looks like its the whinging poms causing weakness

Looks like its the whinging poms causing the weakness in the short term, thanks UK now I can get some cheapies ehheheh

I'd prefer Ed to drill then waste his time in UK.

Date: October 27, 2005

The Decision To De-List St Barbara Mines From AIM May Not Be Silent Ed's
Shrewdest Move.


As we pointed out in our recent news item on ASX and AIM listed St Barbara
Mines just over a week ago, Silent Ed Eshuys had crept into London on
business, but still made no contact with Minews despite a request from AIM
listed Mercator Gold which is St Barbara's joint venture partner at
Meekatharra. He was originally christened Silent as he resolutely refused to
respond to a number of calls from Our Man In Oz and would not even see him
for a minute when he went to his office.

Now we know why Ed has been so silent. One of the reasons he was in London
was to seek the delisting of St Barbara's shares on AIM with effect from 18
November. The reason given is that turnover in its stock on AIM totaled
2,992,202 shares for the period 29 September 2004 to 29 September 2005,
representing just 5 per cent of the company's current issued share capital.
This, according to Silent Ed, made the cost of maintaining an AIM listing
outweigh any benefits to the company and its shareholders.

This begs the question as to who, in the name of God, would have wanted to
trade the stock during that period. Plenty of UK shareholders had been
stuck in the shares at a loss since the days of promise conducted by Stephen
Miller. Silent Ed was made a director in July last year and since then there
have only been five announcements on exploration progress in addition to the
mandatory announcements such as quarterlies and annual results. In fact
there was nothing on exploration from February this year to August, a gap of
six months.

Perhaps Silent Ed thought that his presence alone would lead to a huge
uplift in the volume of trade in St Barbara. Unfortunately not a lot of
investors in the UK have heard of Ed who describes himself on the St Barbara
website as follows: "Mr Eshuys is a geologist with 36 years of experience
in mineral exploration, development and operation of gold and nickel mines
in Australia. He has a credible record in exploration having led the
exploration teams that discovered several major gold deposits, including
Plutonic, Bronzewing and Jundee. He brought Bronzewing and Jundee as well as
the Cawse Nickel mine into production. Mr Eshuys was awarded the Geological
Society of Australia's Joe Harms medal for distinction in exploration
success and project development in 1996. He is a Fellow of both the
Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Institute of
Mining and Metallurgy."

Quite a chap, but Minews wondered why he forgets to mention New Hampton
Goldfields, a step in his career post Plutonic, Bronzewing and Dundee. He
was chief executive there until it was taken over by Harmony Gold more than
four years ago and we wrote at the time that the deal was below what he had
hoped as his options were still out of the money. Since then little has
been heard from Silent Ed so it is hardly surprising that investors bided
their time when he appeared at St Barbara.

As Our Man In Oz pointed out, the new management team, an injection of fresh
capital, a couple of corporate deals, and a busy production and exploration
schedule has gone a long way to restore confidence Down Under in the once
prominent Australian goldminer. In London it is still under review and if
Eshuys is determined to de-list, that is probably where it will remain.
The question that is being asked around the City is how many times he came
to London since being appointed last year and how much effort he put into
promoting the company in the northern hemisphere.

The last company to de-list of its own free will was Portman, and very soon
after it did so it was bid for by Cleveland-Cliffs. George Jones, chairman
of Portman, constantly whinged that no one took any notice of Portman in
London, but the truth was that the company made virtually no effort to
promote itself. When its time came eventually with iron ore prices
increasing on the back of higher production, George had no fan club as he
had not visited London for many a long month.

Now take a look at Consolidated Minerals which has been one of the great
success stories of Australia. From the moment Michael Kiernan got the
company going he was in and out of London. In a matter of months getting
on for 40 per cent of his company was held by UK shareholders following its
listing on AIM. He knew that a listing on AIM was no magic potion. It has
to be worked at and his visits have continued like clockwork.

Maybe Silent Ed ought to have a word with Big Mick. From a London
perspective it would appear that Silent Ed thought the extra work of
maintaining a dual listing would interfere with his job of drilling holes in
the ground (see News 18 October). Everyone knows that investors in the UK
can trade shares on the ASX any time they like and that is where St Barbara'
s stock will remain tradable. The same goes for Europeans, but they all
tend to prefer AIM if possible. It is just one of those psychological things
appreciated by experienced company promoters who want to have the ability
to tap as many sources of capital round the world as possible.