EDITORIAL PAGE (August 05, 1991)

International Corona shareholders are going to be busy for the next six weeks sifting through analyses of the company’s proposed restructuring that are already pouring forth from mining analysts. But when all is said and done, the story for shareholders is essentially a familiar one: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Corona currently gets most of its income from gold mining, but its assets include substantial investments in oil and gas, mutual funds, merchant banking, industrial minerals, base metals — in short, a grab bag portfolio that is difficult to value.

The proposed restructuring, if approved by shareholders, would bring the company back to its roots, to the International Corona that The Northern Miner has reported on since the gold miner’s inception in 1982. It would be, once again, simply a gold mining company with strong growth potential although on a somewhat larger scale. In the process, Corona will rid itself of the dreaded multi-voting share, that insufferable affront to the principle of ownership conferring control.

Investors could then look at reserve figures, average grades, costs per ton, recovery rates and the myriad other statistics they analyze in a gold miner and be confident they are comparing apples to apples.

But Corona still will be firmly in the hands of a single group. Ned Goodman and associates are not giving anything up in this deal. They’re just taking their control position back a step. They would then have voting control in the holding company that owns the control block of Corona shares. A company could do worse than be guided by Goodman, despite his penchant for changing corporate structure every few years.

Corona would then have come full circle — somewhat better heeled, but considerably easier to understand.

Margaret (Peggy) Witte recently told The Wall Street Journal that there is at least one advantage to being a woman in the mining industry: “People don’t forget you.”

That wasn’t quite right. Gender has nothing to do with it. After her latest success in the world of corporate dodge-ball, people are not likely to forget her, but it won’t be because she is a woman.

Witte’s indelible mark will not quickly be forgotten, but it will be because of her persistence, hard work and vision, not because she is a woman.