auditor in attendance or from management that there was a steep increase to 12.8% in the voting "against" the resolution versus the previous year of 3.09%?
@halbebe Considering that the directors also cast votes on the re-election of candidates, it is no surprise that there was a large vote in favour of the resolution to re-elect Hepburn, directors, Capital Drilling & Brokers IMO would account for circa 80m of the votes in favour. ~ none the less, he was re-elected but take out 80m shares worth of biasing, it would put the against vote at 27.75% versus the reported 18.08% which is still relatively high (IMO)
cheers
FFX Price at posting:
$1.07 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
