BOD and Management
posted on
Feb 13, 2009 05:06AM
NI 43-101 Update (September 2012): 11.1 Mt @ 1.68% Ni, 0.87% Cu, 0.89 gpt Pt and 3.09 gpt Pd and 0.18 gpt Au (Proven & Probable Reserves) / 8.9 Mt @ 1.10% Ni, 1.14% Cu, 1.16 gpt Pt and 3.49 gpt Pd and 0.30 gpt Au (Inferred Resource)
There has been a lot of discussion regarding the BOD and people are expressing their dissatisfaction with communication and performance. I have had a look at the coporate organization and I see a lot of positive attributes there. Richard Nemis is a larger than life charecter who is politically savvy and has a skill for finding orebodies and starting new ventures. He discovered an antimony deposit here in Central NL that eventually became an operating mine but not by Richard. He has been in the business all his life and he is a lawyer by education. Pretty smart cookie. It is my impression he loves the hunt but he doesn't cook if you get my drift. He is not down on NORONT or the Board just because they don't have that personal style and charisma. It is also worthy of note that Mungal, Harvey, Novak and Chance are still slugging away with this company and no bad vibes coming from this mix of senior employees and board members. Highlighting these people, I offer the following:
PAUL PARISOTTO worked with the TSX in the area of new listings,. This is exactly what we want. He has a lot of experience in mergers and acquisitions which many of us have said needs to happen at McFaulds. He has ties to Barrick Gold who are in the process of accumulating wealth. His company Arizona Star was acquired by Barrick in Dec. 2007 for $18.00 per share and in Dec. 2004, they were $5.30 per share. He sucessfully warded off a takeover by BEMA Gold in 2006 that offered $7.01 per share in Dec of that year. This is significant experience for us and somewhat reassuring.
JOHN HARVEY was Pres. of HEMLO GOLD in 1989. Surely everyone remembers that excitement. That experience will serve us well with the miriad of players up our way. He also worked with Nranda, one of Canadas foremost exploration companies.
JAMES MUNGAL is a world renowned geologist specializing in magmatic sulfides as well as economic geology. WE have been playing around with scenarios but the board of our company has a world expert to do the analysis. There is no way Noront can get away with making his internal reports public.
NEIL NOVAK seems to be a favorite of the long time posters. He is a vteran like Nemis. He is still there toeing the company line, not breaking ranks. Has a good reputation with aboriginal groups which is essential and any of you who read "The Big Score" will know what it means to take things for granted in that department. He is a worker and a long time player with Noront who provides the continuity with the company along with Richard who is still involved.
DAVID GRAHAM has over 50 years of mining experience including South Africa. He has been a consultant to big mining companies for decades, he knows a great deal and he knows a lot of influential people in the business.
PATRICK CHANCE is our operations guy. Still working away for us, despite being a very marketable individual. Started out at Haileybury with a technical diploma, worked, than bachelor and masters from probably the two best universities in the country, Queens and Western.
DARREN BLASUTTI is Sr. VP at Barrick, not too shabby. He is a CA, our corporate control person. Lots of experience, a very ethical board person.
KEITH MCKAY seems to be the construction and operations finance guy with 25 years coming up with cons/ops plans. Another CA, these guys tend to be conservative, cautious and ethical.
LORIE WAISBERG is an Sr. VP of Co-Steel, the largest mini mill producer of steel. Should have good insight and contacts with the steel industry and it's material needs. He is a law partner at Goodmans LLP which may be Carmen Diges's problem since she is at Macmillan. Just surmising!!
I left out a couple of people but what I am emphasizing is we have an excellent cross section of talent on this board and in senior management. I believe they have shareholders best interests at heart as well as their own. There will be outside forces manipulating our price which they will have to deal with and all companies have the same problem. We are going through an interesting phase and we are all impatient but I think we are in good stewardship.