Speculator, There have been a few mining stories like this, some...

Speculator,

There have been a few mining stories like this, some dodgy deals, back stabbing and even a board of directors perishing in a plane crash. It’s a risky thing doing business in questionable parts of the world.

I remember being invested in Sundance, they had good success in exploration and resource definition of an iron ore deposit/ cluster in west Africa. The problems for them started when they lost their board of directors on a charter plane crash. They had one deal full through due to links to a Chinese Triad which was concocted to make money on insider trading trading in Sundance stock. They subsequently had issues trying to get a backer for the development, made a deal with a Chinese backed outfit listed on the Asx which subsequently fell through. That deal then backfired with the counter party using information gained to take the permit via their Chinese connections. I made 20% on this as I got out after the board passing away, I consider myself lucky. The company is no longer listed and is trying to get compensation via the international court.

Another unfortunate miner called Intrepid had a deal with a local Indonesian family via a third party. Things went well for a number of years discovering a very large copper gold porphyry resource. The company had a falling out with their third party and started engaging directly with the family that owned the tenements. Subsequently the attempts to get direct ownership of the tenements were stalled and slow going. Then suddenly one day they discover that the third party had made a deal with a large Indonesian outfit to develop the deposit. Intrepid had sunk $120m into proving up the resource and had lost it all. It took about a year and a few deals with some politically connected individuals to get their money back and walk away. Indonesia isn’t an easy part of the world to do business as quite often the politicians require kickbacks to guarantee safety of permits and ease to development. Many of the largest contractors in Indonesia are connected to the military and the military is a common place for politicians to start from.