I spoke at length Friday with the mining analyst from a major Canadian brokerage firm. He provides in-depth analysis on ECU Silver and maintains a 2008 price target of $3.50/sh., double Friday’s closing price of $1.72/sh. The analyst indicated that many Canadian funds and other institutions are very impressed with ECU Silver, but may be holding back for fear that the firm will come to the market soon to raise dilutive capital. I suspect that ECU’s management will be addressing this issue soon.
Perhaps adding additional “confusion” to prospective institutional buyers is the fact that management has not announced their strategic intentions for 2008. Specifically, the company is at a crossroad whereby it must decide whether to build out capital-intensive production capacity (i.e. 1500 tons of ore/day) or merely continue to drill and (lab) test resource in an effort to convert much of this vast quantity of “potential” ore to a higher, more valuable category. The analyst with whom I spoke feels that when ECU is able to convert another 90MM oz. of “potential” resource to the “inferred” category (250MM total), the company will come onto the radar screen of some major gold and silver producers. Perhaps this conversion can be completed in 6-9 months. Once again, I suspect that ECU’s management will be addressing this and will communicate their plans to the marketplace very soon. As these issues are resolved and the metal prices continue to climb, I feel ECU’s valuation will increase sharply in 2008.
