Ann: Annual General Meeting - Presentation, page-21

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Bigstockpunter

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13/11/23

10:07

Post #: 70862499
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Originally posted by Slentik: ↑

You're right, and there's a lot said which is public information, but we don't always have the time or resources to find it ourselves.

With regard to your dot points, I got the impression that the board doesn't have an opinion on how long the high prices are going to last. But they're trying to manage the extra income prudently. They mentioned that they would like to accumulate cash in anticipation of prices easing in the future (as other pearl farmers are doing) but as a public company they can't justify that. So most of the money is going into improving and expanding the business. One of the other investors made it very clear that they wanted a return to regular dividends, so we will perhaps see more special dividends at least as long as prices remain high.

Your point that the Chinese might be seeking pearls as an investment hadn't occurred to me and it wasn't discussed at the meeting. I've never considered that pearls could be a store of value... but with banks defaulting, tofu buildings and a dodgy stock market, there's only so much gold you can hoard, so why not pearls?

WRT increased supply, the directors said they have all but five of the approvals in place for their next farm (no doubt the five most difficult ones). I guess it will take a few years after that before the new farm is up and at full capacity, considering that it takes four years to make a pearl. I would have liked more colour around that, but I neglected to follow up on it. Hopefully, the new breeding program will show an increase in quality and quantity over the coming years.

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Slentik,

Going along to the meeting was a good decision - gaining information!

Couple of thoughts:

ATP is run more like a private company than a public company in the sense that they don't really engage with retail shareholders - they just announce the minimum and get on with business.
Building up cash reserves is a private company trait in that they can't go to market to raise capital when things get tough (and traditional banks will not lend to Indonesian Pearl growers.....) so they need to keep some reserves around for the inevitable down turn.
In relation to investment in China- pearls provide another physical asset with some value. I am told gold is becoming more regulated so the investors are looking for something small that will store value if things get really bad.
Expansion does take time so a gradual increase in production (and maybe some geographical diversification) over time will be valuable.

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ATP Price at posting: 9.4¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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