Emails with Donna from ATK (its actually Donna@drillingfunds)I'm not sure how many of you have spoken to Donna. She's supposed to be our 'Investors Relations' person, but I'm sure 90% of her work load is working for Drilling Funds while her salary is paid by Atikwa. I've been going back and forth with her via email since the meeting and wanted to share some of it with everyone. As the person in charge of communicating with shareholders, she actually thinks it makes sense not to inform shareholders of the outcome of a very important share holders vote.
Here is her email in response to my question of why there has been no communication with shareholders after the meeting and why Sean did not address the dismal state of the company at the meeting:
Mr. Renard,
Firstly, thank you for your concern for the people of Atikwa Resources Inc. who are in a city currently in the midst of a huge disaster. Our office is in the flood zone and our building is still without power; however, we are hopeful to be back in our office mid-week. I am sure you can understand that this has impacted our business and our thoughts right now have been on ensuring the safety of our family and friends.
To answer a few of your inquiries:
1. Sean and the team at Atikwa have been working diligently on a resolution to the cash flow situation. There have been several interested parties and negotiations take time and each potential deal was different. We are a small handful of people at Atikwa and everyone is doing multiple jobs to help keep the company moving forward.
2. The Special Meeting was ONLY to do with the share consolidation and this was clearly detailed in the shareholder package.
3. In the script of the meeting, Sean asked if there were any questions or discussion and not one person put up their hand. As soon as the meeting was adjourned, a couple of shareholders swarmed Sean with their questions. The time for them to ask questions was when Sean asked if there were any questions or discussions, not once the meeting was adjourned.
4. Atikwa is still in active negotiations at this time and a press release will be released as soon as it is ready.
Regards,
Donna
And my response (I probably could have been a bit nicer but the ignorance of this company has worn my patience thin)
Donna,
It’s a flood, not a volcanic eruption. It’s unfortunate that the office lost its electricity, but I don’t think the flood that has been going on for a whopping six days is the reason that Atikwa hasn’t done anything in a year and a half and that the share price has plummeted 90%. You are on the 2nd floor, so the fact that you need to wear rubber boots to work should not be justification for not sending out a press release that should have been sent to shareholders immediately after the special meeting (which was a week before the flood by the way). In reply to your answers:
1) If you are a ‘small handful of people’ why do you need an $11,000/month office and have general and administrative expenses in excess of $1 million? If I was the CEO of a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy the first thing I would do is cut expenses, 1.5 million in ‘General and Administrative’ expenses would probably be a good start. It’s not like there is the option to cut operating expenses because the company does not operate, it basically sits stagnate paying huge salaries, expenses, and the 15% interest on a loan which no one can figure out where the money went from.
2&3) Why would the question period be before the vote? That makes absolutely no sense. The direction the company would be going was completely dependent on the outcome of the vote. If your doctor asked you to come to his office because he had some very important test results, then when you were there he asked if you had any questions before he gave you the results, you said ‘no’ (because obviously the important discussion would occur after you had heard the results) and then immediately after telling you the results he got up and rushed to the door telling you ‘you had your chance to ask questions’. It’s almost to the point where I am not expecting any high level ingenious to lead this company back to good health, I’d be happy with even the slightest bit of common sense. Like sending out a press release to share holders detailing the outcome of a shareholders meeting for example.
4) Actively negotiating what? We have good properties, but we don’t have any money to develop them. No one in their right mind would give our CEO a wooden nickel considering the terrible job he has done up until this point, plus the fact that he has made all the cash we’ve raised disappear with nothing to show for it. Basically other companies can just wait until we go bankrupt and get the properties at auction.
As everything stands right now the only reason ATK and Sean are not being investigated is because shareholders know that is the only thing that can put this company in a worse position then it is currently in. Between the missing money and the fact that he is having Drilling Funds skim a large portion of the operating costs above what it is actually costing ATK this will not end well for Sean. We’re hoping he steps down, but we know that probably won’t happen because the next thing that would happen is a forensic accountant would come in. Sean can’t stay either because no one is willing to deal with him anymore. Everyone I have spoken to acknowledges that ATK needs to consolidate its shares, which speaks to just how unconfident share holders are in their CEO when he proposes something we agree with and we still vote it down. It was a failed attempt to raise the capital he needed to hopefully tread water long enough to get lucky, but it didn’t work.