First on the dividend. The Board had stated it's intention for dividends to be on-going. So anyone who invested in the company using this as a least one basis for that decision, has every right to be annoyed by the board's flip-flop. Second, if you look at the decision to buy Darques, without shareholder approval and the reason given, ie we legally didn't have to, that alone is not a reason to exclude shareholders from the decision process, but is more a statement of how it values shareholder input. The Board is making two strong statements about where shareholders rank, and that is, at the bottom of the heap, and it simply isn't good enough.
I don't buy the argument that the 1c dividend at $12 million will get built into the share price if retained as cash. Maintaining a dividend adds to the share price by encouraging investors to invest, the more so when the board states it's intention to maintain dividends. However, since the Board is quick to state it's intention for money that could have been ours except for the about turn, perhaps this year's remuneration packages will similarly remove some income from each Board member so they can put that back into the company.
Second, Dargues was supposed to be hitting 4.91g/t, and if it's correct that it is still running in the 3-4g/t range as per July, then once again it continues to underperform. In other words 8 months in and it continues to cost the company money, so any thought of re-cooping the $200 million we spent on it looks a long way off somewhere in the distant future, if at all, at this rate. And that at a time when the POG is very favourable. The whole operation at this stage looks marginal, and what would happen if the price of gold drops at a time when the hedging runs out. Do we moth ball the operation and call those events bad luck?
Am I annoyed with the Board. You bet! But not without good reason.
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