Mr. Allen,
I remember listening on the radio to, if my memory serves me correctly,
Abe Rosenthal, the publisher of the New York Times, reflecting on Board
Room discussions he often had with his newspaper's head of accounting.
Abe said that they always ended up fighting and the conflict that always
seemed to arise during meetings was not only inevitable but also natural
and understandable. "Our jobs make us do it," Abe pointed out. "It isn't
personal." He said it is his job as publisher to spend money and the
it's the comptroller's job to hang on to it. The corporate duties of each
was antagonistic to the other.
Another inevitable, natural and understandable conflict arises between the
wishes of most entrepreneurs to maintain ownership and control of their
"widgetorium" in spite of the demands of private capital absolutely necessary
to obtain for widget production and sales. As widget sales explode and P/E
ratios begin to look God sent, the private capital wants out to go play
somewhere else and soon it's IPO time - often against vehement protestation
of owner/managers, usually to no avail.
Once a company is public this natural tension and conflict continues as
"new blood" wants to bring new management with new ideas, new goals etc.
Irresolvable conflict now has a proxy fight as its outcome as groups of
stockholders stack up their chips to see who has the biggest piles and
therefore get to call the shots.
I guess I'm saying all this just to get us all on the same page because
the situation with Naxos is getting serious if only because we are so
very close to providing data and conclusions that will not be ignored
by the market and we should be in top form with what ever resources we
can muster. In my posting the "thrust" was the first line, <<"End game
strategies, two-minute drills, can be crucial with respect to outcomes.">>
My "thrust" is that during the end game it is not a good idea to dwell
on low consequence issues. It is the company's responsibility to assign
priority values to issues based on the resources available to deal with
them and release information which is material in the prioritized sense.
Right now our most important end game issues are:
(1) Pilot plant daily PM output using third party operators,
(2) Third party determination of homogeneity and inferred total reserves,
(3) Certified PM numbers from a well coordinated network of check assay
laboratories using COC samples.
(4) Securing all personnel, permits, agreements and contracts necessary
to accomplish the above.
I can only imagine what some of you who have been in this thing since,
say, '89 or so must be going through these days. You must be terribly
frustrated at the turtle pace we seem to be moving at. I sincerely believe
this is about to change for the better. I have made up my own mind that
I am not going to concern myself, for now, with any other issues than the
above and I will bird-dog them intently until they are accomplished.
I will not hesitate to report in the negative should I spot it.
Jerard P |
