Former Atlas chief to join Pilbara Minerals, page-3

I know there will be a lot of Atlas shareholders that wont want to buy into Pilbara now with this appointment, as he was in charge of the company during the SP fall from over $3 to the suspension at 12c, which subsequently opened at 3.5c afterwards.
However there are a million questions about all that. Like was the company already falling to pieces when he took charge etc, so not really his fault?

He does have the right qualifications in getting mines mining, plus dealing with Altura in the past could be of benefit, though many here seem to think Altura, sharing the same resource, has nothing to do with Pilbara, it could now.
From Ken Brinsden's point of view, he would certainly would want to make this a success, as the company he left will soon be a total failure IMO, with way too high a cost base and too many loans to possibly pay off in time, with a falling IO price and low on developed assets.

The imminent Atlas demise IMO is probably the main reason he has joined the team. He probably inherited the poison chalice at Atlas, with the promise of working a rail deal out on the cards for years but never happened, so IMO it wasn't his fault the demise (soon to be) of the company, so doing well here will be on the cards, and possibly quicker than some other appointments would be. This should be hugely advantageous to shareholders as mining sooner than later will really get the company going.

It is also an appointment that tells me the company is leaning towards mining the deposit and being a large international player in it's own right, instead of looking for a buyout. IMO nothing wrong with that either!!

Lastly, getting mining quickly probably DOES mean merger, T/O or whatever with Altura, as they have the water bore studies underway, and the environmentals underway, so from gaining the actual mining license would be closer using their resource first. Plus with TT running for 18 months, then Strelley, for a total of 5 years Tantalum, which adds 20% to the world Tantalum supply, and prices are falling for Tantalum at present (around $58/lb) there is no advantage in mining the tantalum deposits up North/East first. So starting with straight Lithium (possibly cheaper set-up) mining the concentrated (in area) Altura resource first makes sense.

It also means doing something with Altura quickly, not waiting might/should be on the cards if they were to go that way.

However you look at it, the market responded positively to Ken's appointment yesterday anyway.