RE: What does it mean?McCarvill might be described as a heavy hitter.
He is still involved with T.CLM, Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines, which is starting up the Bloom Lake Iron Mine. He was involved with Desert Sun, which sold out to Yamana in 2006. He is involved with Stan Bharti on some level, not sure exactly how far (Bharti has a "stable" of juniors and a sort of "parent" or management company that provides services to them and is the think tank behind strategy).
Whatever Gerald himself doesn't know he has access to the needed expertise. He has access to a network/group that can put together money when needed. They know how to promote and protect their interests.
Basically, for the option payments and exploration as outlined, he and his group purchased 50% or about 1 million Inferred ounces of gold at Douay, or about C$5.5 per ounce. If only half of it is ultimately recoverable, that would come to C$11 per ounce.
In my opinion:
After getting this and possibly other offers, the control group of Vior decided this was the best (and possibly the only) approach to develop Douay. Giving up half of your flagship property for so cheap hurts, but the property is a major alteration zone with numerous mineralized zones that needs either development and bulk sampling to continue development or other funds to explore and define further resources.