August 5, 2022
Mr. Akira Nozaki
President and Representative Director
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.
Shimbashi Sumitomo Building
11-3, Shimbashi 5-chrome
Minato-ku Tokyo 105-8716 Japan
Hello Mr. Nozaki,
In reference to Iamgold's "Ct Gold Project", in which Sumitomo is a 27.75% partner, as you are most definitely aware, the initial capital projected to fund this joint venture was pegged slightly under $1G in 2017, then raised to nearly $1.3G in May 2022 and most recently revised upwards to almost $1.9G.
Given Iamgold's unacceptable and excessive misguided overcosts, i am urging Sumitomo not to step up with any additional money.
Iamgold's conference call held on August 4, 2022 (to which you may want to listen to by dialing 1-800-319-6413, followed by password 9179), stated that the company is at an advanced stage of negotiations to conclude the sale of its ROSEBEL mine located in Suriname (South America). A likely scenario to happen is also the issuing of IMG's common shares, perhaps in the neighbourhood of 200M at a share price of at most $2/per share.
Bottom line, company shareholders will suffer a major dilution from this messy required financial package to allow the project to be achieved and cause side-effects to Sumitomo and other partners.
| | Iamgold Corp.’s IMG-T biggest shareholder is backing an activist investor’s efforts to overhaul the struggling Canadian gold company’s board of directors.. Last week, RCF Management LLC ... www.theglobeandmail.com |
All in all, it must be assessed whether Iamgold should ideally be sold outright or strike a merger with a major gold producer rather than pursuing its destiny on its own, for the benefit of all shareholders?
I trust, Mr. Nozaki, that you will be expressing to Iamgold all relevant concerns.
Sincerely,
Iamgold Corporation Inc.
- minority shareholder -