Hi Jasmac, I agree with your general comment mate. Management...

Hi Jasmac,

I agree with your general comment mate. Management need to take a more professional view of how they are running the company in terms of communication. I have no doubt that we are in for good news, and I don't base that on chit-chatter this morning ...but from the companies own announcements (more later), however recent performance suggests that they are not concerned about meeting their own guidelines for announcement timing. I'm happy to cut them some slack regarding the breakdowns ...but would you say that you will release Cobalt rock chip samples last week ...and then not release them. It was a self-imposed deadline! If you can't meet the deadline then don't volunteer the deadline.

The use of the word "shortly" for both Elisio and Cascavel for over a month also created self-imposed angst from shareholders and if you provide complete and accurate information via an ASX announcement, you won't put staff in the invidious position of trying to assuage individual investors fears (fraught with danger), because you won't have requests from shareholders for personal information (also fraught with danger). Once we accept special treatment, we are part of an "insiders" group from which we may have difficulty escaping. It can become one big world of "you scratch my back ..." -not unlike any organised illicit organisation. If a company gets a reputation as being a leaky ship ...it's hard to every regain wider trust.

Management I implore you ...set an example for staff to follow and make it clear that insider information must be kept secret. Each staff member should be party to an intellectual property and policy regarding insider trading agreement -and IMHO you need to read the riot act to all.

In our current situation we have one week of March production resulting in a large SP decline, and yet we have multiple sources of potential good news. This is a situation where insider trading can potentially flourish. The last announcement states that the mining results for Antenna were probably received last week and will be reported this week. Why the delay? Isn't that at odds with continuous disclosure obligations?



The law:



If information may have leaked?



Regarding trading:


I'm also curious why OGX's "blackout" periods don't include the release of price sensitive information.



...and finally, it is not so much about the letter of the law (which is riddled with exceptions and enforcement difficulties anyway) ...but how trading (and company management generally) is perceived by the market:


In our case, we have a good idea of market perception of OGX from the multitude of comments on this forum.

Despite certain misgivings regarding communication, I am a great supporter of current management style and business approach and I have no doubt (read my other fundamental posts) that we will soon be in for good news from some of the multiple potential sources.

When good news comes and the SP recovers, I would like management to take the opportunity to reflect on corporate governance and shareholder communication and tighten up the policy and practice to increase shareholder trust.

I could simply offer obsequious praise ...but a "yes man" is of no genuine value to the company AFAICT.

Cheers,

SJB

PS My next post will review some of the recent news and FA from an overall perspective. I remain very positive towards OGX.