My how times change. Suddenly COFIDE is unloved by Team Hodges and the EGM has them all suspicious, questioning the relationship between IRL and the financier but back when he was boss Daryl and his pals were “very proud of the relationship”. Hey I wonder why the two-faced Team Hodges has suddenly change its tune?
Anyway, less of me and more of the evidence. Here’s what Daryl Hodges told a reporter during an interview obtained by IKN that sadly went unpublished, because by the time it was due to be released Hodges had been voted off the board (with over 90% of votes against him as well) and he suppressed the publication of the piece out of personal shame. Also in his answer you’ll note that the community relationship betwen IRL and Ollachea town was all good and strong, which is of course all due to the work done by Diego Benavides. As soon as Hodges took over it all went downhill fast.
Speaking about the Government we cannot forget COFIDE,
How valuable and important is their support for developing your projects and
facing financial constraints?
Daryl John
Hodges: Absolutely. We are very
proud of the relationship we have with COFIDE. Worldwide, we’ve seen a very
substantial downturn in investment. For four years, there’s been a drought of
investors’ appetite for small companies, for investing in those companies. We
are a small company, our market capital is rather limited, but we have engaged
in a big project. We have been in numerous discussions over the last two years
with investors from many countries, companies, funds… Basically, we were really
struggling to find backers for this project and, notwithstanding the fact that
the project is technically very robust, just the appetite for investment is not
what it used to be. So we were very happy to have met up with COFIDE and we
have been negotiating off and on for about 15 months with them. They did quite
a bit of an investigation into our company and there were two things that
helped them make a decision. One, obviously is that the project itself is
robust, but moreover, they looked into our community programs and they believed
we are not perfect and there’s always room for improvement, but the approach
that we take with the community, the equity participation of the community in
our project and the numerous programs that we have in the communities that we
work around are all positive in comparison to other companies’ and that’s why
they chose us. It’s not a massive investment, but a bank has been in
discussions with us and has met with COFIDE, which can lead to an even more
positive outcome in our financing.