RE:Roger Bashing - the facts from SEDI UEX was created by what the original UEX CEO (Sorensen) called a "butterfly" arrangement. Pioneer Metals' (PSM-T) uranium assets, which were a few prospective uranium properties with option agreements in place, were rolled into a newCo ("UEX") along with brownfields properties owned by Cameco ("Hidden Bay"). Every Pioneer shareholder received one share of UEX, totalling about 75% of the new company's shares, with the other 25% going to Cameco in consideration of the Hidden Bay properties they rolled into UEX.
PSM had been formerly a small scale gold producer before it got into the uranium sector by some fluke of exploration chance in 1998. PSM's assets were essentially on care and maintenance for a number of years and its shares were trading in the CAD$0.07-0.10 range at the time. Pioneer Metals was a two man operation with Sorensen as CEO and Stanyer as office manager/chief sleuth. Graeme Thody was on the BOD. Everyone else was on contract whenever needed... a few geoscientists etc. None of them was raking in any cash. PSM (later UEX) was pretty much the first on the scene in the Athabasca when the uranium sector started heating up in the early 2000's.
Sorensen held about 10 million shares in PSM (about 15% of the outstanding PSM shares) when UEX was formed, so he got the same number of shares in UEX. Those 10 million shares of his in PSM were pretty hard for him to hold onto before UEX came along. At the time, they were worth WAY less than he paid for them when gold was running high. Thody had about a half million PSM shares, so he got the same number of UEX shares.
So when Sorensen became CEO of UEX in 2002, he held 10 million of the roughly 100 million UEX shares outstanding. Thody was on the UEX BOD as well with his 500,000 shares. All looked pretty good back then.
This is how most junior companies' senior management and BOD's acquire their shares. They rarely pour millions of their own cash into their own companies... they acquire them on the cheap when the company is worth nothing and hold onto them with little personal cash outlay. They then grant themselves stock options which may or may not add to their holdings. This is standard practice in public traded companies. But you have to realize, that when someone exercises their stock option, they pay tax on it in the year they exercise the option. This can be quite a substantial tax bill. As a result, and as Sorensen would have advised anyone he knows, one should sell most if not all of these shares acquired through options immediately. Otherwise, you're are living dangerously, because you could be paying tax on capital gains which have never materialized!