three month report card

Three months have now passed since New Hope forced the resignation of the board and installed their puppets to run the company.

The only reason they gave for their action was dissatisfaction with the share price performance. Although they gave no details of how they would improve this, there was a strong implication that this would be their biggest priority.

So what has happened to the company and how has the shareprice performed under the new board?

Following the restructure implemented by the previous board, Dart's SP had been steadily climbing from the low of 3.5c on 3rd June to reach 15c on 25th Sept (an increase of 328%) when New Hope announced their intention t replace the board. Despite only owning 30.3% of the shares in DTE between them, New Hope and GPE managed to engineer the resignation of the board on the morning of the AGM and took control of the Board.

Despite what should have been company making announcements of farm-ins with GDF Suez and Total, the share price is stagnant at 13 cents. Volume has dwindled such that yesterday only $18000 worth of shares traded - and much of that was pathetic little bot trades. The market has lost all interest in Dart.

Unless they attended the AGM, shareholders have heard nothing from Chaiman Rob Neale. When asked at AGM what his vision for the company was and how he was going to achieve this, he declined to answer as he had only just assumed the role and would have to earn more about the company's operations. The only thing he did offer was that he would communicate with shareholders. He said this with a special emphasis.

Well Rob Neale, in the three months since you became chairman you have managed to fail dismally on your only promise. In three months what communication have you had with the shareholders? What is your new vision strategy to take the company forward?

The answer is nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada - not a thing has been heard from the new board or their chairman.
NOTHING, nothing at all.

Since the new Chaiman couldn't bother to communicate with shareholders, I think it is worth looking at the last communication from the previous Chairman before his (and three other board members) unexplained resignation on the morning of the AGM ...
... this is an opportunistic attempt by New Hope to take control of Dart without making a formal takeover offer to all shareholders, and without paying a control premium to other shareholders.

The New Hope proposal for Brisbane-based board control contains no information concerning a strategy to add further value to our world-class assets in the UK, nor how to manoeuvre through the delicate politics and community involvement needed to unlock the latent value in our assets in New South Wales, Indonesia and China.
Given New Hope has not provided any business plan we can only assume that this is part of a move by its parent company Washington H Soul Pattinson and Company Ltd (Soul Pattinson) to protect New Hope from low world coal prices by taking control of oil and gas companies at the expense of other shareholders.
...
We believe that the next stage in the strategy is to gain effective control of Dart (without adopting the normal approach of a formal offer to shareholders at a premium price) by gaining a majority position on Dart’ Board. This is clearly not in the best interest of shareholders.

The Chairman of New Hope wrote to Dart shareholders one week before the AGM to counter this saying:
New Hope is NOT seizing control of your Board ... Without change at the board level of Dart Energy, New Hope fears that the history of poor financial performance will continue. The Dart Energy board needs reinvigoration. The injection of drive and determination displayed by each of the new board candidates is what is needed.

To Robert Millner (Chairman of New Hope) and Rob Neale (Chairman of Dart) I say ..
Despite engineering a takeover of the board of Dart Energy, the history of poor financial performance has continued. No drive or determination has been displayed by any of the puppets you now have on the Dart board.

Despite what was said previously by Neale & Millner there is nothing to show that they are acting in the interests of all shareholders or that they have any plan to improve the financial performance of the company.

The other shareholders ask what is the new vision for Dart Energy? What is the strategy to achieve this and how will the other 69.7% of shareholders benefit from this? Is it unreasonable to expect this after you have been in control of our company for three months?