The Lizard King: Trouble in the Congo

AVZ got some advice from their advisers, stating that a three-year jail sentence is not good news. If you were asleep on Tuesday, you may have missed his well-paid proxy adviser ISS’s decree that a three-year jail sentence handed to AVZ director Graeme Johnston in the Congo for alleged forgery of a share register should preclude him from being re-elected to the lithium explorer’s board ­– do ya think!

Talking about incarceration, around 21,000 AVZ shareholders have been stuck with suspended shares, and there’s no release date in sight. And we’re not talking about peanuts here; the shares are valued at a whopping $2.7 billion. Despite this, the board has promised to keep fighting for control of the Manono lithium deposit in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which could be the world’s largest.

Meanwhile, Johnston and AVZ vehemently deny the misdemeanour, arguing DRC has no legal jurisdiction in the matter given the December 2021 judgment has been appealed to the Supreme Court. Sounds plausible to this Lizard.

It’s hard not to support my Aussie mates, but I’m all for the local mineral projects, especially with recent developments in Africa and South America. With our most significant income decline in the developed world, I’m sure it will be a hot topic in the upcoming election, and the opposition will keep bringing it up until they get into power and forget about it.

I hope to return to my mum’s house and relive the good old days of staying up late, drinking beer, smoking indoors, and sleeping until the afternoon. Or maybe I’ll have a mid-life crisis like Bezos and start wearing a cowboy hat. It’s okay to do weird stuff if you’re rich enough. Rich people get to be eccentric instead of crazy.

I am trying to figure out what to ask for at the barbershop. I’ve always just asked for a regular haircut, but maybe I’ll try Jim’s Beauty. It might be more than just a marketing gimmick. As a guy, I appreciate easy haircuts. And billionaires blocking lithium deals are just a way for them to hold on to their high valuations while carbonate prices are down. But they could have it worse with juniors rather than having the big players prowling around exploration assets, getting locked up in the DRC among them!

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