One thing in your post is correct. Greed is a constant.

Here is my theory, Lori has a "deal" she knows the shareholders won't like, but has certain offside benefits for her. So to make the deal go through, she needs to either make the company appear to be worth much less than the buy price of her deal. So if she sold a deal for a $1/share, she needs to make it look like SLI is only worth a fifth of that or the shareholders would not vote for the deal. Of course, this is a big risk to leave control in someone else's hands, so ideally, she would do what ever she can to get voting control back. Since the stock is held so tightly, the only way to do it is to drive the price down and issue a private placement at rediculously low prices to get the most shares as possible. Or drive the price down and shake as many shares as possible out of the longs. Either way, she had to drive the price down to win and the best way to do it was deliver poor results by drilling outside the anomaly.

Selling 200k shares is no smoking gun considering she owns millions of shares, but it it sure could be a smoke screen. Sell shares to throw off any scent of the scheme to take control.

Greed may be a constant, but power, that's what corrupts.

You wanted an alternative theory, here you go. All of this, of course, is just my opinion and like your post is pure speculation with no facts backing it.

I found these 7 reasons to remove a CEOwhile searching the net. SLI shareholders have pretty much all of these reasons to have Lori removed as CEO.

The Seven Reasons to Remove a CEO.
Poor Leadership
-Lacks the confidence of key personnel
-Hires/retains weak people in key positions or fails to fill key roles in a timely way
-Fails to grow/retain successor(s) and/or create management depth
Poor Vision
-Lacks clear understanding of where business is going
-Lacks focus on organization and priorities or tries to keep too many balls in the air
-Is unable to strike key industry strategic partnership relationships
Poor Results
-Has major and sustained poor financial performance or missed targets
-Shows major loss of competitive position or market share
-Is unable to forecast timing/nature of recovery events or of revenue achievement
Poor Understanding of Business
-Misses key industry trends and changes
-Lacks understanding of fundamental profitability factors
-Cannot crisply define what it takes to win
Poor Work Habits
-Does not put heart and soul into business
-Sets bad example/role model for others
-Is not viewed in industry as a key player
Poor Management Style
-Allows top management infighting, not working as a team
-Demonstrates unpredictable decision processes or will not make tough decisions
-Starves key programs but spares sacred cows
Poor Board Candor/Communication
-Controls flow of information/agenda, preventing focus on or sufficient time for critical issues
-Does not allow ready access to VPs and other key individuals
-Keeps favorite nonstrategic programs or perquisites out of board review and approval process

Sounds like its time for a good old shareholders revolt and get rid of this failure of a CEO. Time for a proxy battle.

Its not that she hit gold or not that is of concern, its the plan, process and lack of progress on key initiatives that concern me. Trenching results should have been released by now, drilling results that appear to be spot sampled (the only way to get that many 0.5m gold intercepts is if you are only spot checking and taking 0.5m samples), inconsistent messaging, lack of internal control of messaging, putting out the news releases that are not clear, consise and thorough (though they have gotten better), acquisition/investment of a internet company (not an SLI issue, but speaks to character) when gold exploration is the key driver of the business, missing deadlines or promised done by dates for Havilah spin off.

The biggest issue at this time is not if there is or isn't gold on Tessoro or Vilcoro or any other property SLI has, its now become a management issue and is the current management capable of instituting a sound plan and process to realize the value of these properties? That is the question that is really before the shareholders at this time.

Lori and the board of directors for SLI should read the quote from the Chairman and founder of Barrick, Peter Munk, when he called out the CEO during a investors forum.

"This is a public company and the ultimate test of performance, the ultimate test of your job and my job and the boards job is to produce adequate returns to the shareholders"

SLI's CEO and board has failed their test. Is it time for the CEO to go?

I wanted to share my thoughts on the River Cree night. First, the hockey game was fun to play in, and I am sure, every bit as exciting to watch. Must have been like watching NHL playoff hockey! (NHL = Nursing Home League)

It was also great pleasure to meet everyone from hub leaders like Sculpin, Jake, Kherson, Kemo and, of course, BOW to others who, like me, do their DD from the quiet corners of Agoracom.

I have always heard that Murray and Alice were genuine and honest folks. It wasn't until you meet them in person that you reaize that all the nice things everyone says about them can be multiplied by 10. I don't think Murray has the capability to get up on stage and tell everyone that there is gold in the ground, if he didn't believe it, or maybe even know there IS a vast amount of gold in the ground. Like he said, he's not polished, but sure does believe what he says, and I will take that any day to a polished windbag.

My drive to go to the meeting was to learn more about the inner operations of the company. Even though we are still awaiting drill results, there is enough scientific and anecdotal evidence that points to there being a significant amount of gold in the ground at Tesoro. (Quantec, what's been pulled out before, what other are pulling out in the valley, etc) This leads us to the next question, is the executive and management teams capabale of taking this company to the next level. It is nice to hear that there is going to be more structure in the E-Level of the company with 1/4ly meetings and semi-annual face to face meetings. Personally, at this stage of the process, I would prefer monthly meetings and 1/4ly face to faces until the transaction is driven to conclusion. The new directors should add a level of business expertise SLI lacked in the past, and will be a definate asset during any negotiations. One thing that concerns me is, please correct me if I am wrong, no current director has put their butt on a plane to see first hand the Tesoro property. Maybe its just me, but I certainly would want to go down periodically to see the progress, rally the troops, and get a feel for the area and the property. It would make the presentations a bit more personal and I think lend a lot of credibility to the SLI story.

One other point to note, this definately was not a pumper rally. There was no "SLI or Die" slogans being chanted and no cheerleaders spouting off the virtues of SLI. I found it to be simply a group of investors who got together to share ideas, stories and thoughts about SLI. There were as many questions about the company as there was positive musings. It was just a fun way to discuss and learn about an investment and sure beats talking shop in a "stock house".

Thanks to BOW and ED44 and anyone else who organized this event. Great job! Looking forward to next year.