Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
Hi Q. I can see it as a viable scenario. Yes, certainly there are turnkey contractors who will design and deliver the infrastructure. Further, we can recruit the competence to act as intelligent client to tender and commission their services. What troubles me is that underground work has lots of scope for creating issues that can be managed but at a price. After that, if you move into operations, and then distribution, then your business is having to master many many new business capabilities in very short order. It’s do-able but it’s much harder if you have predators, and doubters on the share register, or are pushing into markets where there are more seasoned players. That’s a lot of potential headwind. The classic way to manage those risks down is to partner with organisations who have those skills and who can work with you as a team. My perspective is my own, but i would look to build those business capabilities by entering a JV with some seasoned players within the alpala / ensa ring fence and I’d be much happier hooking up with smaller players. Bhp and Newcrest are big beasties which is a huge project endorsement on the one hand, they are also predators who would swallow us whole. Partnering now with a smaller but ambitious miner who fears bhp themselves makes a lot of sense to me. Solg + such a firm combined could very credibly be the major in the making.
So I will say this to get it off my chest and then concentrate on optimising the England World Cup squad instead.
Key role for a CEO I believe is key investor relationships. Obviously the CEO has to use the 80:20 rule here, there are a lot of investors. Sometimes, those investors are here for the growth and investment return of the company and buy the boards vision. Sometimes they are predators who see a bigger return for their own shareholders by seizing control and changing the companies direction. Now, we have three disillusioned shareholders with different motivations but who have found common cause and used an easy to assemble block vote to shake the tree. Our board have gone to considerable lengths to round up every shareholding sheep on the fell to fend that off, and succeeded. However, unless they work harder to communicate and consult, it might not always be repeatable and it only takes one adverse vote and it’s game over for realising something close to full value.
I’ve no idea what comes next. I can see many scenarios, but even if the strategy stays the same, the manner of its execution surely has to change. There are many who might take a quid for one in the hand, the two in the bush requires patience, faith and a degree of luck. There is a price at which our defensive alliance will crumble. The better the comms, the less risky the strategy, the better our chances . Just my thoughts. Add them to the rest.
Hi Q. If we are collating professional backgrounds, I’m a chartered mechanical engineer steeped in projects, manufacturing, operations and to a lesser degree, business administration. That probably leaves me slightly schizophrenic at times :)
@Q. Aye. Interested to see what happens next. I don’t think yesterday’s voting was a surprise to the board else we wouldn’t have seen the efforts to harness the PI vote. I did expect more than just the voting yesterday .. either they were phased by the tech, or were leaving the speeches for the morning after having digested it all. I doubt they are going to remain silent for long.
JV Alpala and get them off our backs for a bit, develop an income stream from that so we can avoid dilution and drill out the rest and go it alone on something technically and commercially more modest. There’s a strategy.
I’m ageing and distressed but I’m doing this for my daughter, and my later retirement. I can wait. Recent events feel, to me, like 20 schoolkids have bought a bag of sweets to share, they went to the shops, and three big kids from the upper school turn up to impose their will and take the sweeties for no effort. Since it’s business, it’s not bullying, but I don’t want to play with bhp, Newcrest or cornerstone anymore. I do wish we could use them in a JV so we get an income stream though and then our first solo mine might be something more entry level financially, and technically.
Hi Ship. Aye, I can’t see the cash need right now so normally yes, oven ready for the right moment. But in the power games we’re seeing today and in the next few weeks they must be cards played some time, somehow. I’m just wondering when that moment is.
Well Nan is a shareholder. Of course he can vote for himself. MPs get to vote for themselves in a general election. If he owned 100% of the shares he wouldn’t ask us at all. Three groups with big block of votes each found common cause to gang up on our man so they could steal our company and get it on the cheap for their own shareholders. Close shave. Will have repercussions, but today they FAILED.
Hi BN.C. When it was in the last 1-2p trough was when I did my last buying for a long, long while. It was very wobbly back then. There were something like 770 m shares issued. Then we had the big issues for Newcrest, Blackrock etc and the sp suddenly set off up to 46p. later BHP bought up the scoundrels exiting to Cornerstone. At the time Nick did did say that broadening the share register had to be done. I see his point now.
After today I think it’s either hostile bid time, or an option to JV Alpala. Walking the tightrope further clearly needs far more care now gloves are off. Better focus on messaging and delivery. Can’t afford to loose many supporters. Interesting poker game. Who really knows. All sorts of possibilities.