btr mc 36 mil with $20 mil cash , page-14

My opinion? Well...it seems that the market isnt't impressed to much. No reaction on the SP.

Mark graduated as a Chemical Engineer from the University of New South Wales and commenced his career with Rio Tinto (then CRA) in 1992. So he has roughly 20 years of experience in the mining sector.

I have checked the last presentation at Newcrest and at first sight I would say that the "style" is similar to what we have seen so far from the former CEO (Scott).

Maybe worthwile to mention that Newcrest is a 6.5 billion market cap company with around 7600 employees. So switching to BTR must be some kind of challenge - but for other reasons !

So the good news is that we have a CEO (at least from January on and thats not too far away). The bad news is that obviously the market isn't really impressed.

So one possible catalyst for a raise in SP is gone. We will measure Mark on his performance and on the results next year.

Even with the risk that some people here might find my posts sometimes contradictory (probably sometimes they are) I am pretty convinced that the main catalysts for the SP for the rest of 2013 are:

a) on the positive or negative side: Perkoa (working capital question and productions figures, progress in general - eg. 2nd ball mill etc.)Downside risk maybe below 20 cents. Upside....probably priced in - no great reaction.
b) ressources upgrade Kitumba: at the moment - at least for me - difficult to say if we might just see an increase in confidence or also in tonnage and grades. First indication if opmitized PFS might deliver a positive outcome. Impact on SP? Probably not to substantial.
c) results from step out holes Kitumba. Here I guess a surprise might have an important impact on the SP. I do not believe that the market is expecting something spectacular from this side and therefore nothing is included in the current SP.

2014 is then a different story anyway. Main questions at the moment for me:

a) what is Kitumba really worth (nothing to a lot).
b) drilling campaign 2014 - will BTR burn just cash or deliver a 2nd - possibly more interesting deposit then Kitumba
c) how much cash is Perkoa delivering

Obviously zinc and copper price development and outlook is also important here.

We have seen 2 appointments in the last few weeks. I guess that there is a reason why such people is joining BTR. I guess that they see the potential here and surely also the downside risk. However....from a logical point of view the upside seems to be stronger - at least for Mark and Higgins.

I have the feeling that the next weeks will be interesting...and I have also the feeling that overall the next 6 months will be difficult for us share holders. It needs time to regain the confidence here....time and hard facts.

I have still the feeling that in 1 or 2 years a lot might look different. Rome was not built in a day...and BTR wil need a lot of time to recover (if not something happens and we will confronted with a game changer).