Trust_No_1In Canada a company could choose to do a financing through its existing shareholder base. While in some respects I see that as an advantage, and have in fact participated in this kind of a financing twice, more often than not, financings are done institutionally. Personally, I see the benefit of the latter because institutions have power, including holding power when they are positive about a stock.
For those who want a piece of the financing, they should call the players, Cormack, Blackmont and GMP and see if any is available. Sometimes it is, though you would have to enrol as a client of theirs, and sometimes its not because its already spoken for. Remember these houses often distribute shares to funds. One of the factors one looks at in evaluating the prospects of a company is how many institutional holders there are of the stock.
So, while I understand that the financing is a good deal, its like so many things in life, available to those with big money. From FR's point of view, the transactional costs of doing a financing with three houses, rather than thousands of shareholders, is certainly much neater and cleaner. And remember that all of us, over the last month or two, could have picked up as many shares as we wanted in the low to mid $4 range. Yes, $5.35 looks attractive, especially with the warrant, but part of the reason we think that is because these companies are all over the financing (which no doubt has been in process for some time)!
cheers