sometimes we judge management too early

... and jump to the wrong conclusions. I am happy QPN took the long but only way and that is one reason why it took so long. QPN ( Thamrin ) did exactly what was needed to avoid the following :




From todays ABC Inside business :

http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2013/s3782776.htm




ALAN KOHLER: (Laughs) Well, there was another gold sad sob story, which was Intrepid Mines. Tell us about that one too.

DEAN PAATSCH: Oh, this is like a soap opera, really, where an Australian company, Intrepid Mines, spent $100 million in Indonesia developing both a gold and copper deposit. However, they did so with basically an Indonesian shelf company, who was their partner because they couldn't own that asset directly.

ALAN KOHLER: The shelf company owned the asset.

DEAN PAATSCH: This shelf company owned the asset that they'd spent years and $100 million drilling holes to work out that it was a massive deposit and worth potentially billions of dollars. However, in the dead of night their Indonesian partner transferred their so-called ownership and left them with a bit of paper to an Indonesian billionaire, so left them with absolutely nothing. So the story looks absolutely terrible for the existing board. They then threatened to sue a few people, including the Indonesian billionaire who has control of the asset. Enter a Hong Kong-based hedge fund who's now trying to tip out the existing board and really at stake is control of $100 million in cash that Intrepid Mines has on its balance sheet. It's a fantastic story of really an Australian company adventure gone disastrously wrong. It's likely that the incumbent board will actually retain their position, amazingly, because I think there's a degree of sentiment in the market that better the devil you know, even though as one pundit put it during the week: it's choice of the better of two weevils.

ALAN KOHLER: What an extraordinary stuff up, really.

DEAN PAATSCH: Oh, it is, it's extraordinary. But, look, I mean, Indonesia, really, is a basketcase commercially. The degree of corruption is endemic. I mean, the Rothschilds got ripped off enormously there last year with almost $1 billion. Again, coal mining assets, even if you've got the paper they aren't worth the paper (inaudible).

ALAN KOHLER: Can the shareholders of this company, Intrepid, get anything out of it apart from a lesson?

DEAN PAATSCH: Well, the market's valuing them at something like $167 million, so the way I look at it's ...

ALAN KOHLER: So they've got $100 million cash.

DEAN PAATSCH: $100 million for cash and $67 million worth of potential legal action, so, good luck with that.







ALAN KOHLER: Right. The cash is real though. 'Cause they didn't spent it yet.

DEAN PAATSCH: The cash is real.

ALAN KOHLER: That's cash they haven't yet spent.

JACQUELINE FERNLEY: But they can't access it.

DEAN PAATSCH: It's a great story.

JACQUELINE FERNLEY: Or the shareholder can't.

DEAN PAATSCH: It's a great story. And appropriately named: Intrepid.