What I said is that I give no credit to Santos Directors for the so called turn around.
Unfortunately share holders like bleating sheep accept whatever crap is thrown at them by Directors and pay them millions of dollars in salaries. And if any share holder has the temerity to say " That is crap" other share holders will try and silence him.
Fortunately you have given Fortescue as an example. However, FMG shows exactly the difference between good directors and all wind directors we have at STO.
FMG went the high debt route. When the price of iron ore collapsed, they did not panic. In the face of constant media barrage, they DID NOT do any capital raisings! They even kept paying dividends. In the back ground they reduced production costs so from being one of the highest cost producer, they are now one of the lowest. They installed gas plants. They negotiated payments in advance from customers etc etc.
Now compare that to Santos Directors.
DID not do a capital raising when the share price was north of $12.
The chairman arrogantly did not engage with a suitor at $6.80.
We bring in a STAR in to turn the company around. But he would only come if we did a capital raising first, which we duly did.
He immediately starts writing assets off.
We then kept getting reports out about cost reductions. Never mind that the plants were nearly completed when he joined and therefore costs would naturally reduce.
Halted dividend payments.
We then got an announcement saying how good the state of affairs were at STO land and then within days they did another hugely capital raising. Again ASX and ASIC took no action.
Arrogantly did not let the market know that they had a take over bid on the table.
Shall I go on? Which manager would you pick? Nev of FMG or the clown we have?
I will make it easy for you to understand. Suppose you were the sole proprietor with some good assets and not so good assets and that you got yourself in high debt to the tune of $10M. You also lived on the returns of these assets. The banks are at your door. You take action! You look for a high flyer to help you . He says give me a salary of $2M plus free options and i will fix your problem. you hire him. He says this is easy. I will sell all of your not so good assets. I want you to take no more income from the assets. And I want $8M from you so I can bring your debts down to a manegable level. You of course would be ecstatic with that would you? Because this is exactly what has happened at STO! And you don't think my 5 year old grand son could come up with the same plan? Give me a break!
Pear
STO Price at posting:
$5.14 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)