Woulfe Mining Corp WFEMF

possible event sequence

[74volfram]

Without going under the table looking for crooked deals, here is a possible "what happened" scenario, driven primarily by the falling APT prices.  This is all hypothetical of course, but I think Mr. Aurelius has something this time.

1.    APT at 400.  Everybody love tungsten.  Dundee grows impatient and ousts the Wesson team who has not managed to open the "biggest tungsten mine in the world" in 4 years of high APT prices and has finally run out of money (including 10M+ Dundee investment).  Dundee continues investing in Woulfe, puts in new management team including Gaucher.  BTW, Gaucher was a famous entrepreneur in Quebec in the 80s and 90s, and CEO of billion-dollar companies before his Mexican fiasco.  He has had quite a history and was mentioned as "Quebec's troubled hero" on major newspapers, including the NYT.  good or bad, he is NOT the retired pensioner he looks.
2.    APT at 350.  Dundee sees the trend and stops making cash available to Woulfe.  Mine plan is changed to low-cost high-grade.  Gaucher is told not to expect more share placements  and starts paying employees in shares.
3.    APT at 300.  Dundee (heavily invested in gold, energy, commodities and probably short USD from his public speeches) decides they do not want to manage this mine after all.  Gaucher contacts Almonty (a natural choice from what we know of them).
4.    APT at 280 (December) Dundee does no longer trust IMC to finally close the loan deal and invest in the mine.  The price of tungsten has dropped too far and now the NPV of Sangdong (which is strongly tied to tungsten price even at low CAPEX) is only a fraction of what IMC had signed on.  Woulfe agrees to the LOI with Almonty as plan B.  WOF share price is set at 8c (almost 100% premium at the time).  Sangdong is a big fish and Almonty wants it, but this is what they can afford to give away to take on the mine without losing control of the company (and I do not blame them, as they seem know what they are doing).
5.    January. Gaucher rushes to complete the final feasibility cutting short on the non-essential parts (hydro study).  Sends it to IMC.  NR is out (they have to disclose since they sent it out to IMC). SP goes up 60% on a one month worth of volume.
6.    January next day. The LOI is disclosed.  Reasons:  1) SP has gone up way too much after the announcement, now is well above the LOI set price (they obviously needed to change the indicated premium - they would have liked to keep it higher).  2) Public knowledge of the LOI was needed to put IMC on the spot for a decision on the 25M.
7.    The NR stil mentions IMC - without naming it: "Woulfe’s principal asset is the 100%‐owned Sangdong Tungsten/Molybdenum Project (“Sangdong”) located in South Korea, located 187km southeast of Seoul (subject to a third party which may purchase a 25%‐ownership interest in Sangdong for US$35 million).  Apparently the deal (in USD now it seems) is not off yet.  Right now the ball is in IMC's court.

Concerning Almonty. I know them from trade articles.  They have a reputation of not talking a lot but actually bringing mines up to profitable production.  They specialize in tungsten only, have a proven model and good cash flow, which is unique outside China these days.  They clearly see an opportunity for growth at this point when everyone else is withdrawing. They are a new company, went public in 2011 and  they were valued over 1 CAD about 2 years ago. They are small but highly profitable with P/E 10.  If they can run Sangdong as profitably as the other mines, they will break out of their league and could get in the 5-10 CAD in a few years (500M market value). This is not a bad merger. Not happy about the price and conditions right now. but LOI is not definitive and I think conditions could be tweaked (not much, but some).