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Sav, the motion will refer to the management options only. The company already had the authority (granted by shareholders) to issue and allot the staff options. Had it been possible to vote again for the staff options, I would have voted in favour. However, I will vote against giving the company power to create more options for the directors...unless they set the strike price at £3.

TheItalian, just to repeat myself from this morning, these options will not be exercised unless there's an exit event. Just think about the arithmetic.

Well said ,JS.

I suspect Newcrest would have...BHP, who knows? Mind you, without looking, I imagine the BHP board has options coming out of it ears.

JS, I agree. I'm all in favour of seeing a workforce rewarded, as this will be their one chance to earn some serious money, but I really don't like large awards for directors. They should take the same risk as we ordinary shareholders (I know NM is massively exposed, so i'm excluding him) and dip into their pockets to buy in the market.
This is just my view and I know many people have a different opinion, but to me, directors awards are taking money out of my pocket for no risk.
BTW, another corporate governance bug bear I have, is chairman having shares. I like my chairmen to be properly independent and having shares clouds the issue.

RR, yes, they are. That's the point, really.
A partial sale is more complex, particularly as the staff are unlikely to have sufficient 'proper' shares to raise enough cash via a divi.
The other point to note is the Exercise Period; three years. In other words, NM sees that as the absolute back-stop. It's my view that there will be a lot of happy bunnies in Ecuador by this time next year.

No we don't. We have the Japanese trading house Hanwa on board.
Close, but not close enough.

RichyRich, I'm afraid you're missing the point.
These options are not designed to provide cash for the company; there is no way on God's Earth that staff members could afford to pay for them. This is a straightforward exit bonus.

It happens just before the point of signing. Money has to change hands, so financing has to be put in place, but normally it's held in escrow by the company's lawyer. Of course, it's repaid immediately and the lender takes a fat fee. The next thing that happens is that the beneficiaries go out and get pissed.

You guys might be interested in the RNS issued by CMCL this morning.

schlemiel, that was my point. The staff wouldn't be able to divi-up £50 odd million and pre-selling them wouldn't be an option. This has exit written all over it.

Oh, and by the way, I won't vote for the creation of any more; not that it will make any difference.

bloody options!
Still, at least the strike price is 60p and the quantity of them suggests they've been put in place for an exit event.

FR101, I've wondered about the same thing.
Possible explanations:
1) assay results are crap.
2) something else is going on in the background, like a bid.
3) He got it wrong.
4) they got lost in the post.
Take your pick.

I believe that's called confirmation bias, isn't it?

earthling, many placings are simply based upon a teaser document which is no more than a precis of what's already out there.In other words, an ii doesn't become an insider when making the decision; in fact most iis will not limit themselves by going down the insider route. You may be surprised by this, but it's a fact. However, the situation with BHP is different for a number of reasons, but I still don't think they'd have wanted to become insiders. Of course, once they're on the board, life changes immediately and they are bound by all of the restrictions associated with either being a director or having a nominee on the board.

JS, not sure I understand your question?

schlemiel, you make an interesting point.
The legal position is that they are shareholders and the information available to them should be available to all shareholders...this is enshrined in company law.
However, by virtue of having a board position (in the case of Newcrest) they will have exposure to all sensitive information. This contradiction is covered by the permanent imposition of an agreement stating that they are insiders and are governed by all of the conditions associated with that situation.
Of course, BHP have yet to nominate an NED, so theoretically they will not have access to sensitive information.
This is the theory. Some companies take this issue seriously, others less so. My gut feeling is NM takes it very seriously indeed, particularly given the inherent threat to independence.
Conclusion? I'm not sure BHP were given inside info and based their decision on the publicly available data. The reason I say this is that if they'd been made insiders before raising their stake, they would have limited their options in terms of turning hostile if they couldn't reach terms with NM.

GS, is that the fantasy world where he's surrounded by millions of pounds of other people's money? Who will ever forget the share sale brilliantly disguised as a purchase? That was an all-time corker.

StatsMan, that's a good question. There are likely to have been a few conversations between the Exchange and the company's broker about this. The company will no doubt be arguing that an announcement isn't required due to the fact that in their opinion, there had been no good reason for the fall. To a large extent, these things are discretionary and subject to negotiation between the company, it's broker and the exchange.
Having said that, I have been expecting one.