The day after the Kirkland Lake (KL) deal to buy Detour Gold was announced, this humble corner of cyberspace pointed out a few hard truths about the future of KL that did not go down well with its large band of permabull fangirls and fanboys.
“Generalists look on with sinking hearts as Makuch does exactly the same
as every CEO before him, bends to pressure and turns his lean company
into a sprawling, inefficient mess that prefers quantity over quality.
What we have witnessed yesterday and today is the destruction of
goodwill at KL, over $2Bn in bets that “this time is different” and KL
would remain a low cost, high margin producer have all lost. Money, by
the way, that only ever existed in the imagination of KL longs who fell
for the ruse. Welcome to reality people, KL yesterday stated for the
record that its future is the same mediocrity as every Tier 1 mining
company.”
The KL fanclub didn’t take long in pushing back, either. I was told I was stupid in several different ways, that Makuch was a genius, that growth is the only way forward and once the deal had been digested, KL would start flying again. And the only problem that KL fanclub has had since then has been that they are 100% wrong:
You’d have been 6% better off just buying gold bullion on the day they announced this ill-conceived deal, instead you watched KL dive another 10%. Apart from that, all good. So guys, as your solid prediction that KL would resume its upward charge just days after the deal was announced, or once Eric Sprott gave his seal of approval, or on receipt of the vote or on closing the merger have all failed miserably, we wait with bated breath to hear the next confident prediction from the confidence people.
Because this time will be different, right?