Excerpt from Stockwatch Gold
Gold Summary for Jan. 21, 2021
2021-01-21 19:16 ET - Market Summary
by Stockwatch Business Reporter
New York spot gold lost $2 to $1,870 on Thursday. Also down were the TSX Venture Exchange index, which shed 6.94 points to 939.21, and the TSX gold index, which dropped 3.13 points to 312.28. Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) helped drive the retreat with a 47-cent drop to $14.30 on 2.83 million shares. The decline was driven by word that the company is offering 30 cents per share for Brad Humphrey's QMX Gold Corp. (QMX).
Naturally, QMX shares were a hot commodity today. Its stock leapt 6.5 cents to 28 cents on 103.1 million shares following word of the deal, in which shareholders will get 7.5 cents in cash and 0.01523 Eldorado share for each QMX share they own. Mr. Humphrey, president and chief executive officer of QMX, says that the friendly takeover is a "testament to all the hard work and effort" that he and his crew put in over the four years since they "set to refocus QMX into a premier exploration company" by maximizing the value of the company's Val d'Or gold property in Quebec.
George Burns, president and CEO of Eldorado, presumably believes that QMX still has plenty of value to add, as his company is offering a premium of nearly 40 per cent to Wednesday's close. The attraction of QMX's property is its adjacent location to Eldorado's Lamaque mine, and Mr. Burns believes his company's ample treasury will allow the expanded Eldorado to "continue to identify and secure opportunities for prudent growth within our operating footprint" -- promotional puffery meaning he hopes to find more gold nearby.
QMX's property hosts the Bonnefond deposit, which currently lists 4.76 million tonnes indicated at 1.69 grams of gold per tonne and 2.41 million tonnes inferred at 1.87 grams per tonne, about 400,000 ounces of gold in all. The company has been a busy driller lately, producing lengthy hits with grades topping the resource averages. Further, a new 35,000-metre program is just getting under way. QMX's vice-president of exploration, Dr. Andreas Rompel, had said his goal was to expand the Bonnefond resource, but that value-adding effort will now fall to Mr. Burns and his Eldorado crew.