dr michael ruane

Looking at how Dr Ruane is playing his hand with RWD v IRC, it looks to me he is very astutely riding the spike in market enthusiasm for fertiliser-mining to prevent diluting IRC. What this means is he values IRC (and by extension its flagship Julia Creek resource) ahead of the likely more stable/predictable result that will come out of RWD. I would hazard a guess we will see Dr Ruane start to remove himself from RWD from here on (now that Lake Disappointment is well advanced), to concentrate on IRC (but then his foray into RER flies in the face of that notion, I got no idea why he is doing that one).

That Dr Ruane has been buying IRC shares on market for the last few years shows he has confidence in the company's prospects, but also respect for the remaining shareholders (with the size of his voting power, he could have just as easily granted himself bucketloads of cheap options as 'performance bonus'). If we don't see Mike continuing to buy on market, it may mean the price has got a bit too rich for him, or it might also just mean he has had his fill (even a director is entitled to diversify- and if this baby takes off he will be a billionaire soon enough, there's only so many ivory backscratchers one really needs).

Psychologists have documented that risk-taking behaviour declines as we age- when we are young we know we have time to recover and try again. And age gives perspective, the longer one has lived the more one has seen (and so the more balanced is an elder's judgement). That Dr Ruane, a man in his 60's, has invested so heavily of his own money (and his superannuation) into IRC says to me he has considered it to be safe (safe enough). Much of what has been posted on HC has focussed on the potential, the huge riches that IRC/Julia Creek may bring forth. And it is accepted by all that with great reward comes great risk- I am starting to consider the risk not so great given the above.