I raised the issue quite directly with management at the AGM last year as to why they have not committed more of their own cash to their holdings in CXO. It is worth noting here that the majority of the board are non-executive directors, and that SB is the only full-time member of the board.
Malcolm responded that it is not as easy to buy on market as it seems and that the timing is important. GE responded that the options that they had been granted at 6c (SP at the time was about 4c) meant that they would need to pay 300k to invest in them, and that represented a significant investment for him. I am not sure what else he does for work, but his salary with CXO is about 60k (it was in theory 130k last year but this includes the options which are not directly income until they are converted). I challenged him saying that by the time the SP goes past 6c (the options are good until 2023) the investment will be a no brainer as he will be guaranteed to make money on it, to which he responded, that yes, while the investment would make money, a member of the board cannot just sell them when they are in the money (it is easy for SH but not for directors and it has implications to SH if a director sells even if the reason is innocent) - so his claim that a 300k investment is significant is probably correct.
From memory, SB did not say anything through this discussion, but his salary was 324K last year (not including options). After tax, this leaves approx 180k in discretionary spending. Don't misunderstand me here, I certainly don't have 180k in discretionary spending through my job, but if he hasn't come from money (I don't know if he has), then it is POSSIBLE that he doesn't have a whole heap of spare cash around to invest or maybe he did it tough as a young geo trying to start up a few exploration companies and is recovering some of that now later in life (which he is entitled to do). For all I know he could own an expensive house and have 5 kids that all go to private schools (180k doesn't go far if this is the case) - it is not for me to judge how he spends his money. Perhaps he is unfairly judged because we compare him to directors like those in LTR, who I think are wealthy in their own right and this may not be fair, unless someone knows that SB is wealthy aside from his earnings in CXO? Selfishly, it would be good for me if he spent more money investing in the company, but he has a life too, dreams, aspirations etc. If he wasn't wealthy to begin with, perhaps he is doing the best he can - no idea, this is just an opposing view to the bashing that he usually gets (admittedly from me in the past as well).
In SB's defence, he hasn't lilly hopped companies, he has been with CXO since the beginning - some would say that's because its a life style company and why would you change?, but if we compare CXO now, to when it began, you would see a fundamental difference in the company size, resource size and where on the development curve we are - maybe progress should be assessed over the longer term rather than just in the here and now - I certainly didn't foresee the lithium slump, COVID and whole bunch of other world events that have potentially slowed our progress, should the board have? I get that our SP (and my investment) isn't growing as quickly as I would like, but I have no one to blame buy myself as I got sold on the lithium hype in 16/17, bought in too high, have been averaging down ever since, and didn't see all the negative market forces coming.
The conversation at the AGM ended with me stating that whatever the regulations and the legal requirements, the market notices when a director invests. Since then, we saw Malcolm invest in the CR this year which was a good start. He earned a salary of 30K from CXO, and invested 60k from memory. I guess if the board does take up the options, then this might really get some attention? Lets hope they have a plan.
We have been holding 5c this week, which is a good indicator. We have some good depth too and all we need now is something to give us another kick that might push us up above 6c. I noticed that there was a bunch of shares for sale at 6.5c - first time in a while I have seen that, perhaps some (other than me) are becoming optimistic that we are set for another rise soon?
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