RE: Going over the factsjhminer,
Welcome to the forum. I see you just joined yesterday. Is this a new iteration of a former Nom de Guerre or are you new to Liberty Mines? I see this is your very first post so, again, welcome. Since I saw my name in your post I thought I would make a minor correction to your comments........
"Rockhead/Strom/Tailertrash promote the untruth that Jilin Jien want to take LBE private and screw us shareholders..."
To be specific, I said they PROBABLY will take LBE private. The operative word is "probably". The business of any business is to make money whether mining or selling hamburgers. Jilin Jien controls LBE and can easily exercise their right to those convertible preferred shares. Not now but sometime down the road. In my opinion I believe they likely will. If they went private they don't need to report to shareholders, they can do pretty much what they like and they'll save a ton of money. I know, they said they wouldn't go private, but surely you don't believe they're bound to that statement in perpetuity, do you? It was not a contract they made with us. It was like a politician telling you all the good things he's going to do for you if he's elected. For your vote. I agree, they'll likely not get a waiver to export ore to China but they can swap ore/nickel/concentrate with Xstrata [for example] saving both lots of money. LBE's nickel ore doesn't need to be shipped overseas. That said, if Xstrata is our only option for processing the ore is that a good thing? Not from my point of view.
"Producing around 6 million pounds of nickel in 2010 at $8.50 per pound payable pushes LBE into mid tier status which I am told means $50 million or more revenue in 2010.'
We've [hopefully] just reached full production so there is little chance LBE will produce 6 million lbs. of nickel in 2010. We should reach and maintain full production in 2011. At $8.50/lb that is $51 million GROSS revenue. Deduct from that figure production costs, salaries, equipment upkeep & maintenance, continued exploration and a ton of other costs. We will be VERY lucky to repay a modest portion of our debt if we only produce 6 million lbs. and don't forget that we don't get LME prices but about 75% [my guess] since Xstrata has to be paid to process the concentrate and someone has to transport the concentrate to Xstrata. It all costs money. My WAG is that at best we will show 30% of our gross revenue available to repay our debt. That's about $17 million based on $8.50 nickel. That's a long way from having $50 million to repay our debt. And we have a LOT of debt and interest. It's hard to "monitor progress" of LBE when NR are few and far between. Wouldn't you agree?
"No public company can be simply taken private without proper compensation to all shareholders...."
I don't want to make too much of this but they already did. We are OWNED by Jilin Jien. To be specific, they are the dominant 51% shareholder and as I further recollect, there was no vote. To take us private they need [I think] 80% of all shares outstanding. As to what constitutes a "proper" compensation, there is the rub. What has happened [to me] in the past is that I will see a stock's price slowly decline over a period of several months. During that period most shareholders bail but a few hang on grimly. After a period of time there will be an announcement that XYZ Corp., "White Knight", is buying ABC Corp. and is offering a "premium" of 30% over the average price for the prior two weeks [pick a time period]. Further, that the deal has been judged fair by Bear Sterns or the financial house de jour. Will it happen? I don't know, but in their shoes I would take LBE private. One thing is certain - we will all know in the next year or two.