To Spielly and Peppie,My point is not whether Essa was worth $1...

To Spielly and Peppie,

My point is not whether Essa was worth $1 or not; it was that too many people on Hotcopper, instead of having the courage of their convictions and doing a mailout, felt more comfortable having a good old whingefest with one another.

This misdirected energy resulted in all shareholders, according to your figures, being supposedly short-changed to the tune of some $15 million. Perhaps that is the correct figure.

The only people who took control of the microphone - on the stage that really counted - were the Directors, and FLSmidth. And when you look at what they had to say, your chance was served up to you on a platter.

All you had to do was write to the top 95% (500 shareholders). It's only a microcap, for heaven's sake. Outline your case in no more than 3 pages. Come up with alternative valuations, but go light on the figures. Explain historical returns, make valuation comparisons with other similar industry players, adopt different valuation models - but above all, be conservative and be credible. By all means describe the macro situation; definitely strip the cash out of it. But also, strip the emotion out of it. Don't denigrate the Directors. Have a lawyer check it.

Play on the fact there wasn't even a valuation from an Independent Expert. Use the Board's logic of comparing offer price to share prices - but use historical prices (at these same ROE's) to make their recommendation look foolish.

If just two of you did this, even better. Shareholders would now have something sound to go by, and FLSmidth would have struggled to get 75%. They had a little more up their sleeve - 73 cents was their first offer, yes?

You may have ended up possibly with another 15 cents, say. That's $8 million. If you held 1%, that's an extra $80,000; even as little as 1/10th of 1%, that's an extra $8,000. Well worth the effort. But like sheep bleating at the falling rain, you just stood there.

Gotta get active, guys!