The history of the board has relevance but then it doesn't. You...

The history of the board has relevance but then it doesn't. You can take all the negativity of the board and do not jump in. Or you can look at the current situation. The current situation is that CLE has ownership of a great resource. A once in a lifetime resource in a perfect storm. That resource has been there for ages. IOC had a massive amount of resource to mine. But at the time the market they had to complete in was against cheap DSO from Australia and Brazil. Thus they could only look at DSO themselves. As a result they sold tenement areas to other parties. Cap-EX ended up with Block 103. Cap-EX proposed to concentrate the magnetite and sell a higher grade on the market. Consequently they did a per-feasibility study. Then the iron ore price plummeted and the resource was not viable. Cap-Ex sold and the ensuing party tried to get a DSO project happening. This DSO project was marginal with an uphill battle to fund.
CLE was offered the project and Paul Berend was consulted to firstly check out the resource and secondly see if any of the similar projects were better,
PB recognized the the value in the resource. He also knew the relevance of the timing. There is demand for the really high end product and that demand is growing at a rapid rate. PB has the reins on this project. TS knows that and knows that the best value is had by letting PB do what he does best. RM has come on board and place two extra board members on the board. Thus the history of the board is completely irrelevant.
The first question is "will PB get this over the line?"

The second question is will they see this through to the end or will they take it to a figure that they are content with, sell out and try find another green pasture. The answer loud and clear is the latter. This is where the history of the board does have relevance. CLE is not a miner. It only has 5 staff members at most. A miner needs 250 staff at least. CLE's DNA is to find projects, value add them and then wrap it in bright fancy glitter and sell it for the best price that they can.

So the third question is "at what price will they sell and how much will they leave on the table?" Already the answer is a lot. Vale has in the MOU a clause which indicates what they are prepared to pay for the resource. They recognize that even they may not be able to put up the CAPEX and pay CLE out. Hence the facility to put up CLE's share of the CAPEX and deduct it from future profits. Whatever deal is done, there will be an ongoing royalty.