Some of us knew what to expect from the DRC - here is this guy in 2018 who got a bit of a bollicking when offering their opinion.
For the record - I have a very very small holding in AVZ that is a cheap lesson in sovereign risk, my sympathies are extended for other holders who went big in this and who potentially stand to lose substantial amounts of money. As I predicted in 2018 - a world-class asset, attracts world-class corruption, and no one does it better than the DRC and China. Important lesson to learn here is that the resource and deposit are immaterial if investors don't have any trust or faith in the jurisdiction or there are sovereign risk doubts. No point proving-up a world-class deposit, if it gets taken off the company.
I don't see any way that AVZ management could have held onto this asset, brown paper bagging it might work in the DRC, but is obviously illegal as an ASX-listed entity Total capitulation in negotiation would have left zero ownership and upside for AVZ shareholders, there is no such thing as negotiating in good faith in the DRC, once Beijing starts to exert its influence, and going the other extreme of protecting shareholders interest by vigorously defending and fighting corruption might produce a pyrrhic victory in the ICC, which the government of the DRC and China will obviously ignore anyway.
As I said - very small holding, but voted against Item 1 to focus the minds of current AVZ management and preserve cash, voted against Items 2-18 and the MMGA crowd based on their track record, and voted For Resolutions 18-22 in the "one in a million" unicorn outcome that the current team are most across the issues and they should be the ones to partially own the failure, or make an unlikely success of it.
What people vote for in Australia in the AVZ meeting means diddly-squat at the end of the day, the decision about the ownership of Manono happened behind closed doors in Kinshasa and Beijing.
(20min delay)