The industry really needs to be more accountable to these pathetic returns. Not just a new and overdue round of M&A to consolidate these companies, but some wholesale firing of the excuses for businesspeople who run them (and I use “people” there but it may as well be “men”, rare indeed is the presence of a woman in the C-suites and just that fact is likely part of the problem). As as publicly as possible, please. No back doors and consider tar and feathers to give it an old-time touch.
I got some push-back from saying this on Twitter yesterday and of course they are not all bad and yes, even the good companies are allowed a soft quarter. But not two and definitely not six in a row like we’ve seen from Goldcorpse (GG), now down 15% 17% 18% on the day (see earlier post when it was down “just” 9%).Who the hell are these so-called expert mining people when they cannot even do the most basic thing that a miner is supposed to do, namely pull dirt out the ground, put it through a machine, extract the metal and then sell it for a profit? They demand our respect due to the cut of their suit? Their snazzy wrist timepiece (they don’t wear watches, they are timepieces)? Their ability to stand up in front of 300 people and talk complete bollocks for 15 minutes as long as it sounds fluent? It’s time to stop pandering to these idiots who consider themselves demigods.
UPDATE: IKN regular and serious Calvin & Hobbes freak, reader CM sends in a mail entitled “Mining CEOs Math”. I have nothing further to add: