the australian kev s mad keen on golden west, page-6

Sorry guy's this article cracked me up so much, and I can see wally and inco-herent getting a bit upset and stressed out, so I want wally and inco to sit back, relax and read this article and have a good laugh. It will chill them out a bit.


Kev's mad keen on Golden West

Kevin Andrusiak | December 13, 2007

AFTER spending an hour with Fairstar Resources managing director Kevin Robertson we can assure you he is quite mad.

Not mad as in the tied-up-in- a-straight-jacket-whistling-nursery-rhymes-while-watching-the-test-pattern-on-a-black-and-white-television kind of variety.

No, were not talking about that kind of mad.

We're talking mad as in he's mad keen about his company�s chances of taking over Golden West Resources. Mad keen about his own chances of taking over the reins of the enlarged company and mad keen on grand plans to take the business intergalactic.

Well, at least globally in the first instance.

He's also mad keen that Golden West shareholders, if they thought long and hard about the matter, would won't Fairstar scrip.

Seven Fairstar shares for every Golden West share is the current offer from Kev and the crew.

He's madly in love with Fairstar's prospects, particularly that of Kurnalpi, which has had more than its fair share of owners, and is mad keen on that asset one day becoming a million ounce project.

At least that's what early testing, mostly surface sampling, and a bit of lateral thinking on the geology of the deposit have suggested to him.

But he's equally mad (only in the good sense, of course) about the prospects of the Wiluna West iron ore project, which is Golden West's key asset, should he be pulling the levers on that one.

He's talking about a possible Fortescue Metals Mark II. He's talking about getting stacks and stacks of drill rigs working across the 150km strike length and building a resource quicker than the other mob ever could. And he's not talking about getting the joint jumping within weeks, he's talking about within hours or days.

In fact, and Kev's not alone in this way of thinking and Daily Assay remains ambivalent on this front, he can't quite work out why Golden West hasn't done a better job of promoting Wiluna West to the wider world. Especially since iron ore is the new black.

Give the asset to Kev and he'll bust it wide open. Don't judge him on what he's done to date with the Fairstar assets, judge him on what he's saying he can do.

Anyway, there you have it, Kevin Robertson is mad, but in the positive, good-natured, shareholder-loving sense of the word.

(He's also a little bit mad in the angry way about Daily Assay labelling him a certified quarry manager dynamo. He would rather be called an entrepreneur. We'll stick with the certified quarry manager dynamo for the time being, because we can't go handing out the entrepreneur tag willy nilly).

Oh, we almost forgot, there are those two little issues of who's really running the show and the money.

Silly us.

Kevin Robertson wants all and sundry to know that a Kalgoorlie driller by the name of John, who just happens to be a big shareholder in both Golden West and Fairstar, is not driving the Fairstar bus. He has no more input than any other shareholder. No, Fairstar hasn't bought anyone any cars. And no, this John cat won't get a success fee if the Fairstar takeover play is successful.

As for the money. Daily Assay's mind turns to the late great Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's catch cry of �don't you worry about that�.

Kev's got plans already in train and he wouldn't tell us about them because the information is not public yet.

Fair enough.

But Kev, you'll need bucket loads of cash to fund your fleet of drill rigs and pay all the fees and taxes associated with the takeover?

And Kev, would it be wise to let shareholders know that you have this money thing under control because it might even entice a few more to take-up your offer?

Don't worry too much about the money side of things. It's all under control, he assured us.

Which is comforting, given that by Daily Assay's latest calculations, things are getting pretty heavy on the cash front.

Given that they hold 24.96 million shares, Fairstar would need about $3.07 million if it was to take up its entitlements in Golden West's 1-for-15 rights issue at $1.85 a share.

Then there's the $22.8 million needed to acquire the outstanding $2 and $3 options in Golden West that it hasn't already done a deal for. Add that to the $25.6 million in other transaction costs, which includes $6.5m to advisers, $13m in stamp duty and $5.9m in �other professional advisers fees�.

These aren't figures we are making up, they're right there in the Supplementary Bidders' Statement.

But don't worry, Kev's got irons in the fire, plans in play, but he's not prepared to share us that information yet and he damn well doesn't have to.

There's always a good old fashioned capital raising to be had and what's wrong with having more than 1 billion shares on issue?

I love to have a beer with Kevin, `cos Kevin's me mate.