Nani,Agree generally with all you posted except paragraph 5...

Nani,

Agree generally with all you posted except paragraph 5 regarding Management. You may be a little harsh in your observation of NCM Management.

Back in the days when NCM bought Lihir, you didn't need to do much due diligence. Nobody else was doing it. It wasn't really a high priority because the gold price was going to keep going up and it was really the only way to lock in director bonuses by increasing the scale and market cap of a company.

It works like this. Company A lobs a bid for Company B. If it gets knocked back you have a quick desk-top study over a long lunch and then lob a higher bid. Bingo ... offer accepted.

No-one, not even experienced board members could have forseen that growth for growth sake would soon become problematic and that gold prices may come of a little bit.

I feel sorry for the directors almost as much as shareholders. Good management out of luck I say, due to multiple, isolated one-off events IMO.

Cheers
Sarge