Hoov,
Anything is certainly possible. It is impossible to know what all was going on behind the scenes without being made privy to their inner operations.
I would point out however that all the resource stocks were going through a period of sliding stock prices after Cliffs made their first buy in of Freewest, including Noront. So my guess is that Cliffs didn't have any direct involvement in Freewest's receding stock price over that period. Noront's own stock price continued to fall right up until it suspiciously shot up shortly before their takeover attempt.
It is impossible to speculate as to how the future would have transpired without the Noront takeover attempt. Would Cliffs have continued to accumulate? Hard to say. Would FWR stock price have taken off with Cliffs accumulating again? Hard to know.
Certainly one thing going against Cliffs succeeding with slow accumulation at cheap prices, over time, is that the Chromite deposit was continuing to be more visible to the World and to all other majors. Drilling was continuing, a 43-101 was on the way, and other large, valuable minerals deposits could continue to be uncovered in the labs at any time.
Perhaps the most interesting hypothesis still, is whether it is not yet possible that this whole takeover was mutually orchestrated by Noront and Freewest together. Granted that this is quite unlikely, but I would laugh my a$$ off if that ever came out. With all of the public animosity fired back and forth between Noront and Freewest, it would have to go down as the best scripted acting job in the history of mining takeovers.
Looking forward to see what the next few weeks bring with regard to this Chromite takeover saga. Bring on another bidder!
