Fronteer (FRG) (FRG.to) versus AuEx (XAU.to) year to date

An interesting chart.


Subscribers got a Flash update regarding FRG sent over before the bell this AM, by the way.

we lead others follow

Let's see if you can spot the similarities too, dear reader.

Here's IKN on Friday May 28th:

How many Ventana Gold (VEN.to) shares does Eike Batista Own?

Answer: 19,306,000.

This number went up this week, as Eike's 63X Master Fund vehicle added 1.1m shares to its pile on Wednesday (and filed them as quickly as yesterday).

Ventana Gold Corp. (VEN)						As of May 27th, 2010
Filing Date	Transaction Date	Insider Name	Ownership Type	Securities	Nature of transaction	# or value acquired or disposed of	Unit Price
May 27/10	May 26/10	63X Master Fund	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Acquisition in the public market	1,100,000	$10.620

Strangely and weirdly, this puts the 63X Master Fund's total holding at 19.82% of shares outstanding, assuming that the May 13th total of 97,409,131 shares out is still the exact correct one. As many out there will know, special things start happening to Canadian stocks if one single holder goes above 20% so it's not really surprising to see Eike's crew stop just under that magic number.

Now that the land deal is done with Los Gelvez, the question now is "when" Eike makes his move and buys out VEN.to, not "if". My best guess would be after the Presidential elections, but WTFDIK? Anyway, to round off here's the current state of full dilution at the company (the warrants and options are all in the money). I wonder if mgmt will have time to squeeze in a final round of bonus options?

shares out: 97,409,131
warrants: 3,644,000
options: 6,327,000

And now here's the Ventana Gold (VEN.to) news release on Monday May 31st:

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - 05/31/10) - Ventana Gold Corp. (TSX:VEN - News) ("Ventana" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that 63X Master Fund ("63X"), its largest shareholder, has acquired ownership and control of an additional 1.1 million common shares of Ventana through the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange, bringing its aggregate ownership in Ventana to 19,306,000 common shares. 63X paid cash consideration of $10.62 per share, for aggregate consideration of $11,682,000.

Ventana Chairman Richard Warke said: "We are pleased to see 63X increase its position in our company. This demonstrates their confidence in the value of our assets and the strength of our business plan. As our largest shareholder, they have shown tremendous support to our Board and management team."

There goes a component of my long term portfolio....

I've never been a fan of Franco Nevada, (FNV.to) but that Lassonde does know a cheapo metal bargain when he sees it. I think C$6.75 for IRC.to is an absolute steal and let's hope there's another smartypants out there who will see the value and counterbid this cash deal. The main reason to hope is that I hold IRC.to (not its ROY version) in the long term portfolio (update: just to clear up something mailed through, all I meant was that I own the Canadian listing of International Royalty and not the US listing. Yup, i know IRC and ROY are the same animal)

What to replace it with now?

TORONTO, Dec. 6 /CNW/ - Franco-Nevada Corporation ("Franco-Nevada") announced today that it has informed International Royalty Corporation (TSX: IRC - News; AMEX: ROY - News; "IRC") that Franco-Nevada intends to, directly or indirectly through a wholly-owned subsidiary, make a formal all-cash offer to IRC shareholders to acquire any or all of the outstanding common shares of IRC (the "Offer") for C$6.75 cash per share.

The Offer price represents a 54% premium to the 20 day volume weighted average trading price of IRC shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange for the period ending December 4, 2009 and a 43% premium to the closing price of IRC shares on the TSX on that date.

Franco-Nevada intends to yada yada continues here

Corriente (CTQ.to): The difference between rumours started by CFAs and rumours started by anyone else is.....

....that there is no difference.

Remember back on March 11th and 12th when Corriente Resources (CTQ.to) (ETQ) ran up on big volumes? Then remember on March 13th when Desjardins announced that takeover talks between CTQ.to and its 'mystery buyer' (whose name starts with a T, ends with a G and has onglin in the middle...apart from that we know nothing) were well advanced and how the sale would go through in the next two to three weeks?

Well last night we had this from the company:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mar 25, 2009 -- Corriente Resources Inc. wishes to advise that, contrary to recent media reports, there are no material developments to disclose regarding ongoing exclusive negotiations for the potential sale of the company that were announced on December 16, 2008.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And today we have the stock down 6.15% on 350k traded. The big day (and probably the reason why Desjardins started the rumour in the first place) is that the mystery buyer has an exclusivity deal up to and including March 31st, after which the deal is likely to lapse.

And you guys still believe these clowns-in-suits after all they've done to you. I know the saying goes "Fool me once shame on you. fool me twice shame on me", but how does it work for "fool me 100 times"?

Finetik and the latest on Itau/Banamex/Citi

Via the Finetik blog linked here, your info-hungry Otto finds out that Banco Itau (ITU) sent an official communication to the Brazilian regulators last night stating that Itau "..is not negotiating any stake in Banamex’s capital..".

Now that doesn't mean there's no interest, of course. The ITU honchos have already said they'd be interested purchasers if and when Banamex went up for sale. It does mean, however, that ITU isn't doing anything proactive right now. This fits with the official Citigroup (C) line that Banamex is not up for sale, of course. This won't quell the rumours, but it will put a dampener on short-term speculation for sure. However it should be clearly pointed out that none of this addresses the core issue here: As explained previously if the US gov't takes its 36% interest in Citigroup as planned, C will be breaking the Mexican law and cannot hold onto Banamex as things stand. That's as plain as day.

Finally, a word of kudos for the people at Finetik; I've only recently discovered the blog (which is part of a wider capital markets company that specializes in Latin America as well as Asia) and put it on my RSS, but I've been very impressed with the quality of information passed over there. I can thoroughly recommend it and say it would be a good addition to your own RSS feed (or regular bookmarked visit). Here's the link to the blog's main page.

Disclosure: I have no affiliation whatsoever with Finetik and have never even spoken to the people in my time. I just think it's a good blog that covers LatAm finance well.

Related Post
Itau, Banamex and Citigroup: Rumours in the village

More consolidation in the copper sector

Quadra Mining (QUA.to) is moving to buy out Centenario Copper (CCT.to). Here's the relevant PR so go look for yourself, but the all-stock deal values CCT.to shares at a buck and the whole company at a ballpark $50m (though QUA.to will likely trade lower than its $3.95 close Friday). CCT's main project in Chile is a heap-leachable SX-EW mine that holds close to 7Bn lbs copper. So for those who like to follow in-situ valuations, that's 0.7c per Lb copper, give or take.

Strangely (or otherwise, depending on your point of view) CCT.to decides the day that a friendly buyout deal is announced is the day to unveil a new plan of action to integrate its two main projects. Some kind of latent "look at us not too late for a counterbid" wink to the general market, I suppose.

Finally, here are the 12 month charts for CCT.to and QUA.to. They hardly need any comment from me.

Centenario Copper 12 month chart

Quadra Mining 12 month chart

Update: A reader has just pointed out that my 7Bn lb number for the CCT.to resource is way wrong and it's more like 1.5Bnlbs. Quite right, too. I have no excuse whatsoever for my calc/typing screw-up and will therefore leave the post unchanged as a testament to my own dumbassness. Apologies from me.

Oh goody! A bidding war in the LatAm gold sector

Read the PRs yourself, but basically B2Gold (BTO.to) is trying to snatch Central Sun (CSM.to) (SMC) from under the noses of Linear Gold (LRR.to).

Here's Central Sun's PR
Here's Linear Gold's PR
Here's B2Gold's PR

This should be interesting. As mentioned on the site recently, B2Gold is a fairly new company but made up of the management team of the now sold Bema Gold, so these people are no slackers. Personally I just hope that whoever gets control of Central Sun boots out the mgmt responsible for the environmental mess known as The Limon Mine and cleans up the act over there.

Mag Silver: dead meat already

An interesting press release from Mag Silver (MVG) (MAG.to) this morning concerning the Fresnillo buyout offer. Here's the link, and here's the main comment from Mag's CEO:

Dan MacInnis, CEO of MAG, commented, "This may be the first time in history that a hostile bidder has announced a bid at a price lower than the closing market price of the target's shares on the trading day prior to announcement. Analysts and a number of shareholders are now calling this a "take-under" offer. We are a little mystified by Fresnillo's actions, but our Board understands its fiduciary and other obligations and will respond more formally in due course. In the meantime, our shareholders have no need to do anything to respond to the Fresnillo announcement."

As this chart points out......

CEO MacInnis is stretching the truth with his argument today. Check this Reuters report dated December 1st for more evidence. This means just one thing; the MVG position is weak, and all the rhetoric in the world won't cover that fact up. And it all boils down to one, simple point: Nobody else will buy Mag Silver. The company has two choices;

1) Accept the Fresnillo offer
2) Watch the stock price fall to where its silver peers are trading.

The only reason that MVG has held up better than peers was the expectation of this FRES.L offer. If it's rejected, nobody else will buy MVG. Take that to the bank. And the result will be the wholesale dumping of its share price.

Be clear; Fresnillo has played this offer very smartly and has MVG over a barrel, the weak counterarguments shown by the MVG CEO today are testimony to that. He may be pissed that this offer means his options are out the money, but that's kapitalism, komrade.