the king is dead, long live the king

Whoooa.

Today was like being on stage of a major production.

As most on this forum know I have been a big supporter of management and JH in particular. I have been very disappointed with the fallout amongst management and the enormous damage done to the focus and progress of the company at the very moment of a possible company making oil discovery.

Karl's description is OK but we are talking of over three hours of meeting, with lots of loud, polite anger.

BUT IN THE END THE SHAREHOLDERS HAVE VOTED, a large turnout of 48% with a 70% in favour of Cottee over JH. And all board resolutions enacted.

I chatted to a few shareholders and they all blamed JH for the failures and the rediculous number of shares now listed.

The rebels had their chance, the voting is in, its done, its now time to move on and get behind the new CEO and support the company to become great.

The loud legalise interuptions of CP and JH supporters became borish and in the end they didn't have the votes.

I will make two personal observations.

1 Henry Askin was asked about the share issue (130m in march at 8.5 cents) and why CP wasn't given a crack at the CR.
Askin's reply was that CP had wanted 20% of the company at 7 cents, plus other conditions, so they rejected it.

2 Richard Cottee gave a talk after the 2pm meeting finished. He spoke of turning CTP into another Santos or Woodside. Keeping control of major areas esp, Surprise, and the need to get control of their finances so that they can make farmouts that don't totally rip CTP off. I got the sense that he wanted to make CTP into a major company and not dismember the land holding that JH accumulated.

I left the meetings buoyed by the finality of the result and the enthusiam of the new CEO. I sense that Cottee will be better able to organise the funding that CTP will need. CTP has $30m of expenditure needed on their leases in the next 12 months and only $16M in the bank.

JH and Cottee are meeting next week and I think it is time to bury hatchets and look to the future.

Cottee was probably the CEO of Queensland Gas when it organised a JV with CTP 5 or 6 years ago that later morphed into a British Gas/CTP JV, that became a horror. He is not so new to CTP.

Saltbus