Today I had a phone interview with our President and CEO, John McConnell. The primary purpose of this interview was to determine what strategic plans our company intends on implementing to improve investor’s confidence in our management team and their ability to maximize shareholder’s stock value. In no particular order of importance, I have listed below some of the strategies that our company intends on implementing to restore investor’s confidence in our management team and their ability to maximize shareholder value:
Please note that my comments are not direct quotes from John McConnell; however my comments should reflect a close approximation of his comments and our mutual understanding of the issues we discussed.
- Improve communication with our stockholders regarding our company’s strategic plans. We both agree that our company has much room for improvement in stockholder communication.
- Give some clarity as to our company’s plans to finance mine construction at our Eagle property – additional drilling activity at Dublin Gulch and our Nevada properties, and general corporate overhead. The first step in this process will be a press release in the next couple of days regarding our company hiring an expert financial consultant who has the expertise is determining an optimum method of financing the items listed above – while at the same time – minimizing stock holder dilution and maximizing shareholder value. John and I have discussed numerous financing options that could include any of the following; but not limited to those items listed below: a 50% debt financing/50% stock offering; joint venturing with another company that would provide the capital required to finance the development of our Eagle gold mine; streaming financing with companies like Royal Gold, etc. I don’t want to anticipate what this new financial expert will recommend, but John and I agree that our company will have to do some stock financing in the interim before the major mine production cost become a real issue 12 month from now. Keeping in mind that our company’s burn rate of capital is approximately $3 million a month, we can expect a stock offering within the next month or two, and possibly another interim stock financing several months from now. Market conditions preclude a single large financing to generate enough cash flow for the next 12 month. Keep in mind that our management team has a vested interest in structuring financing that is in the long term interest of all stockholders. Management doesn’t like stockholder dilution any more than you or I do.
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Marketing innovation: Our company intends to implement some new methods of communication. John mentioned that our company intends on doing some Business Television promotion for our company. I suggested that our company look into promoting our stock via King World News which has a large international following – see link to that service: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/King_World_News.html He intends on exploring the merits and costs associated with promoting our company via this media source.
- Investors confidence in our company’s management capabilities will move forward should our company actually realize our company’s time line in achieving the following milestones: Receiving permits for the construction on an underground decline at the Helen Zone by the end of this quarter; completing a bankable feasibility report on our Eagle property before the end of the last quarter of this year; commencing drilling at Mill Canyon by the end of September. John has re-confirmed that he expects our company to meet these timelines.
- Barrack Gold is expected to announce within the next couple of days an updated estimated of their gold reserves on their property which is located very close to our Mill Canyon property. Rumors are circulating that the reporter reserves will be north of 20 million ounces of gold. Since we will be commencing exploration activities at Mill Canyon we could get an area play where investors could bid up our stock because of its proximity to Barrack Gold’s property. John McConnell mentioned that this event makes him even more excited about our Mill Canyon property.
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In the past, our company has tried to keep stockholders apprised of our corporate strategic plans via updated slide presentations on their web site. I told John that reviewing a slide presentation on our web site is insufficient in keeping our stockholders updated as to our company’s strategic plans – its one thing to review an updated slide presentation – and its another thing altogether - giving investors a link to a recording of the conversations that took place when the presentations were actually made. I told him investors would like to hear a recorded version of the actual presentations. I was surprised to hear that is exactly what our company intends on doing. In the month of September, our company plans on doing several corporate presentations – see our web site for the dates and times for those presentations @ http://www.vitgoldcorp.com/index.cfm?pagePath=Investors/Events_Calendar&id=35274 We can expect to see a link to the commentary at the Rodman & Renshaw Mining Conference that is going to be held on September 11 – September 13th.
The bottom line is that I see events taking place that have a distinct possibility of beginning the process of repairing the lost confidence in our management’s ability to keep our stockholders advised as to our strategic planning strategies and its ability to maximize stockholder value.
I will consider our company successful in their new marketing plans when, people like me, are no longer needed to update its shareholders as to what is going on with our company!