what is going on?, page-68

G'day missionx

I could not continue our discussion the other day, I was already late for a pickup, and am very busy ATM with work and also had promised to do a removal for a friend, (thats what happens when you have a truck and a good back).

So this arvo I have a bit of time to reply fully to your points.

First of all, my going for gold strategy, I fully know it has snowballs, but just thought outside the box, and thought I would throw it out there, it seemed a few liked the idea, but others obviously didnt.

I fully agree with your rights to your opinions, but I also have the rights to mine as well. As to getting angry, I was talking about my first post on this thread, maybe frustration, maybe anger, maybe both, as I said I thought I had gotten over the old OZL, but this litagation and vretts posts (I know how much pain the Oz fiansco caused vretts and many others at the time), probably caused these feelings to surface again.


As to Terry Burgess, I have nothing against our new CEO, I was quite happy when he was chosen to be our CEO, but as far as loving 99.8% what he has done, I think he has made a few serious errors, yes it easy to sit here and be an armchair general, and as I said in the first post

I am not trying to offend anyone here, just calling it as I see it, each to their own

So back to your reply, the facts

You relate TBs performance to the OZL Sharprice performance,

"TB has almost quadrupled your share price. WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WHO FEEL OZL (or TB)SHOULD/SHOULD HAVE DONE WANT ?

In my earlier reply I mentioned Anvils 1400% appreciation, even your beloved PNAs SP has gone up over 700% in this timeframe, EQN up over 500%, (These company are our peers), copper itself went up 300% in USD terms. OZL has gone up 300% from its nadir. We have underpreformed our peers by upwards of 60% in the timeframe you mentioned, so if measured using your performance matrix, TB has underperformed his peers.


"I'm also finding in one breath some are posting, and accusing OZL for not being aggressive, next post saying they should be conservative, just because a little time as passed and things a tad dearer. I believe if something is really worth buying paying a little more is nether here or there. Quality always shines though 99% of the time"

Problem is things just arnt just a tad dearer anymore, they are many multiples of their low prices of 15-18mths ago. There was a time to be agressive and there is a time to be conservative. If you look at the copper price 5 year chart, what has happened in the last 2 years is similar to what would normally take around 10-15 years to complete, a cyclical high to a cyclical low then back up to a higher high, 400% swings either way, time and action is critical with the volitility we have experienced.


"There so many important points to make I'll be here all day. but lets be at least generous enough to give them/him some credit for their SFR buy - SFR have tried to thwart them but OZL have a strategic stake and may flex their muscle to make their stake even more attractive. And don't forget they have made (or stand to make) a killing on the capital they invested into SFR".

We have not made a killing, we are holding an equity positon in a company that doesnt want to know us, yes it has increased in value, but that was mainly because we bought our stake, and some good drilling results since buying our position, if these drills came back with not much success, we would probably be around break even, even so we are up around 100mil on paper, but what would happen to SFR SP if we did sell, and in the total marketcap of $5billion, $100mil is only 2%. But yes it does look like a succesful small position/investment for OZL.


"Mate a CEO has multiple roles. He has to manage the day to day running of the business, he has to manage shareholder expectations and he has to implement the company strategy"

The company strategy

Zero harm, keep exploring around PH, fine tune the PH operation.

Pursue Australian and international opportunities in low to medium risk jurisdictions which have the potential to increase earnings of the company significantly and have the potential to support a mine life of more than 10 years.

It took around 5 months to come up with this, the first board meeting when TB took over, took from memory 100 days to convene, this is during that brief period of time when bargains were screaming to be had, when we needed action and vision.

By raising the bar so high on what we wanted, we achieved nothing (except SFR) in over a year, its like someone wanting to buy a good condition commodore, that hadnt been trashed, spun back or repaired and only looking in Broadmeadows, you could go out looking every weekend, kick a lot of tyres, and then find something that met what you were looking for only to be laughed at when you told them how much you wanted to pay.

"He has not over promised and under delivered (like CDU has). He has met or exceeded every promise he has made to the market",

I cant think of many promises he has made, though he did say in late 09, "If we are messing around in 12 months time and we haven't got something to say then we've really got to consider where we are" Mr Burgess told the AFR.
"I think we need to have some kind of objectives or a timetable. If in 12 months time there's good reason why we havent done something, then we should explain that".

We are past that time limit.

"he knows that cash is King, and with OZL regretting not having the cash once before, he is making sure that he is not making the same mistake again"

Problem with that statement is cash is not king, productive assets are king, we sold ours for a pile of cash which we have not turned back to productive assets, and that is why we have underpermed our peers, we had a market cap that was ballooned by a way too large cash component for too long, the productive assets went up in price but our cash actually went backwards in purchasing power to buy the productive assets we wanted. Even if we had done a large share buyback with the cash, that would have reduced our market cap, so in percentage terms we would be up there closer to our peers SP performance.


I know I am being harsh on TB, that is not my intent beleive it or not, but no good just patting ourselves on the back all the time, TB has done a serviceable job as our new CEO, but as for loving 99.8% of what he has done, I dont, just calling it as I see it, each to their own.


cheers grant


the above is opinion only and written without prejudice