RE: So far... pipefitpipefit,
My thoughts...
In some respect, yes it is a waste of time. Obviously if AUN management is adamant on pursuing a certain course of action they believe is best, they are unlikely to be any more than amused by our efforts.
We do have a right to express our views and that is all we are doing. They are competent enough to decide how much time they should give to our suggestion, and I have no doubt that if they are faced with a choice of either running the project or talking to Bay St, running the project will prevail. My point is, they are smart enough not to waste time on this if they cannot.
Look, I do not think any of us are dumb enough to believe we are changing the world here, and I do not think we should be too concerned about the hour or two diversion our mass of emails might create. Let's not forget that they have an investor relations guy, Colin, whose job it is to deal with crap like this anyway. It is not as if management are going to all sit around the conference table on Monday morning and figure what to do about our emails (as some here seem to believe).
However, I do sometimes wonder if management are not so preoccupied with Mexico, that the reasonable promotion of the company is not being given due consideration. I have worked for, and been involved with many junior mining companies, and they are run by all types of people - ranging from technically incompetent, but financially and promotionally savy, to the opposite. It does happen often enough that companies develop good stories (tecnically sound and legitmate projects) but that they do enough to promote their work and the value they have created, and as result the share price, and therefore investors, suffer.
When I spoke to Colin by phone back in Februray, I was somewhat surprised and disappointed that he could not answer my questions about analyst coverage, and that he did not seem to be technically fluent in the company's operations. As an investor with a substanial amount of shares, this caused me some concern.
I have spoken with IR people of other companies I know and invest in, and their degree of professionalism and detailed knowledge of company operations and what management is planning was both impressive and comforting - it oozed professionalism. That is not the feeling I got when I called AUN. I refer you again to AXMIN as an example. Call Judith Webster, their IR person and talk to her, she is very good at her job and can any question about the company's operations on any of its projects, and is actively inlvloved with the Bay St. community.
My point is, is that sometimes IR is an afterthought with these junior mining comanies (like the TheRock17 said, Colin is an administrative guy), when it should be given enough focus to maximize both the speculative and fundamental value of the the company for shareholders. I am not, and I doubt anyone on this board is, advocating they start flogging the company to every stockwh*re on Bay St.
Rather, this is a great story and people like RBC Capital Markets, Paradigm Capital, Cannaccord Adams (I sopke to my broker at Canaccord before the placement, and he had never heard of AUN ), Raymond James, Haywwod Securities and the like should be be made aware of it so that they can decide if they wish to intiate coverage on AUN. If AUN does an adequate job of representing the company, I have no doubt some will, and I firmly we believe that at this juncture we now need that.
AUN is maturing into a real company and its time to get serious about the promotional side of this story - it is not sufficent just to rely on the numbers to do all the work. This is not another Aurelian - for us AUN shareholders, our investment will grow slowly over time based on how the company's operations proceed, and, based on what the investment community knows about those operations proceed and the value they place on them.
This is not to say they AUN is not already doing what we want - maybe they are. However, there is no harm in us sending our message.
Not to mention the fact that it is an interesting experiment in organizing small retailer investors into unified, more powerful voice. The Internet makes this possible, and maybe this type of activity will be useful in the future... I have the time to waste on it (as the length of this post exmplifies), so for me its not a bother.
The message I intend it write will be no more than two paragraphs and will basically say somthing like, "thanks for doing a great so far job, we need to anaylst coverage to maximize the value for shareholders, please look into this, thanks." I have been an AUN shareholder since 2004, so obviously my motives go beyond pushing the price next month so I can sell for a 30% profit.
Honestly, with some of the emails in my Inbox, I am surprised how some people are making a big deal outta nothin.
Anyway, thanks again for your support.
Cheers,
Bentonstocks