Anton Billis is Lasseter’s Reef in human form: a mystery of the Australian gold industry who has become layered in myths and legends over time. Over the past four decades the reclusive and enigmatic Billis has operated two of the most secretive and opaque listed businesses in Australia, quietly building Tribune Resources and Rand Mining into a $330 million gold mining empire. He has done so from a modest, dated building abutting the freeway in South Perth, with its overgrown garden bed and peeling walls, all the while studiously avoiding ever drifting into the public eye.
Over his long career he has never appeared at a conference, courted brokers or — until now — sat down with the media. The total absence from public engagement has spawned a thousand theories about the man and his companies. But the reason he has worked so hard to avoid the spotlight, he says, is simple.
“I’m a private person,” he told The Weekend Australian as he finally broke his silence. Promoting his companies and courting attention, he says, wastes shareholder money that could otherwise be put to better use growing the businesses and making more discoveries. “I don’t run around the city making extravagant noise and telling stories to the brokers. I don’t do it because I don’t like to see the people who buy our stock lose their money,” he said. “Promoters, West Perth is full of them. They tell all sorts of stories.”
But there have been plenty of stories about Tribune and Rand over the years too. For a long time, large parts of the Perth investment community questioned whether the gold bullion stockpiles built up by Tribune and Rand were genuine. There were rumours about whether chairman Otakar Demis was alive, or even existed. The mention of the questions about Demis’s existence prompt a hearty belly laugh from Billis. Demis’s no-show at last year’s Kalgoorlie annual general meeting — which as usual was closed to non-shareholders — was due to heart surgery. Argonaut’s Eddie Rigg, who is advising Tribune, confirmed he had spoken to Demis and confirmed he was real. The legend about the gold was put to bed when Tribune and Rand liquidated their positions and handed the cash back to shareholders last year. That happened just as the companies were running into trouble with the Takeovers Panel, but Billis said the board had been discussing such a move for about a year in the belief gold prices had enjoyed the run they’d been waiting for.
That payout means Tribune and Rand have returned $282.2m in dividends since 2010, comparable to the total dividends paid out over the same time frame by much larger companies such as Northern Star ($287m), Regis Resources ($325.8m) and Evolution ($357.4m). Billis can also point to the company’s share performance to defend his aversion to promotion. Tribune is the second-best performing gold stock in the ASX since 2010, behind only runaway success story Northern Star.
When he sat down with The Weekend Australian yesterday, the balding 75-year-old is dressed head to toe in varying shades of khaki field gear, ready to get back to the outback at any moment. It’s in the bush, picking through rocks and hunting for gold, where Billis feels most at home. The walls of Tribune’s modest office are covered in landscape oil paintings of his native Croatia, which he left in 1976 with hopes of exploring the world. He arrived in Australia and started out in Sydney and Melbourne before moving to Perth, where he stayed for the weather and the opportunity. Like thousands of migrants before him, the lure of the goldfields was strong. He took up prospecting, learning the tricks of the trade as he went. By 1982, he had pegged the ground that would ultimately host the big East Kundana mine — which has since thrown out hundreds of millions of dollars in cash for Billis and his fellow Tribune and Rand shareholders. It is the growing stand-off over the lucrative East Kundana mine that finally prompted Billis to end his lifelong aversion to the media.
Tribune and its sister company Rand Mining own a combined 49 per cent of East Kundana, with gold heavyweight Northern Star holding the remaining 51 per cent. But the joint venture that has grown increasingly acrimonious and seemingly untenable in recent months. Tribune and Rand, whose murky share registers and cross-ownership had long been at the root of various theories and speculation, were brought before the Takeovers Panel last year after a complaint from Sydney fund manager Rohan Hedley. The Panel ultimately found that the market had been “materially misinformed” about the true ownership of Rand and Tribune, and in particular the stakes held by Billis and his wife. Billis says he is unable to comment further about the Takeovers Panel decision, citing the tough restrictions on discussing panel matters. But he has publicly acknowledged his mistake and is certain that the contentious disclosures have been corrected.
It’s clear though that Northern Star’s decision to make an offer of $150m for Tribune and Rand’s stake in East Kundana has left him angry. Having spent the past 37 years actively involved in the project, Billis is in no doubt that his companies’ positions are worth much more than that. He is also increasingly concerned about the running of the mine, noting that cash costs have risen materially since Northern Star stood down contractor Barminco and took over the day to day operation. Mining costs, he says, are up almost 40 per cent under Northern Star and the mine is extracting too much waste alongside the ore. Trucking the East Kundana ore to Northern Star’s Kanowna Belle processing plant also adds to the mine’s operating costs, he says, given there are other hungry processing plants closer by. And the process of batch-treating East Kundana ore through Kanowna Belle costs the joint venture around 16,000 ounces of gold production each year. The emergence of Evolution Mining on Tribune’s share register last week has set the scene for a showdown over East Kundana.
Despite dedicating a big chunk of his life to East Kundana, Billis says he is willing to offload the project if he can get a fair price. One thing he won’t do, however, is stop working. “What else am I going to do? I love discovering new mines,” he said. “My driver is not the money. It’s discovering things and building things.” Paul Garvey
TBR Price at posting:
$4.10 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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