for the love of gold - paul fromson - new cfo

For AFR - 19 April 2012

Paul Fromson, the new CFO of WA gold miner Focus Minerals says he “loves the gold industry”.

He last worked at a company connected with the precious metal in 1987. “I find it is always interesting – it is not like bulk commodities like iron ore, there are always new challenges”.

After a three stint at Bauxite Resources, he left that company in February planning to take a break, but was soon called upon by the chairman of WA-based Focus, Donald Taig, when his finance chief, John Grygorcewicz resigned after six years.

“It happened very quickly,” he says. “They wanted to allow some sort of hand over as John has been with the business for some time.”

A week into being at the company, Fromson was still getting his head around what needs to be done and hadn’t yet addressed the board of Focus, which has mines around Coolgardie and further north in Laverton, but says his priority is a three-year plan to integrate and strengthen systems and the finance team after 12 months of rapid growth.

As gold prices have climbed, the company has expanded from owning one mine to four across two regions. It did this by opening new mines and through the acquisition of Crescent Gold Laverton Operations, which accounts for about 81 per cent of Crescent, which is being delisted.

With the acquisition and new mines, Focus is aiming to almost triple gold production to 200,000 ounces per annum from 72,830 last year.

Head office teams of Crescent and Focus are now being combined. Fromson says two finance teams need to be combined, but there are no plans for job losses in this area due to the merger.

“We have probably got a few areas we can improve on and I would like to improve the reporting to the market a little bit and most importantly to make sure the reporting to the key personnel is first class so they have got all the info at their fingertips,” he says.

Fromson has worked at ASX-listed exploration and resource companies for 18 years and was last working in the gold sector in 1987.

The Australian Financial Review

SHAUN DRUMMOND