Despite being concerned by the large holdings from a JDM entity in a company like Fancamp, I find it reassuring to have them aboard instead of other instos like Dundee or Pinetree. I know that they were a key player in the 19 cents acceptance of Cliffs offer to Spider, which was considered a low offer, but I am sure that they negociated hard to get what they considered OK for a sale for their long-held shares.
Here is an excerpt from their "Commitment to Resource Issuers". To date, I think they acted like good boys. And one can see that they stick to their saying. Just look how long they are in juniors like KWG, UC and Fancamp to name a few... Not a bad thing to have them here IMO! GLTA. BaBe.
MineralFields Does Not Dump Shares: Some flow-through funds simply dump large quantities of an issuer’s shares on the dissolution of the fund. Other funds dump stock as soon as the 4 month hold period expires. Not MineralFields ! First, MineralFields has its own mutual fund, into which we transfer our flow-through share portfolio on the dissolution of any of our flow-through limited partnerships, on a tax-deferred basis. MineralFields only invests in companies where we feel that the story will be good not just for a year or two, but for the longer term. That is why the quality of a company’s management is the single most important criterion in our evaluation process. In those cases where MineralFields feels that it is appropriate to sell part of its holdings of a particular stock (for example, to take some money off the table when a stock has appreciated significantly) and the stock is not trading large volumes, we will first attempt to call the company’s management, and ask if there are any significant other shareholders who may wish to purchase a block of shares from us. And finally, if we ever do sell shares on the open market, it is in an organized way that does not move the market – because all of our funds are administered by a single trader, there is no confusion, or competing sell orders from different funds where we hold an issuer’s stock in more than one of our MineralFields flow-through funds. Bottom line: we often buy flow-through shares from an issuer more than once, and we value our reputation in the industry as “the good guys”. While we are tough negotiators, we are also fair. As an organization that values transparency, we welcome any issuer who has not dealt with us in the past to contact any issuers in which we have invested, and we can supply a list on request. You will find that there is 100 % satisfaction with MineralFields among all of our issuers, and we often receive referrals of other resource issuers interested in flow-through financing from our existing issuers.
Reality check re retail investors buying flow-through from brokers: Many mining issuers are under the misconception that they are immune from dumping if they have their flow-through issued to retail investors by brokers. The reality is that brokers specialize in the "reload" -- as soon as the 4 month hold period is up, the broker will call the retail investors and say "hey, it's time to sell, and I will get you some new flow-through". The reason is that the broker will earn a commission both on the sale of the old flow-through, as well as a second commission on the purchase of the new flow-through -- this is a very powerful financial incentive for the broker, that is very hard to resist.
