Zeev, I received the following email from KJM Capital. This information was posted on this thread a few days ago. To my knowledge, nobody has determined that this Rothschild is the "Rothschild". Things getting nutty, or what?
<<Note: Gordon Rothschild is probably the most knowledgable person on the
planet on desert dirts!!
To: Matt C. Austin
From: J. Gordon Rothschild Thursday, Feb 12 1998 2:22PM EST
Matt, I've had little time since July last to read your chat room here,
so I've had a staff member keep up with it. I have a bit of time between
planes, so I'll see if I can give you a hand enlightening the readers. I
have the utmost respect for you North Americans in most fields,
especially the information business. You are woefully behind however in
grasping mother nature and how she distributed her bounty. Precious
metals abound in the earth's crust and they are present in many
different configurations. Most of the easy placers have been uncovered
during the last 120 years, leaving us with the more difficult ones to
work with now.
Enlightenment is starting to come through however. One of the largest
gold producers in the world has gotten contol of the old 'King Tut' thru
a dummy corporation. The deposit is in North Western Arizona and was the
subject of a U S Geological Survey 1969, circular #560. The study
reckoned .04 to 05 ounces gold/cu yd., it is placer in nature - typical
Arizona desert sand/dg. I ran a few quickie, crude leaches on it and
came up with about twice the reported values. This is a very poor
property in comparison to several others in Arizona but a great deal of
money is going into research on it.
There are 2 deposits in S Africa quite similar to B R basin material
that have been in production for several years now. The security on
their process is quite stern and there's little chance that they will
part with their secrets. They have a bit less iron than you have to deal
with being the major difference.
We are funding a private venture in Russia that has many common
characteristics with the basin goods also. I have 3 very good
metallurgists on the project and results are quite encouraging after
only about one year. I prefer Russia for exploration. The infrastructure
is simply horrible but once you learn how to do business there-it's a
snap. The finished process appears as though it will probably be a
mineral acid leach with some electro-chem extraction from the pregant
leach liquor. Our numbers are looking to be quite similar to black rock.
We are getting metal in hand: 30 Au - 80 Pt - 90 Pd all are grams/metric
ton. Total extraction costs probably in the area of U S $40 to
$65/metric ton, altho it's a little early to state that positively.
Costs outside the country: add perhaps 25%, another advantage of doing
business in Russia.
On your call on metals and stocks prices: We had a very large exposure
in Barrick at one point, and a large collection of juniors. When the
London fix came down through $308, we cut the Barrick position in half
and sold the most of the small ones. We've been adding to our IPM
position and started buying a small bit of MG Gold. That cinder deposit
has some excellent numbers and if your new extraction procedure works on
it, you'll have two of the better deposits in AZ. We sold out of the
Canadiens about 18 months ago. The most of the management talent along
with the best exploration people have all left the country and left the
graft and corruption behind. The equity markets should be about long
term investments, not the buy in November-sell in May attitude.
Metals prices are always hard to call but Munk and Soros have both been
shorting the gold and it's hard to fight that kind of pressure. Long
term, my analysts see lower prices especially when the majors move more
and more into Arizona. Now that one of them is there, the me-too
attitude will come running. Buffet certainly made an excellent call on
Ag. I personally thought the new camera technology would hold the metal
price down and keep the supply deficit from becoming problematic. You
can't win them all.
Motives of the people putting notes in these chat rooms: certainly some
of them were involved in the shorting exercise that instilled fear in
the public position. The funds, other than the Japanese forced sales,
have done little selling of the stock. That's the difference between the
knowledgeable and the short term "player." It's hard for the general
public to understand what's going on in this segment but that is one of
the problems when you are dealing with a public corporation. Some of
these people probably mean well but they just don't understand the
mining industry and the recent turn of events. Any body that talks down
IPM'S management team simply doesn't know what he's talking about.
Furlong showed his heads up when he brought Doyle in early. Doyle has
raised close to 2 Billion U S for mining projects over the years and
certainly has an enviable grasp on the cluster evolvement. At a meeting
in the U K years ago, I saw Alan raise over 7 million U S during dinner
and left with the checks in his pocket and gave them a receipt on a
piece of notebook paper. Were it not for A D, IPM would not have made it
this far, nor would they enjoy the institutional support that they do.
Matt, you have made one major mistake and it has to do with management.
Having mining people on the board or as advisors only, won't get the job
done. Mining is a tough business and moving from an explorer to a
producer requires that mining people be involved as upper management. I
can't stress that enough, it's an absolute necessity. Thinking back over
the years, I would guesstimate that 96% of the juniors have come and
gone. Even the best of deposits cannot win out over poor management.
There are hundreds of little decisions made daily in any kind of
business and if a large majority are not made correctly, you'll end up
in a pickle. On an odds basis, I would say that only one of the other
public cluster metal companies will ever get into real, profitable
production. The mining sector is tough enough without the added problems
of difficult extraction parameters AND the lack of top flight
leadership.
The segment is attracting some good people, the latest being Mr.
Childress. I don't know him personally but a call to New York assured me
that he's one of the best CFO's around. The street needs that sort of
quality to gain belief in what the company is doing. The financial end
is often foolishly overlooked.
Matt, I'd like to ask you to be 'a gentler soul' in your notes. You're
the only good source of information flow that they have here. I know the
kind of foolishness you're facing, but someone needs to help them along,
especially since CL is no longer commenting. I hope to have the time to
make it to the General Meeting this year, perhaps we can meet and
exchange pleasantries.
J G
KJM Capital Corp.ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ kjmcap.com
Canyon Financial Groupÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ nevtah.com
LS Capital Corporationÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ lscapital.comÿ
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