WEL AGM minutes
The AGM was sparsely attended - there were approximately 15 people on hand including Wildcat staff (John Knowles, Tom Lewis, Peter Thayer, young geologist Adam, Glenn Gowryluk, Jodi Dare and receptionist Deborah) and board member Denis G. Fillion. The others at the meeting included a few shareholders, the Michael Lee from Equity Financial Trust, and Tom Lewis' wife. The formal part of the meeting ran smoothly and quickly as all of the regular business items (motions, etc) were approved as proposed in the Meeting Information Circular. [Enough votes had been cast by proxies to pass all of the items before the meeting was even held.] Following that, John Knowles and Tom Lewis spoke about the company operations using the Corporate presentation on the the wildcat website as a guide. https://www.wildcatexploration.com/i/pdf/2011AGMfinal.pdf A summary of some significant points made in the presentations are as follows: 1. The equity markets in general have been very hard hit, and juniors have been particularly so. Wildcat has been no exception. Investors have fled equities in favour of Money Market Funds and bonds and corporations are sitting on cash. The amount of money on the sidelines is estimated to be almost the same amount as the total market capitalization of all stocks today. When the tide changes and the money flows back in, there will be a huge surge in equity markets. 2. On the Rice Lake properties, San Gold has been drilling... they did 16 holes on Mike Power and now have 15 planned for the Jeep property. This amount of drilling has come about because of the partnering arrangement - Wildcat would not have been able to do it on their own. So partnering is allowing drilling to happen without relying on Wildcat money alone (reducing the need to sell more shares/more dilution), and it is allowing there to be much more drilling. In terms of building shareholder value, it is primarily drilling that creates more value as mineralization is found. On the Mike Power property, San Gold has been able to confirm that the gold systems they have projected in their model do indeed extend to the west of San Gold's own property. At Jeep, the drilling will be down lower than what Wildcat drilled, attempting to prove whether the higher grades of the old Jeep mine may extend down further than previously tested. As well, San Gold did a new airborne survey and the result was some new targets of interest were identified. Wildcat has limited plans for Siderock, and is not planning to be active on Garner in the near future. 3. At Burntwood, there are plans to drill 8 to 10 holes. The gold finding there was a surprise as this is a copper-nickel area, but Tom Lewis noticed some features in the preliminary work that reminded him of another project he had worked on. Being curious, a hole was drilled and they discovered the gold. 4. At Reed Lake, they have 3 or 4 prime targets. Drilling here needs to be done in the winter as the best targets are in swampy areas. 5. Joint Venturing - With both Burntwood and Reed Lake, Wildcat is looking for partners to help finance the progress and negotiations are ongoing with other companies in that respect. As well, Wildcat has been approached by some large companies about working together on other projects in new locations as well. The credibility and industry connections that John Knowles and Tom Lewis have is resulting in interest by other companies in working together. A great example of partnering is the deal made with San Gold last year; this has proven to be a very good arrangement as it is providing cash to Wildcat, while at the same time advancing the Rice Lake holdings. 6. McVicar Lake - this area was deliberately chosen a couple of years ago as an underexplored area, away from the camps where everyone is competing with each other for holdings. After another summer of exploration work there this year, it will be ready for drilling. There are 6 targets that were already identified from work done prior to Wildcat's claim, and there are at least 3 other targets from Wildcat work. 7. Cash Flow -- Working with the limited resources on hand while attempting to preserve the operational team has been the focus of operations. In the context of today's equity markets, cash is tight. Wildcat has reduced cash outlays by about 25% through voluntary pay cuts, eliminating their own IR person (Wayne) and using a Toronto IR firm instead (and they have even limited that farim's activity lately to preserve cash), and they are open to sharing arrangements with other companies - allowing their staff to work for other companies at times to reduce Wildcat overhead. The Wildcat office space will soon be shared by another junior company in order to reduce office costs as well. 8. Foster Lake (Sask) - there are no plans to do much here for now. There are two areas of interest needing drilling but the high cost of drilling at Foster Lake (requiring all equipment to be flown in since there is no road access) makes it economically unfeasible in the current economic climate. If a large company takes an interest in the property, then there would be opportunity to advance it. The claims at Foster are still valid for another year and a half -- by 2014 some hard decisions may need to be made about whether it is worthwhile to extend the claims as costs rise when a claim is held onto, especially if there hasn't been work done. 9. Opportunities - Wildcat is attempting to maximize its potential by working with its resources in an "as smart as possible" way in a very challenging environment. It is doing that by: -- preserving cash flow through reducing costs -- engaging in joint ventures to advance projects with reduced cash outlays, and even positive cash inflow -- sharing resources with others to maintain the ability to keep staff without bearing their full cost on the Wildcat books -- being very selective about what is drilled so that every dollar spent has maximum potential to build value -- being open to new opportunities in new areas. The current tough times will result in other juniors eventually being unable to continue; Wildcat may be able to step into some new situations with very low cost as others leave the scene.