This company was never going to be profitable at $7/lb nickel, despite the best efforts of everyone over the years to try and convince otherwise. Even at $10/lb it was iffy. Liberty will default on the loans, JJ will get possession of the assets, put them in indefinite care and maintenance and then sometime far down the road, develop them when nickel prices are appropriate. The only hope for shareholders after the 2009 market collapse was a miraculous rise in nickel prices to over $12-15+/lb. Never happened.

I still distinctly recall Gary Nash being adamant that they felt nickel prices wouldn't be at $7/lb for long when they had their big meeting several years ago to explain themselves. I specifically asked him what the plan was if nickel was at $7 and the answer was basically "$7/lb nickel won't happen, so don't worry". I guess we now know the answer. Glad I sold then.

Unless nickel prices can shoot up to $20/lb, something I don't see happening any time soon, the writing is on the wall (and, really, has been for a couple of years now). The company just can't generate enough cash flow to be able to dig itself out of the hole that it is in and eventually JJ will be taking full control of the company, likely as a result of an asset seizure when the eventual default happens on its debt and Liberty goes bankrupt. This isn't such a bad result for JJ as they acquire a working asset which they can set up under a new company and continue to produce and will likely return a profit on their investment (on top of the nice interest that they've been accruing on their current loans).

As for the shareholders, 2009 pretty much did this company in. It has just been a slow dance to the bottom from there.

Anyone hoping for share prices to recover much beyond 10 cents is dreaming, unfortunately. I think 10 cents is probably a best case scenario at this point... 0 cents is the much more likely result.

The 'ol "Pump and Dump" is alive and well... part of the reason I don't post here anymore. I got tired of trying to figure out which of you were real and weren't.

I can't speak for JJ, but given that they have both debt and equity investments in LBE, they will be extremely flexible with debt repayments -- I'm sure they'd much rather see the cash go in to expansion of operations/growth than repayment of principle... either way, JJ will share in the success of the company. As long as nickel remains over $10/lb, JJ will receive a nice return on investment - no way they want debt repayments to slow growth.

The Canadian dollar has dropped against the USD about 5% in the last few weeks as well, effectively making the current $9.50/lb nickel prices still equivalent to $10/lb CDN. $10/lb isn't a bad price at all.

I suspect the pullback in nickel prices has less to do with inventory changes and more to do with what is happening in the market/economy as a whole right now. Most commodities are taking it on the chin presently. Oil is down to $65/bbl today.