Stuck in a sunny spot in California, I was commissioned to provide information to a mining company planning to takeover another mining company. They flew me to the icy-shores of a lonely lake somewhere in Quebec for a first-hand view of one property but told me to use the web for perspective on properties in warmer places in South America. By the end of the mining-company web search, I had definite opinions of the quality of what is out there. Here are my perpectives, recorded to help you get taken over or better still encourage investors to buy your shares.

Richard Rotman of the Bryan Mills Group writing in the Canadian Mining Journal says the following on the basis of his survey of mining company web sites:

“Lower-scoring websites had many features in common: limited corporate information, almost never reviewing the whole industry and excluding commodity and share prices. They also lack adequate background about management and board members. This is what most distinguishes poor mining websites. Fully 40% of the mining websites we surveyed left out biographies and photos of management and board members.

He continues by noting that the good sites incorporate these features. (The full article is included at the bottom of this post):

• Mission statements and corporate strategy carefully explained and illustrated
• Online, real time, share/unit and commodity prices
• Up-to-date news releases (and not links to news services), accompanied by archives of releases
• Events and presentations easily accessible and downloadable (and up-to-date)
• Full explanation of governance, including policies and board-level committees and their members
• Contact information that is responsive and available, either by e-mail or telephone

By way of full disclosure, note that I am employed by InfoMine and am paid while I write these pieces. On the basis of that disclosure, I proceed to examine the information about companies and properties in InfoMine as objectively as possible.  You can get most of the information Rotman notes constitutes a good mining site in the InfoMine databases. The information nuggets are not necessarily laid out in sequential fashion, and you may have to dig into the many documents in the databases. But the information is there for all companies on the world stock exchanges.

In my researches on properties owned by the company that was the target of the take-over bid, I confess I had much more fun navigating the take-over target company’s sites. Their sites were more colorful, they were more bravado-prone, and they had carefully arranged their nuggets to lure the purchaser. The dull, long lists of borehole results that litter the InfoMine site databases left me exhausted and dispirited. And to get the nuggets, I had to dig deep through the drivel stuffed into annual reports. I found what my client needed, but it was not fun. And frequently it was a lot faster to simply use the publically accessible mining company sites.

I had recourse to the websites of InfoMine’s competitors, and there are many. Generally they were thin, and you felt as though you were walking on fragile ice layered over a deep, cold pond of insubstantial flotsam. Too often they just repeated what is on the mining company’s web site, and presented it in ugly format. I wish I could record a good site, but I liked none of them.

I recognize there is no one best way to present information on the web about your mining company and its properties. It all depends on your reason for posting information. You may be posting information to entice another company to buy you up. You may be posting information to encourage people to buy shares. You may be trying to get the word out that you are a good corporate citizen, who cares for the environment and the community. You may be providing a portal for your staff and employees. You may not wish to post much because you know there is a lawyer lurking around looking for an opening for a class action law suite.

On the topci on negative information:  I was amazed by how much negative stuff was readily accessible in technical papers by academics on the sins and failures and negative impacts of the properties we were evaluating. I got a lot of information out of the InfoMine library resources relevant to the potential value of a property based on the nature of its environmental impact and future clean-up costs.  Failure to control the publish-or-perish academics must have cost them.

The point is that we are still only at the cusp of a vast future of possibilities. Go to a trade show and see the variety of skills behind the layout of the many companies seeking to sell their ore discoveries, entice you to buy their shares, and to disseminate their information. You will conclude that we have not yet found the magic formula in person, on paper, or on the web. There await pots of gold for the folk who succeed in putting together the best way to present information about mining companies and thereby best promote the free flow of information that is the life blood of a vital investing industry.

If you have suggestions in how to achieve this, please leave them in the comment box below, or remain silent, implement them, and grow rich.

How does your website shape up?

By: Richard Rotman

While we were developing a website for a mining company, the client challenged us: ‘Tell me how this website design compares to our peers and competitors.’ He asked us whether our concept of best practices for publicly held companies was carried out in the industry at large.

Thus began a journey through 25 mining company websites, reviewing and analyzing exploration companies with market caps from $85 million to $2.2 billion. As there were no criteria or official standards for investor relations websites, we developed our own.

The fundamental standard with which we began stemmed from transparency and full disclosure.

Websites, of course, represent a transformational technology in shareholder communications. Issuers can now provide abundant information, without regard to the space and time limitations of conventional media. Illustrations, photos and maps, especially valuable for mining companies and their investors, are available at the click of the mouse. A company can tell its story better than ever before, with up-to-the-minute information.

Why then do so many mining companies conceal their best assets?

To create standards for objectively rating mining websites, we constructed 11 criteria, based on the sections in mining company websites that are most often used. Beyond the home page, these include: corporate information, stock and dividend information, reports and filings, governance and shareholder resources, among others. We then further subdivided, such as these under CORPORATE INFORMATION:

• Corporate profile
• Business strategy
• Industry overview
• Executive management
• FAQs
• Upcoming events
• Unique features (such as excellent navigation)
• Navigation was also an issue; some sites were simply difficult to negotiate. Sites with excellent navigation were scored as having ‘unique features.’

Lower-scoring websites had many features in common: limited corporate information, almost never reviewing the whole industry and excluding commodity and share prices. They also lack adequate background about management and board members. This is what most distinguishes poor mining websites. Fully 40% of the mining websites we surveyed left out biographies and photos of management and board members.

Because these the senior executives will be implementing corporate strategy, obtaining a sense of management’s personality and background is as important as understanding the company’s financials and business model. Not coincidentally, that’s why analysts and institutional investors want to meet management face-to-face.

What this basic review of a single category reveals is like the description of good real estate: ‘location, location, location!’ Extended to websites, it reads ‘disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.’ Of all the places companies look to trim communication spending, the website is one area where significant care must be taken to aim for the upper level of best practices.

In addition to full bios and photos of management and directors, our survey revealed that WEBSITES DEMONSTRATING BEST PRACTICES ALSO FEATURE:

• Mission statements and corporate strategy carefully explained and illustrated
• Online, real time, share/unit and commodity prices
• Up-to-date news releases (and not links to news services), accompanied by archives of releases
• Events and presentations easily accessible and downloadable (and up-to-date)
• Full explanation of governance, including policies and board-level committees and their members
• Contact information that is responsive and available, either by e-mail or telephone

The best websites also EMPLOY THE LATEST NAVIGATION TECHNOLOGY, which delivers a more positive web experience for the user. If a mining company sets out to make its website an investor relations website first and foremost, with shareholder communications playing a primary role, many of these best practices can be easily incorporated. When it comes to public companies, more information is better, not less, for an end result of stable and long-term investor interest.

Richard Rotman is VP of investor relations at Bryan Mills Group. Contact him at Richard@bryanmills.com.