Sum, I can appreciate your comments and concern, but I think you're being extremely hard here. These were the options:
1. finance and keep the doors open,
2. don't finance and shut'er down
So, assuming we want to see the good times, choosing #1 was the only option. Noront, no different than many companies, was in need of a financing of some sort. In fact, i'm sure you have mentioned this in many of your past posts. I think you assumed like many of us, that it would come at the cost of further dilution. Many ROF companies are sitting with 500 to 700M shares outstanding, while Noront is less than half that. I'd say we've faired well given the market conditions of recent years.
If you're arguing that this costed Noront something, I can't disagree with you, nor can anyone. EVERY financing comes at a cost. This is a no brainer. In a perfect world companies would never finance, they'd simply ask a bank really politely for a few million at no cost and promise to pay it back...........but if we're being serious and realistic here, financing is a very normal part of business.
In this situation, this was by far the best form of it. 10% and 8% repayment is actually lower than most recent deals. Many are paying 12%.
I sometimes wonder if some can be pleased. If this was an equity financing for $15 million it would have "costed" around 60 million shares. Would the critics of this deal be happy with that dilution? I suspect they'd be complaining regardless. Can't please everyone. Financing costs folks. This was about the least intrusive financing i've seen in these markets lately. We have just bought ourselves about 3 years.
djje
