Without
wanting to be accused of unduly bashing one of
Australia’s
better performed CEOs of recent years, it has been revealed that Michael Kiernan
is not the only member of the Kiernan family who has an uncanny knack for
selling shares just before their price plummets. As Crikey has mentioned in
recent weeks (yesterday, item 24), Kiernan displayed spectacular timing in managing to sell off two
separate tranches of ConsMin shares just before the share price
plummeted.

On
16
May 2006,
Kiernan was appointed to the board of minnow Great Western Explorations (he is
expected to become Chairman at GWE’s AGM next week). GWE’s share price has been
on a roller-coaster ride in recent times. After hovering around the15
cent mark during last year, GWE leapt from 13 cents to 44 cents in
early May this year. The reason for the increase seems to be due to the
company announcing that it was jumping on the uranium bandwagon and acquiring
uranium production assets in Eastern Europe (GWE also plans to change its
name to Uran Limited, the Russian word for
uranium).

In
the midst of all this commotion,
GWE
also announced that a shareholder by the name of Laurence James Kiernan sold 540,000 shares at 49 cents per share and a further 1.02 million
shares at 41 cents per share on
8 May and 9
May 2006.
Laurence Kiernan just happens to be the son of Michael Kiernan. Proving that the
apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, Kiernan Junior reaped a windfall of
$683,000 from the sale of those shares, shortly before the share price plummeted
23% in less than a month.

Michael
Kiernan is by all accounts a very impressive mining executive, possibly one of
Australia’s
best, famously rising from being the tally clerk at the Woodie Woodie manganese
mine to running the place. However, the Kiernan family’s habit of selling shares
just before profit downgrades and share price slumps seems to be pushing
the boundary between exceptional timing and something more sinister.