my pleasure. For a foreign investor it is necessary to contact the home broker. The broker should have a department or at least a contact person who is able to find out what Australian Nominee is dealing as CHESS holder for the broker and its customers. Your broker should be able - on your demand - to place a voting proxy through this Nominee in the General Meeting. The problem is, that almost no broker is proactively informing its customers about AGMs. So German or other European investors will have to contact the broker as soon as possible after the invitation for the AGM is out.
Remember when I met Mark back in April 2008 in Frankfurt. He is no expert in metallurgy or geology at all but in terms of corporate finance and all related stuff he is - in my view - amongst the best in the sector. This triple or double A rating of Mark causes even more serious irritation in respect of the proposed ECE deal. I refuse to believe that there is no deeper reason for this deal apart from collecting the means to finish the BFS. I don't know if this is about political constraints. I mean the Chinese are the new conquistadores in Africa and as we know it took just a few weeks to get rid of the Taiwanese even the embassador. So it would probably just a breeze to get rid of a company like Globe (just look at Spur Ventures, ok it's in China but Malawi is pretty much depending on China). Secondly I can imagine that the metallurgy of Kanyika is far more complex than we currently are aware of. May be Thuluka just were after the quick dollar but Globe is probably going for a more sophisticated and cost intense approach. Could be other technical constraints but something that deters standard strategic investors. A third theory could be that Mark already knows that FIRB won't pass this deal although the deposit is in Malawi and not Australia. I followed the media landscape and this proposed deal was in almost everyone's mouth. Could be pretty cunning to attract worldwide investors with such a "binding" agreement - just a bit conspiracy theory - but honestly Maigret - over the last 7 years in resource investments we have seen a lot of unbelievable drama (like Forsys, just to give a well known example or remember the crises in Eritrea when the Government shut down all mines and exploration sites from on day to another). At the end of the day I could imagine to be convinced by Mark to follow him in this deal but if doesn't talk to us to give us the crucial background information NO is the only vote that makes sense to get Mark out of his seashell.
Wish you a nice weekend
Lenni
GBE Price at posting:
33.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)