Time to cut expensesThe company is spending about $10 million per year in salary, stock options and office expenses. This is way to much for a company that does pretty much nothing but wait for TSMC to finish the DSO project and TATA to make a decision on the taconite projects.
The company has a president and 7 vice-presidents, 2 chiefs and a director. Add to that all members of the board that have to be compensated for their hard work. Way to much for what they have accomplished in the past years and for what will happen forward no matter what Tata's decision is for the taconite projects. At this point, spending should be reduced to no more than $2 million per year to manage this company. All the construction, development and operation of the projects is done by TSMC, so no need for NML to have this huge structure. They do have other projects of course that could be developed independantly, but the odds of that are close to nothing until they have at least the partners to do the current projects under evaluatioin. Gold companies cut spending recently, it's time for NML to do the same. Otherwise, all the royalties coming from the DSO projects will be split between directors and the management team and nothing will be left for shareholders.
Just saw the interview with the CEO on BNN today and learned that start of the plant commissiong will happen in late Q1 2014 and they now forecast 3 million tonnes of production for next year. The May 2013 presentation for the AGM mentions that the plant ramp-up would be 100% done by early 2014 and that TSMC would produce 4 million tonnes next year. So these cash flows cuts must be matched quickly with spending cuts that can be easily achieved by reducing the over extended payroll.
Ben