Bill:
I have been reviewing all my material including analyst reports, an article by John Felderhop detailing the potential of Indonesia, dated 1993, drill results, the history of the central zone, and on and on. The more I read, the more I am convinced that the Busang is not a total sham. A great deal of thought and expertise went into defining the southeast zone. I get a picture of men who were very excited about their find and attempted to delineate the deposit the way a detective proceeds in solving a case. Clearly, the material does not give the impression or the feeling of the creation of a scam. I do not know what the resolution of this saga is going to be, but I can envision BXM proving up a smaller deposit, how much smaller, it is hard to say.
I owned BXM from 8/95 thru 8/96 and one of the reasons I liquidated my position was I began to detect a subtle difference in the company, beginning in March of 96. At that time they began talking about stock splits, joint venture partners, and the spinoff of other companies. After the company outlined some of these events, the administration and scheduling of them began to appear somewhat clumsy to me. Then I heard about the questions surrounding the COW and other interests claiming rights to the deposit. For me it was time to go, too much at risk. In retrospect, it is apparent that more time and energy was spent on resolving these issues rather than on verifying the size of the deposit. It also appeared that some of the company officials became celebrities leaving those in the field less supervised. It could be at this very time when the Indonesians interests were attempting to get a larger foothold in the company and Barrick was pressuring BXM to make a deal with them, that someone may have began using trickery in the comporate reports. Clearly, the January release of bonanza drill results were intended to force the Indonesians to open up the bidding process. It was at this time, investors took any results coming from BXM with elation. No one spoke about verifying such rich results, which appeared to me to be unique in the history of gold exploration. BXM had become a media event reflective of the market itself, full of excesses. Let us hope for the sake of the industry that there is a indeed a world class deposit at the Busang.
Ken |
