Super wealthy, Good question re. Hold.I committed the cardinal...

Super wealthy,
Good question re. Hold.

I committed the cardinal rule of buying a "falling knife" at 12 cents - and I have been cut !!!

My feeling is that this "trading halt fiasco" has brought unwelcome attention to the stock and the project.

The most recent announcement was a case of management " putting out the rubbish" - that is coming clean with some relevations they had been a little tardy (read potentially downright misleading in not releasing).

It's clear that they are battling issues on multiple fronts:

1/. Board - lack of mining Engineering experience, lack of geological experience, and only supervisory level experience in mineral processing
2/. Inexperienced CEO
3/:. Concentration of shareholding by insiders
4/. Lack of capacity or willingness on the part of the wealthy Asian investors to inject emergency funds ( $25m creditors, $20m cost to completion, earthmoving fleet $15 to $20 million, resume exploration drilling operations $20, working capital $20 million - a hundred million which ever way you cut it....)
I know this will be controversial but when a post mortem is conducted, it is the complete failure of the management of costs and timelines that has killed the project.

The problem is that the people now have a reputation of over promising and under delivering. The project also has claimed two "victims" now - CAG and Noble.

Sophisticated debt and equity providers,as well as potential suitors, will be extremely wary - and demand a huge "safety margin" before risking capital on a project that will slip into being managed by the secured lenders unless radical changes are made to the gameplan NOW.

I expect that the due diligence undertaken by external parties will bring a few skeletons out of the closet -
probably that the true " run rate" is somewhere between 30,000 ounces to 50,000 ounces - NOT 150,000 ounces, that the cost of producing gold is north of $1,350 / ounce under the current circumstances, that the satellite pits are not reconciling well, hence less grade and more overburden, that the "economically mineable " areas of the main pit will take a $80 million to $120 million pre strip.

Fundamentally Noble needs to realize that the resource is an underground mine at a mid range ounce production profile and that the concept of INCREASING the plant capacity was 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Only $130 million of shareholders money was wasted........not happy

So, in summary if the stock comes back on and gets rerated downwards to reflect the harsh realitiies, it might provide a floor from which a professional outfit can operate the project.

On that basis I am Holding.