RE: Points to ponder kingofcotton, that is an *excellent* summary of legitimate shareholder concerns and reasons why the sale of Elbow River and Avenex should not be allowed to happen.
First question: based on closing dates, is it reasonable to surmise here that the sale of Elbow river has as a closing condition the approval of the sale of Avenex? Why else would they make the closing date two days after a shareholder vote on sale of Avenex? And from that can we deduce that if we vote against the Avenex sale that Elbow River will not get sold?
Second, is there a hedge fund out there that would like to sue Avenex on behalf of shareholders, and ask the court to block the sale of Elbow River, and require its sale to be voted on by shareholders? I agree completely with kingofcotton's statement that sale of Elbow River constituted effectively a sale of Avenex. By stripping the only asset of value from the company, they have left behind a nearly worthless shell company, and they have defrauded the shareholders. Under Canadian law, don't shareholders have any rights to stop such a fraud and block the sale of a key asset, subjecting its sale to an approval vote by shareholders?
If a hedge fund initiated this lawsuit, I predict that within 24 hours of that suit becoming public knowledge that Avenex would trade back to the $3 area.
To Avenex management: none of your shareholders want this merger or the "dividend paying company" that emerges from it. What we all wanted was for you to build out the Elbow River infrastructurel, lease it out to the max, and then sell it for a bundle of money (think $300M not $80M) at the top of the market for oil by rail in 2014. Think like private equity people.