Dissatisfaction with mining company performance is causing major institutional shareholders in mining equities to question the running of the companies in which they are invested and in some cases to demand changes in management direction – and personnel.
GRONINGEN (MINEWEB) – While the protesters that formed the heart of the Occupy movement in the US (and throughout the rest of the world) would most likely struggle to see any similarity between themselves and the fund managers and investors that buy and sell gold mining and exploration companies, one can’t help but notice a few parallels between the two.
Indeed, listening to the increasingly strident criticism of mining company management by the likes of BlackRock, Hallgarten & Co and US Global to name but three, it is not hard to imagine them siding with the 99% who want to see more of the money; disappointed as they are in the return they have so far received on their investment.
These investors feel disappointed in the management of the companies in which they have invested because they have, in many instances, failed to capitalise on the record rise in many commodity prices and, in particular gold prices and, as a result, like the Occupy protesters, have begun to make their dissatisfaction felt, albeit in a slightly more orderly fashion.