fledgling soon to take wing, page-49

re: flagging world bank financing One hope I have is that detractors and doubters will one day provide material which is more genuine, informed and helpful than the gutter sniping that has been provided so far. Quality negatives are a good thing.

(1) A post I wrote last September www.hotcopper.com.au/post_thread.asp?fid=1&tid=54098&sym=GIP#135668 has many references, had over 600 reads and drew a long series of interesting responses, especially in light of subsequent developments and some posts on this board.
Despite my previous appeal to Sabre to at least look at it and despite the dozens of times he has mentioned GIP, he still asks whether GIP has a web site. There are any number of share market services around, including free ones, which give details on such companies and which list GIP's web site.
Furthermore, anyone who uses Google and simply types in the words "Gippsland" and "tantalum" will bring up a page of references, some of which include the company's web site. The first article found covers the stunning, intra-day spike a couple of years ago (my best ever day-trade so far - nobody else read the announcement when it first came out?). Anyway, pardon my cynicism, but it beggars belief that someone can come up with material from ASIC (as their only concern?!) and still profess not to know about the web site.

(2) The AIM listing was taken up for a number of reasons, GIP was the first company to be able to be fast tracked and pay a lower listing fee than previous (foreign) companies. It makes sense to be listed in an area of the world where most of GIP's operations will be conducted and an area of the world that has more sympathy for and interest in African countries and mines. GIP is on record bemoaning the impatience of Australian investors in the mining area and noting that there was considerable interest and funds available in the Old Dart, as have quite a number of other companies who have gone down the dual listing route. The trading of millions of shares on the opening day on AIM tended to confirm GIP's views, although things have been quiet since. One problem is that the London Stock Exchange has still not gotten around to including the full details on GIP, such as their web site, not to mention including GIP in each of the all-companies search lists, as should have been done months ago.
www.londonstockexchange.com/international/AA/company.asp?sedol=3427305&IssuerCode=89723&Landmark=True&refsource=/invrel/default.asp

(3) Since the query by ASIC, GIP has raised additional funds in Australia. Not much, however. The company is keen to operate on as tight a budget as possible and issue as few shares as possible. In fact, prior to listing on AIM, the GIP directors cancelled a large number of their own entitlements. Listing on ASIC is harder and requires more checks to be passed in some ways than a listing on the ASX. My post last September attempted to cover the reasons for the stunning price spike two years ago and the subsequent queries, which GIP dealt with in full and graphic detail. It's uncommon for a company to be given so many millions of dollars worth of drilling results essentially for free before they start operations. GIP took punters and ASIC by surprise.

(4) A little mining has already started and pilot plant material arrived in Australia last year. The fair dinkum mining is expected to start next year. Material of value is to be found on the surface of a hill. I've said before that I didn't think the AIM listing would do a lot for the share price and was unfortunately fairly accurate, although it should be noted that GIP continues to trade in London at a premium to Australia. I'm also not expecting that much from the BFS finalisation, which is seemingly at odds with almost everyone else who is interested in the stock (would love to be proven wrong on that one). I am expecting upside from any contracts which are signed for the tantalum, even while conceding that an offtake agreement for the potentially more valuable, but less "sexy", feldspar did little for the share price.

(5) I still have a variety of concerns about this stock and have mentioned most of them before. It would be good if the doubters and detractors would stop making cheap, misleading pot shots and start coming up with quality material for debate and the warning of others. If someone can one day come up with definitive reasons why GIP is more likely to fail than succeed and back it up with verifiable references, they will have everyone done investors a service. Taking cheap shots simply to beat the price down to get stock at better prices is transparent and not appreciated. Ditto when knocking stocks like GIP in a meaningless way at the expense of other stocks already held.