Here is some points and counter points to this investment. It was offered without name calling and total ignorance. These guys DO NOT live in their mothers basement.
I hope this is allowed here. It's valuable information for anyone considering investing.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDINAH MINERALS CLAIMS CONSOLIDATION
Point:
This is one 5 year shareholder’s opinion of what has transpired in the evolution of this investment.
We’ve been dealing win a Chairman who, like many S. Americans dreams big but lacks basic business sense. JJ has been raving about the prospects of this mountain for 17 years with the constant goal of expanding claims to attract an offer that greatly exceeded any normal, rational, industry standard deal. He has pursued this game plan with very little consideration to the expansion of shares and shareholder confidence while over promising and under delivering. On two separate occasions JJ chose flimsy deals over legitimate ones because they aligned with his vision of what he should get for the mountain versus what was realistic and professionally sound.
We’ve been dealing with a non-director insider who has a steadfast loyalty to JJ and a lifetime resume of being a promoter as his primary objective. Les has taken JJ’s constant Drabble of where we stand with multiple offers on this deal or the next, shipping ore or not, and morphed them into a weekly “Lespeak” which as we should all now know, was toxic and inappropriate misinformation.
JJ’s vision without follow through combined with Les’ shameless promoting created an environment over the past five years that has impacted credibility, increased skepticism to the point of fraud, and created a considerable discount to the stock. Shareholders have been stuck right in the middle with message boards scrambling to offer some explanation for the delays and inexplicably poor execution.
Chapin has had some success with other small ventures and, IMO, up until recently has been content letting Les and JJ fumble their way to a successful JV. However, a combination of the embarrassing Ulander debacle and Greg’s considerable investment in the LDM has shifted his focus back on Medinah. Chapin isn’t the type of guy who fk’s around and knowing that Tenney is just an empty chair, he began righting the ship well before JJ was forced to restructure his equity and take a back seat to many company initiatives. Hiring the consultant was a big first step. Bringing a guy like Kirkland on board and getting him involved was another huge step and finally getting Letts on the BOD was arguably the most significant add as it completely difused the “fraud card” and brought another geo savvy, well connected player onto the team.
Les has been sent to his corner. JJ has lost his autonomy. Major strides have been taken ever since the “adults” took over the romper room antics. I have to admit that I had assumed the adult supervision would be coming from outside of the company but, with the new additions to the board, we’re in an even stronger position for this company to make a solid recovery from within.
June 9th and the days preceding it will be very interesting.
Counter Point:
Let me present the other half of that coin suggesting that “JJ chose flimsy deals over legitimate ones because they aligned with his vision of what he should get for the mountain versus what was realistic and professionally sound”.
You never know but just perhaps after 40-plus years of developing this mountain’s assets and meeting with many dozens of distinguished geoscientists all, no doubt, having their own theories of the geo-modeling of the mountain, JJ may have attained a superior knowledge of the true value of this deposit. Maybe, just maybe, these other offers that YOU say were “legitimate, realistic and professionally sound” were the typical low ball offers that major miners always present to junior explorers counting on their sense of despair to bite on. You just never know but maybe this tri-porphyry discovery might just be something very special that JJ, being 40 years ahead of us on the learning curve, might have a better appreciation for the true value of even more than us shareholders.
Summary:
I think there is some accuracy in what both of them have to say. Everyone who has been to a shareholder meeting and has listened to JJ talk about the property knows just how highly he thinks about it. I don’t fully share The first assessment about JJ or Les because I don’t know all of the back story. There isn’t enough information regarding what JJ’s options were with respect to choosing “flimsy deals over legitimate ones” because we simply do not know what alternatives JJ had to choose from. In hindsight, there is no question that the deals JJ chose were suspect. He is great at acquiring properties, but doesn’t seem to be as great in judging partners.
I mostly concur with the first point description of the “environment over the past five years that has impacted credibility, increased skepticism to the point of fraud, and created a considerable discount to the stock.” MDMN is still significantly undervalued, especially after the Nuoco / LDM amalgamation, the game changing discovery, the JVA offer in hand, and adding Letts to the BOD.
I also happen to think that there is much to the counter point. JJ has spent a large part of his life acquiring this set of claims. Many of them have been in his family for years. JJ is also aware of the information backing the Perez report. Undoubtedly, JJ believes MDMN has a multi-billion dollar property and was not about to let it go for cheap.
One thing that neither point or counter point mentioned was the importance of consolidating the claims. Many years ago I was in a meeting with Counter Point and one of the project geologists, Terrence Smithson. Terrence showed us a large claims map (about 3' x 5') with all of the claims boundaries outlined for the 1000+ (at the time) claims. He told us that it was unlikely for MDMN to get a deal based on how everything was structured. MMC owned most of the claims, but many were also held solely by JJ or family members. MMC was owned 51% by JJ and 49% by MDMN. The reality was that JJ was in complete control for all those years, regardless of what anyone at MDMN wanted to do. Also, with everything as fragmented as it was, there was little chance of JJ or MDMN getting the JV it sought. Smithson’s comments were prescient. Unfortunately, at the time many of us didn’t know enough about the industry to believe him, nor was there much we could do about it even if we did.
With the LDMC project finally hitting pay dirt and JJ consolidating all the claims with MDMN for shares, it looks like everything is falling into place for a successful joint venture agreement. There has been an opportunity cost for waiting all these years. However, the dilution is not as bad as some describe. JJ absorbed a lot of it himself when he added the family claims to MMC and gave up his 51% ownership in it for what amounts to only 350 million shares after conversion (approximately 26% of the company.)
Finally, there is no question that the interest of management are completely aligned with the interest of shareholders. With continued exploration and production occurring on the LDMC / Nuoco projects, an offer in hand for the ADL, and mention of other competing offers on the way, MDMN has never been better positioned for Success.
AI
