Re: KRY long term shareholder
in response to
by
posted on
Apr 21, 2021 04:24PM
Crystallex International Corporation is a Canadian-based gold company with a successful record of developing and operating gold mines in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America
A bit of Fung history. While I never had a private one-on-one I was part of some group interplay with him. The short answer is that I would assume that he will continue to have no concern for anyone other than himself and his coherts.
Back in 1998 one of the selling points about investing in KRY was that "Bob Fung wouldn't be involved if this wasn't a great deal. In fact he so believes in it that he his not even going to take any salary", (that quietly went away a few years later).
For several years, (2000-2003?) there was a pre-AGM meeting with him and MO for a group of active shareholders. After the initial crash all of the management options were repriced and, if I remember correctly, there was an AGM resolution for the issuance of further options at the low price). At the pre-AGM meeting he was asked about this and his reply was that was the only way to continue to retain and recruit key employees. The net result of this action was that the shareholders took 100% of the loss from the crash and management had no loss. (People smarter than me realized that this was the time to bail, but alas I didn't).
A couple of years later at a different AGM there was a proposal for a substantial bonus and option package for this money losing company. From the floor I questioned whether such a package was appropriate for this money losing company. He relied about the necessity for keeping key employees and hiring new people. I then asked if he would specifically commit, in whole or in part, those options for those purposes. he just said "no". I then forced a recorded vote which they weren't prepared for and we almost won the day. But alas, we failed and I was too foolish not to bail out at that point.
That was my last pre-AGM or AGM meeting as I knew that I would never be called upon again. During that AGM meeting his reply included that his compensation wasn't out of line for his position and that the board needed to be compensated for their time. I replied with that for you the compensation wasn't "bad for part time work" as he was spending most of his time at his venture capital bank.