It is my belief that it is necessary for the discreet entities to band together to achieve the ultimate pay off. It will only be then that there will be enough share holder unity to impact a united front resulting from a greater common interest among shareholders. It is this united interest that will mitigate much of the manipulation the sp's have been enduring, allowing them to achieve true value and allowing well matched forces to meet at the bargaining table. I seriously doubt, though we are amassing a team of pros to take this to the mining stage, that we will be following through. I suspect that our BOD do not have that long an attention span. They are money men first. I have not decided which way I will vote as yet in spite of my above commentary, largely from my consideration over how the present BOD will perform in the future. What NOT has gone forward with concerning FWR is nothing new in this biz but for the fact that we happen to be involved. I have no worries that any of the board members will go hungry on their interests in the companies they are involved with. They are not green and have been around the block a few times. My concern is for my dollars and that what ever way I vote will bring about the best circumstances. When more time has elapsed and potential occurrences have been given their due, I will know which way to move. I don't care who runs the show as long as they do a good job for investors. I will have to have a strong impression that NOT will take FWR, not "give" away it's assets to misty entities in the shadows and raise the company value for the combined shareholders. Though FWR investors (myself included) may be unhappy with the notion of another company taking us over for what we may consider to be low balling and in affect diluting what we might have had running independently, the law of the jungle, as we are watching it play out, may never have allowed us to survive precisely because of the value FWR has found in the ground. Thus like so many armies, we need to have detentes of convenience. We might have to share the spoils with the other troops, but at least we may win the battle. I still sleep with one eye open but at least I'm in the safety of numbers when the battle starts. 1 for 4 shares may ultimately turn out to be very lucrative in the face of a hostile takeover from a major that only plays hardball. We may even find the numbers change over the next while to something even more palatable. In the meantime, it's still very early to say which way one would vote until all the occurrences have taken place. The above are simply my beliefs and opinions based on my interpretations of what I have witnessed concerning the companies involved.
