John you seem outraged but if at anybody you should be outraged at yourself.
You have apparently realized something that was in plain sight after purchasing. As pointed out these bonus shares which everyone else is aware of and accepting indeed most are understanding and supportive of are repeated several times in company announcements/promotions as well as the Prospectus.
I NEVER invest in a company without knowing who the directors are, what the company does, how many listed shares are on issue and listed/unlisted shares/options AND bonuses etc are either issue or pending.
I also look at how (other ways) the directors are paid. This takes me between half an hour and an hour, I fly around I don't spend hours unless its something, (a topic) I am interested in like EVs and battery metals.
But considering a good early share investment can (rarely) make you hundreds of thousands of dollars and a bad one could lose you tens of thousands well I think thats time pretty well spent.
And if I did make a mad punt in a hurry on something that was going up quickly i.e. a day trade type thing I would be aware that "buyer beware".
People blame a whole heap of stuff on others.
My wife is a dud because she can't cook and isn't interested in anything I am, the dog barks, the house I bought is poorly lit etc....all this stuff was already so before they got involved but they never consider why they didn't survey the house, the wife (joking ladies) or the dog closer before committing...
Now most here had a chance to consider the bonus shares because they took the time to do the basic research to realize they existed and I mean basic research they are not hidden they are mentioned repeatedly.
Next, the reason its folly indeed misleading to compare the one off bonus shares at TSO to what the guy (don't know his name MR BHP I will call him...CEO over there) gets annually as a bonus is because firstly he gets something large annually (salary) i.e. every year and a large bonus every year but more because he didn't put the asset or assets into in this case BHP.
Whoever their CEO is did not claw around a foreign desert and find a single asset of the thousand they own and offer it to the company.
The bonus shares on offer at TSO are not an annual payment (salary or regular bonus) they are a majority payment, a reward that are tied to an achievement structure that reward the time money and effort Zeff put into the asset and the then company before and throughout its listing.
If you want to compare the head of an iron ore company then use Twiggy who has mostly been paid in shares the whole career. He owns nearly a third of the three odd billion FMG shares on issue which values him at around $25 billion just on that and not a shareholder there begrudges his position.
Because he has built the company to a world class level and he has made everyone else rich along the way. The reason he owns so many FMG shares is because he put the company together and he put that asset into the company. This is the similarity to whats on offer at TSO.
Most of Twiggies shares were vested at time of listing or at milestone moments soon after.
Yes Zeffs bonus shares, the milestones are quite achievable but they serve and served a secondary purpose.
They acted as a beacon when looking at this newly listed company for new shareholders to say "ok the assets are in Chile a country I know little about, and the directors are not known A lister socialites or suchlike in fact Ive never heard of them but there must be or there is very likely to be at least 1m ounces of gold in this deposit look at the way the bonus structure is drawn up..."
This is a major secondary reason the structure is the way it is. IMO. To prove to the investing public that this company has an asset that will have a commercial gold deposit. In fact it my be the primary reason the bonus structure was set up this way. The bonus shares were often mentioned in promotional literature they say to me "these directors have confidence in their new company and its Chilean Gold assets."
Others have mentioned they got shares worth a couple of millions at the time of listing and more or less is that not enough?
No its not enough....if I owned El Zorro, if I had scrounged, risked money off everyone I know and worked my ass off for a few years in one of the world driest deserts to discover and consolidate what is looking like a Tier One world class gold asset I would want more than a couple of million dollars for it. Ive never sold a a Tier one world class gold asset but I do know they are worth a lot more than a couple of mill....
The guys who put the company together have paid themselves some now i.e. when they put the company together they issued some shares to themselves, and some later, the bonus shares.
The bonus shares presented this vision to the public that this company which you have an opportunity to invest in at only 2c we believe will have gold assets in excess of a million ounces and likely assets in excess of two million ounces.
Sounds like a pretty good picture to me, I would have bought then if I knew about it...instead I started buying after the standard research when I noticed the stock on HC one day.
Yes the levels of the bonus shares could have been set higher but they are set at a commercial discovery level and we will far far exceed those trigger levels with the only future major incentives for the guys to keep going that being the Twiggy factor.
That when you have a lot of skin in the game you are very very motivated to keep going and discover and develop the 5 or 10 million ounces that seem likely to be in the hills of El Zorro.
Anyway I am unlikely to convince anyone who just realized these shares exist so thats it for me on that will enjoy Aussie Day and forget this storm in someone elses tea cup...
Enjoy your day off all!!