News

May 11, 2009

Tanzanite One Emerges From Its Recent Takeover Travails With Aspirations For A Return To Profits This Year

By Alastair Ford

Only obsessives, or those seriously out of the money, will have noticed the subtle change that recently occurred to the way Tanzanite One lays out the information at the bottom of its press releases. It's neither a surprising, nor (really) a momentous change, but now that Dr Bernard Olivier’s name and phone number are going out with the company’s announcements, things at the troubled tanzanite miner might start to calm down a bit. Bernard’s emergence as the primary contact for investors was smoothly, if discretely, handled. His name wasn’t on the company’s financial results for the year to 31st December, which came out on 5th May. Those detailed a net loss of US$9.5 million for the year. His name was, however, on the operational update that came out later the same day. That update detailed, amongst other things, over US$4.6 million in sales so far in 2009.

It seems that as of 1st May Bernard’s position as director at Tanzanite One switched from the non-executive role that’s described on the website to the executive role that’s ascribed to him in the operational update. No mention was made of the impending nature of this development in the company’s previous announcement, which detailed the results of the special general meeting (SGM) held as the final act in the company’s defensive campaign against a hostile, low-ball, and only partial bid from...