Hi Jny!
My advice to you is to just take your time and consider all of the facts, and perhaps call management if you have questions. There will be several weeks before any decisions must be made by shareholders and those who are making snap decisions today may regret them in the future.
I do not anticipate that anything will change to the downside for ECU regarding the current operations. My estimation is that the operations were running below capacity and even at full capacity the results were marginal. To make a profit on this kind of resource once must run a much higher production volume and realize economies of scale in mining and processing cost. That requires the investment of a large amount of cash. ECU paid a big price tag to buy the new mill and I doubt the company could have gone back to market on favorble terms to raise money for further expansion. So what upside was there in the current operations going forward?
With the merger, I expect a big chunk of cash will go to fund expansion. I think further cash will be in the budget to drill the hell out of the deposit. Each of these have the potential to attract new investors and build much greater value to the Newco. It also means we will have the chance to finally make some money from operations and that too will lower the overall risk and make the entire package more attractive for investors. I think we get a bigger slice of a bigger pie in this deal.
I am not upset that ECU did not return my personal phone calls. I imagine there were far more important and urgent matters to consider from their point of view, plus it is common for a company to go into a quiet period before a major transaction. I was writing a coverstory for Resource World on Glamis Gold a few years ago and suddenly they also stopped returning my calls right before the deal with Goldcorp was announced. Why take the chance on one more leak of a story by talking to people when you do not need to?
I think the deal is a good one. I am pissed off with the timing and perhaps there were reasons why they chose to have the shares trading so quickly. I decided to take advantage of market weakness, as anyone else is able to do, and bought more stock and wrts. I could have sold and moved on. There is nothing in my relationship with ECU to provide an advertisement on my website that requires me to own stock or support the company. I do so as in individual retail investor that has positive expectations. I put more money into ECU stock today alone than I have earned from more than 2 years of ad revenue. I would not risk one penny of my own money if I did not have a positive outlook on this story.
BTW, the Newco will still be required to present financial reporting. It is my understanding that the company can in fact benefit from a different regulatory regime by having headquarters in the US and may now be able to consolidate financial results as operations and not just a credit against cap-ex. There was some kind of bunfight going on with regulators in Quebec that may go away when this deal closes.
cheers!
mike
