Thursday, January 27, 2011

Bought deal fashion: The new trend is...

...for brokers in Canada to treat accredited investors like brainless dickheads. OK, ladies and gentlemen readers of this humble corner of cyberspace, follow the bouncing ball and see if you can spot a trend in the follow NR pairings:

Alange Energy (ALE.v) Jan 19th:
"The Company announced today that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters led by GMP Securities L.P. (the "Underwriters") whereby the Underwriters have agreed to acquire on a bought deal basis 167,000,000 units (the "Units") at a price of C$0.30 per Unit for cash proceeds of C$50,100,000. Each Unit will consist of..."
Alange Energy (ALE.v) Jan 19th:
"TORONTO, Jan. 19 /CNW/ - Alange Energy Corp (TSXV: ALE) ("Alange Energy" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that due to strong investor demand for its recently announced bought deal financing of Units (the "Offering"), the Company and the Underwriters have agreed to increase the size of the Offering by C$10 million. The Offering which is being..."


Talison Lithium (TLH.to) Jan 13th
"January 13, 2011: TALISON LITHIUM LIMITED (TSX:TLH) (“Talison”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of investment dealers led by Cormark Securities Inc. and including Scotia Capital Inc., Haywood Securities Inc. and Byron Capital Markets (the “Underwriters”), which have agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 9,231,000 ordinary shares (the “Shares”) of Talison at a purchase price of $6.50 per Share (the “Offering Price”), for aggregate gross proceeds in the amount of $60,001,500 (the “Offering”)."
Talison Lithium (TLH.to) Jan 13th:
"Talison Lithium Ltd (TSE:TLH) reports that it has amended the terms of the previously announced bought deal financing to increase the size of the offering from $60,001,500 to $69,569,500. The press release is.."

Arcan Resources (ARN.v) Jan 25th:
"Arcan Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:ARN) ("Arcan" or the "Company") announced today that it has reached an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters (the "Underwriters") led by RBC Capital Markets Inc. as Bookrunner and co-led by Haywood Securities Inc., pursuant to which Arcan has agreed to issue, on a "bought deal" basis, subject to regulatory approval, $50,000,000 aggregate principal..."
Arcan Resources (ARN.v) Jan 26th
"Arcan Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:ARN) ("Arcan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has increased the size of its previously announced public offering, on a "bought deal" basis, to $75,000,000 principal amount of convertible unsecured subordinated debentures with an interest rate of 6.25% per annum (the "Debentures"). The transaction was upsized from the original amount of $50,000,000."

Mega Precious Metals (MGP.v) Jan 19th:
"Mega Precious Metals Inc. (MGP:TSX-V) (the "Company") announces that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters (the "Underwriters), led by Stonecap Securities Inc., whereby the Underwriters have agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 8,750,000 flow-through common shares (the "Flow-Through Common Shares") from treasury of the Company at a price (the "Issue Price") of $0.80 per Flow-Through Common Share for gross proceeds of $7,000,000 (the "Offering"). The Company also grants..."

Mega Precious Metals (MGP.v) Jan 19th:
Mega Precious Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MGP) (the "Company") announces that it has increased its previously announced bought deal financing, led by Stonecap Securities Inc. and including PowerOne Capital Markets Limited and Octagon Capital Corporation, to 12,500,000 flow-through common shares (the "Flow-Through Common Shares") at $0.80 (the "Issue Price") for gross proceeds of $10,000,000 (the "Offering").

Candente Copper (DNT.to) Jan 26th:
"Vancouver, British Columbia -- January 26, 2011 -- Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT, BVL:DNT) ("Candente" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Dundee Securities Corporation and Scotia Capital Inc., as lead underwriters on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters including Raymond James Ltd., Wellington West Capital Markets Inc. and Stonecap Securities Inc. (collectively the "Underwriters"), whereby the Underwriters have agreed to purchase from the Company on a bought deal private placement basis (the "Offering"), an aggregate of 9,800,000 common shares (the "Shares") of the Company at a price of $2.05 per Share for aggregate gross proceeds of $20,090,000. The Company has also granted..."
Candente Copper (DNT.to) Jan 27th:
"Candente Copper Corp. (TSX:DNT)(BVLAC:DNT) ("Candente" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has amended the terms of the previously announced bought deal financing to increase the size of the offering from $20,090,000 to $26,240,000. Candente has entered into an amendment agreement..."

IKN back. Now for sure the brokers and, to a lesser extent the companies, will immediately claim that this is sheer coincidence and the increase in every single bought deal either hours or at a max of one day after the original announcement is proof of success and the general wonderfulness of the offering, to which IKN replies...
...because no brokerage in their right mind will ever (and I mean EVER) go into a bought deal situation without having the buyers already lined up and waiting. I will bet you the sum of money you care to name at 2:1 odds that in every single case above (and these are just a selection of these recent BS news pairings, plenty more where they came from) the brokerages in question had filled their pre-book orders to the "increased offer" level. So what the brightspark dumbasses in these houses are doing is 1) getting two NRs for the price of one and 2) trying to fake out that the deals are getting massive support within minutes to shine a wonderful sparkly light on the companies. 

But, as mentioned above, in the process they're treating accredited investors and instos that take up on these deals like unthinking automatons that don't have an ounce of insight between them. Hey, come to think of it that's probably the right attitude to take. Carry on, houses.

The S.Am dengue lottery hits northern Peru in 2011

Dengue is like that, a lottery. In 2008 it was Brazil's bad lot, 2009 was Bolivia, 2010 saw Paraguay and northern Argentina hard hit. This year there's a major outbreak in the jungle regions of Peru centred around the city of Iquitos, with 7943 cases reported as at January 25th (dengue season tends to run until April) with 68 people seriously ill and 10 fatalities so far. To give an idea of the speed dengue spreads, the case number was at 4,450 on Janaury 20th. Not funny.

If you're travelling there, be careful and use those creams and pills. Meanwhile, Peru's fairly decent emergency health reaction teams are now getting into gear and the fumigation campaigns have started.

A Seeking Alpha management implosion over the $10/1000 views stupidity?

Unofficial word has it (and it's a tweet from zerohedge which is an unofficial as it gets) that Boaz Berkowitz, the guy that just happens to be Seeking Alpha's Director of Contributor Relations, has been "let go" (why does the image of a large black boot making contact with someone's nether regions spring to ming every time i see that oh-so simple phrasal verb?) by the website. Your author mailed Berkowitz to find out whether this was true and got an auto-response by way of reply 3 seconds later (out of office, limited access to mail), for what it's worth.

Strange that such a rumour does the rounds the same time that Seeking Alpha's contributor relations people come up with a cockamamey plan to turn financial bloggers into their ticket to publishing riches and the same moment that its staff send crass and arrogant mails to potential subscribers, innit?

UPDATE: Interesting. When told of the Zerohedge tweet, Boaz wrote back to your author with "Really?  Can you send me the link?  Thanks." I'm doing that right now, so watch this space.

UPDATE 2: So apparently Berkowitz is in fact planning to leave SA soon, but for personal reasons. He has definitely not "been let go", as in the zerohedge tweet.

Chart of the day is....

...the Gold/silver ratio:
click to enlarge

Currently sitting at 48.62X. I know you don't want or need my call on this, but you're getting it anyway. Either 1) gold has to go up more than silver or 2) silver drops more than gold, cos i can't see the GSR staying under 50X for much longer. I prefer the first option though the second wouldn't surprise, sadly.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Peru Textile exports, 2000 to 2010

Especially for long-time reader 'TM'.


That's $1.407Bn in the first 11 months of 2010. In 2000, it was $700m for the whole 12 months.

A Flash update...

...was sent to subscribers a few minutes ago, with about 30 minutes left on the market clock today Thursday.

FOMC today: IKN highlights the likely biggest talking point of this afternoon's Fed decision

"Oh wow look! They've used a comma there in line three! Do you realize that was a semi-colon last time?"

"Oh my, you're right!"