I contacted Kimber investor relations yesterday regarding the recent announcement about the disagreement with Mr. Puplava. Although the person who replied to my inquiry indicated that they were not able to get into the details of the dispute, I did learn the following interesting information:
1. The disagreement concerns how the Company “has been” or “should be” managed (as is quite typical of such disagreements).
2. With respect to the timing of the resolution of the dispute, I was informed that "assuming the Proxy battle moves forward each side will be presenting their position and shareholders will likely vote on it at the AGM in early December. Information would be distributed in the Proxy statements in November." Accordingly, it may yet be quite a while until we get to hear about the reasons for the dispute.
3. Interestingly, I was also informed that "Management also has some disagreements and issues with Mr. Puplava, but I cannot go into specifics at this time."
I will be providing updates about this matter on my blog, to the extent that I am able to uncover any new information.
2 comments:
Mike - Although I do not currently hold Kimber, I did own it for a couple of years. I finally sold it because I could not make sense of how it was trading. This is before the Puplava issue surfaced. Anyway, I did want to say a couple of things about Kimber. First of all, I have had the opportunity to meet Robert Longe (Kimber CEO) on several occasions. My unfailing impression of Mr. Longe is that he is all substance and no flash. In other words, he always appeared to me as being conservative, businesslike, crystal clear on the plan for Kimber and deeply experienced. Over a period of years, I had the opportunity to watch how Kimber operates and always felt that they were managed in a way that conveyed impeccable integrity and a commitment to creating shareholder value. I have not had the opportunity to meet Mr. Puplava. I rather suspect that Puplava would like to see the company ramped and sold, as opposed to taking the production path.
The other thing I wanted to mention about Kimber is that their investor relations ought to be a model for the industry. Kimber is one of the only companies of which I am aware, that distributes a monthly newsletter to investors. In some instances, Robert Longe has gone into depth on mining-related issues that have been very helpful to those of us who do not have a mining background (other than playing in the dirt as children). Also, the Google Earth overlays that Kimber has made available on the web site are fantastic. You can use Google Earth to view the location of every single drill hole on the Monterde property. You can mouse over a drill hole and a text box pops up to display summarized assay data with a link to the full press release which included that particular hole. I wish that more of the companies I own would show even a fraction of the commitment to informing shareholders that Kimber has consistently demonstrated.
The mining sector, juniors in particular, have a reputation for being promotional in the extreme, so I believe that the efforts of a company like Kimber are important for countering that perception. I may re-enter the stock at some point, but will probably watch and wait for a bit to see how things develop.
Best,
Paul
Paul,
I don't really think I can add much to your comments.
1. I agree about Kimber's management, though I have not personally met anyone, so my impression is just based on my readings about the company.
2. I agree about the odd trading patterns in Kimber. I couldn't make sense of them either and I had some losses in Kimber after it seemed to underperform. Interestingly, that was also aorund the time that Mr. Puplava sold some of his KBX shares and I wondered then what was up with that. I feared at the time that perhaps Mr. Puplava had lost interest in the company after learing some inside information, but at least, apparently that has not been the case.
3. I strongly agree with your comments about Kimber's investor's relations. I think you are right on that PM juniors are often over advertised in a manner that emphasizes flash over substance (I mean, look at the screaming ads on Kitco.com for instance!). Their investor relations people are really second to none. I generally receive a response from them within 24 hours when I have a question. Likewise the newsletter is great, and very educational and I agree that other companies would do well to mirror this kind of approach to PR.
By the way, you might know this already but Kimber should have its prefeasibility study coming out this month so I wonder if that will lead to some kind of bounce if the results are positive, despite the recent ambivalent press releases (on top of the proxy battle announcement, it seems that a Kimber employee also recently managed to run down some cyclists...).
Hope all is well,
Titan_of_Metals
ps. thanks for the plug about my blog on your site!
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