RE: Investment portfolio down -30%+ since 4/30>Our management is a pathetic POS, shamelessly lining each others pockets with cheap shares and
funding Bharti and co's slimy shell dealings.
Meanwhile,we shareholders - or, more accurately - we REAL owners of the company,share in nothing but losses and further dilution.<
Why are you still invested in AAB ? If you believe in the above and still continue to remain a shareholder in AAB, you only have yourself to blame.
Checkout Endeavour Financial (EDV.TO) as an alternative investment vehicle which is also selling for under 50% of NAV. But its investment strategy (gold focused) is a lot more coherent and much less self serving:
https://www.ob-research.com/New_Recommendation_EDV.TO
https://www.aheadoftheherd.com/Newsletter/ENDEAVOUR%20SET%20TO%20BECOME%20A%20GOLD%20PRODUCER.htm
https://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2010/2/Pages/Endeavour-Financial-Focuses-Its-Gold-Strategy-On-The-Greenstone-Belts-Of-West-Africa.aspx
Endeavour Financial focuses its gold strategy on the Greenstone Belts of
Published 2/23/2010
Print This Article
Return To Article
Normal Text
Large Text
Email Share
The name Endeavour Financial crops up in plenty of deals, but it was notuntil it took a big slug of shares in Crew Gold that it occurred to Minews thatEndeavour might be a bit out of the ordinary as an integrated natural resourcemerchant banking company. Sure, it offers all the usual services on a projectand company: advising on equity financings, debt, mergers and acquisitions, andstrategic business development, but one senses that the emphasis is onoriginating merchant banking investments and developing long-term clientrelationships. The clue comes in the company's claim that its success isderived from its ability to integrate financial advisory services with timelycapital investments. In other words Neil Woodyer, founder and chief executiveof Endeavour, is prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
It is no spring chicken. Since 2002, Endeavour has advised on M&Atransactions valued at over US$28 billion, and has helped arrange US$3.5billion of equity finance and US$2.2 billion of debt finance. It has also dedicatedaround US$150 million to a gold-focused investment strategy, and seeks maximumreturns by identifying, investing in, and consolidating junior gold miningcompanies. Endeavour's flexibility, means it can be retained to provide adviceon project debt financing and also provide assistance in raising the equitycontribution required. And, if appropriate, it can also provide a bridgefinancing or similar mezzanine instrument to enable a client to accelerateproject development. Now that is the good old merchant banking spiel trottedout, but the secret weapon behind the gold strategy is the exclusive strategicalliance with Frank Giustra of Fiore Financial Corporation. As presidentand later chairman and chief executive of Yorkton Securities in the 1990s,Frank built an amazing reputation as a deal maker in junior resource stocks. Hecleared out just before Bre-X and is now the eminence grise behind Endeavour.
He deliberately avoids the limelight, though this can be a bit difficult forthe man who launched the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative withformer President Bill Clinton in 2007, and who is also a member of the Board ofTrustees of the William J Clinton Foundation. It did not go unnoticed when hedecided in 2001 that the price of gold had bottomed out thanks to the effortsof Gordon Brown and he was back in the resources game again. The series ofdeals that signaled he was in earnest at Endeavour involved Wheaton RiverMinerals which, under his guidance, embarked on a series of acquisitions. In2002 bought Minas Luismin, one of 'slargest gold and silver producers, and the following year it paid US$180million for BHP Billiton's stake in Argentine copper mine La Alumbrera. Theenlarged Silver Wheaton now has operations in ,, , and and is unrecognizable from the junior with which Giustra first got involved.
When the chips are going down it is really gold that appeals most to FrankGiustra, although he is also confident of the longer term potential of uraniumand was a key figure in engineering the C$3.8 billion merger between UrasiaEnergy and SXR Uranium One. At the end of last year Endeavour carried out itsfirst strategic investment in the gold space by buying 55 per cent of theequity of Etruscan Resources for US$71.1 million. The last time Minews wroteabout Etruscan was in March of 2009 when a man called Maxim Finskiiy, who wassaid to own a gold business in ,came on the scene and injected some money into it via a private placement. Thatwas at a time when the company did not even have enough money to assemble aprospectus, with all the attendant expense of lawyers and auditors. A few yearsearlier, Etruscan had lost the faith of investors when it failed with its forayinto diamonds. The rating had suffered ever since. Nevertheless, things hadn'tentirely ground to a halt. There was production from the Youga mine in , an 85 per cent stake in the Agbaouproject in ,the prospect of earning a 60 per cent stake in the Finkolo mine near Syama in .
Now it is very much an Endeavour vehicle. Until recently there were fourEndeavour men on the board including Frank Giustra and Neil Woodyer. Now SallyEyre, director of marketing and business development at Endeavour, has takenover as chief executive, and C$10 million is being raised to accelerateexploration in West Africa, including . The latest news is thatproduction of 80,000 ounces is forecast from Youga at a cash cost of betweenUS$550 and US$650 per ounce. The company has a strategic landholding on some ofthe most prolific gold belts in these countries, so other juniors in the areaare bound to be in its sights before long.
The second company to come into the Endeavour stable is Crew Gold. Endeavourannounced that it had acquired a 37.88 per cent holding in Crew at the end ofJanuary. Interestingly the Russian company Severstal, through its affiliateBluecone, subsequently said that it had upped its stake in Crew Gold to 19.79per cent as reported here, so it clearly appreciated the presence of Endeavouron the register. The attraction for both must be the LEFA Corridor gold projectin which is expected to produce 200,000 ounces of gold this year. abuts and . The politics of Guinea mayalso have been a bit of a problem for a non-mining man from Norway when he wasrunning Crew Gold, but Endeavour and Severstal are a different matteraltogether. Endeavour has already put three of its people on Crew's boardincluding Frank Giustra.