Karl Simich is an interesting character @nessy - Back when I used to hold Sandfire (SFR) and Karl was their MD, some of the earnings calls were hard to listen to, because he could get quite aggressive and either dismissive or borderline-abusive at times with analysts. He was similar to Chris Ellison in a number of ways, in that he was very confident in his own abilities, didn't appreciate any criticism, even the constructive kind, and didn't like being questioned too much either, he just wanted to make statements and have everyone accept those statements as facts without much in the way of details.

I actually sold out of Sandfire because I thought Karl was attempting some empire-building with a number of acquisitions - including overseas projects - in a relatively short space of time. Most of that M&A has actually worked out reasonably well for Sandfire to give Karl credit where credit is due, but back at the time he had just bought Talisman Mining's 30% interest in the Springfield JV, which included the Monty copper-gold project and surrounding tenements, to gain 100% ownership (in late 2018), which was a stone's throw from Sandfire's operating DeGrussa copper mine in WA, plus they were spending money on their Black Butte copper project in the USA, and then SFR lobbed in a bid for MOD Resources in June 2019, and Karl made it clear that he saw Sandfire's future as being a serious global copper player with a number of mines around the world.

Back then I was already wary of Australian companies buying into Africa, based mostly on my own experiences with West African gold miners, and MOD's flagship project was the T3 Copper-Silver Project and adjacent exploration tenements in the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana; Sandfire now call those assets "Motheo".

I saw some orange flags and was happy to step off that ride and watch from the sidelines at that point, and I haven't got back on SFR since then except for some very short term copper trades.

SFR's next acquisition was in 2021, being the MATSA Mining Complex in Spain. So after that they were mining copper in Australia, Botswana and Spain and they were still slowly developing their Black Butte Copper Project in Central Montana, USA, which Sandfire claim is one of the world’s highest-grade undeveloped copper projects.

Karl Simich was with Sandfire for 13 years, being their CEO & MD and for some of that time also their Interim Chairman. He left the company in early October 2022 after the MATSA acquisition, so he hadn't exactly built an empire, but he had built a significant global copper player, not one of the majors but big by Australian standards. Today, Sandfire represents the largest company on the ASX that provides pure copper exposure, since OZ Minerals (was OZL.asx) was acquired by BHP. You can get copper exposure in other larger companies like BHP, but if it's pure copper exposure you want, in a company with some scale advantages, then Sandfire is hard to look past, which is why they often look expensive for what they are - due to there being bugger-all alternative decent-sized copper plays on the ASX.

Anyway, I don't have anything against Karl Simich personally, he did a decent job at SFR during his 13 years there, making more good moves than bad ones from what I could see, but he isn't a promotional manager, or I should say he wasn't back then, he may have changed. He wanted to let the company's results do the talking, and his strong opinion on management was that they were paid to make the big decisions and shareholders and analysts should stay out of their way and let them do their job, and while staying out of his way and not bothering him with questions, they could do and say what they liked, he didn't much care. Much like Chris Ellison in his heyday, as I said at the start of this post.

It's worth pointing out that when Karl left Sandfire, their market cap had grown to over $5 Billion, which is a decent size for an Australian (ASX-) listed company.

I note Karl was only appointed as a NED at CTN on the 12th this month (June 2025) and CTN do not update their website too often by the looks of it: https://www.catalinaresources.com.au/about-us/board-of-directors

Interestingly, the previous Chair of CTN (Sanjay Kumar Loyalka) and another Director, Richard Beazley, left the STN Board on the day that Karl Simich joined the Board, and Richard Beazley was previously the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Sandfire for two years (2017 to September 2019). During his time as COO, Beazley oversaw key operations including the DeGrussa Copper Mine and the Monty Underground Project.

One thing that I found interesting from the CTN announcement of Simich's appointment to the Catalina Board was that he has chosen not to accept any base salary or base remuneration for his directorship at CTN, instead electing to participate solely in the Company’s long-term incentive arrangements which CTN say demonstrates Simich's commitment to shareholder-aligned value creation.

Ross Cotton, the remaining Executive Director, has had his annual remuneration increased from $120,000 to $150,000 (exclusive of statutory superannuation) to reflect his expanded responsibilities due to the reduced Board, however that represents the only director remuneration currently being paid by CTN. All Non-Executive Directors (NEDs), have elected to serve on the Board without fees, participating solely in the Company’s proposed performance-based incentive arrangements.

The performance-based incentive package comprises Class A Performance Rights, which will vest upon the Company’s shares achieving a volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of at least $0.01 for 20 consecutive trading days on which the shares are traded on ASX. That might seem an easy hurdle to step over (the kind that Buffett likes), however CTN's current SP is $0.004 being four tenths of one cent, so it needs to rise by +150% to reach 1 cent per share, and then stay at or above that level for 20 trading days in a row, so basically for one month.

You can buy CTN shares for $0.005 (half a cent currently) so if the NEDs achieve that 1 cent/share for a month target, that's a 100% upside from half a cent.

That said, I know next to nothing about Catalina Resources, so I won't be rolling those dice today. I'd expect the company to do a share consolidation shortly, and I would hope that the incentives would then be adjusted for that consolidation rather than the hurdle being regarded as having been met simply by the share price consolidation causing the share price to rise - even though there would be less shares on issue. But leaving that potential consolidation aside, this is a $10m company trading at half a cent per share or less, who have projects in 3 different Australian states (as shown below), and I know nothing about any of those projects, so I think I now have some homework to do.

Disc: Not held.