International Royalty Corp (IRC.to)(ROY): What are the chances that Franco Nevada makes a counterbid?

Hey, nice news for ROY/IRC.to holders today as Royal Gold (RGLD) has also seen the tremendous value offered by International Royalty Corp. (IRC.to)(ROY) and made a white knight counterbid to the recent Franco Nevada (FNV.to) offer.

So what are the chances that FNV.to comes back and tries to outbid RGLD now? In my view, the chances are very high indeed as the thing is still going for a song at RGLD's buyout level. Don't sell your IRC.to / ROY shares, holders.

DYODD. I long.

UPDATE: thanks to a kind reader (who prefers total anonymity) I see that Haywood's call on this is "unlikely to see a two horse bidding war", the diametric opposite of this humble correspondent. Vamos a ver...........

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