Reality Check: If the Vote Fails **The following is not investment advice, just a personal opinion**
I have spent quite a bit of time reading the posts on this site, and while I absolutely sympathize with the anger and frustration of having lost so much by investing in First Uranium stock, I think it's worth taking a hard look beyond the rhetoric at the likely outcomes in this situation:
1. What happens if the shareholder vote fails:
(a) If the vote fails, the most likely scenarios are that either the debentures will default or be paid out in stock. If the debentures default, then I believe the company would go into a bankruptcy process, reorganize to pay off the senior notes and equitize the debentures, and leave the shareholders with zero. As far as I know, shareholders don't get to vote in a bankruptcy process.
(b) If the debentures are paid out in stock, the stock will be massively diluted and considering the number of shares issued, the stock would probably be worth ~20% of its current value. Either way, if the vote fails, shareholders lose.
2. The Waterpan "counterbid":
(a) I know Waterpan has told everyone that they have almost raised the money to buy First Uranium. That would be wonderful. But I will make this statement/prediction: If Waterpan was going to find the money to finance a bid for 100%--or even 50%--of First Uranium, they would have found it already.
(b) When it becomes apparent that they don't have the money, they will most likely put forward a half-baked proposal with little or no money behind it, intended to persuade shareholders to vote down the deal so that they can put forward more half-baked proposals with no risk whatsoever to them.
(c) Whatever Waterpan says in its press releases, just remember, they don't have any skin in the game. What do they lose by putting out press releases? If the vote fails and the stock goes to zero, they aren't going to be the ones at risk of losing money.
3. What Anglo will do:
I believe nothing. Why? Because They have no incentive to. Yes, they want to own the asset, but if the vote fails, they can just buy the asset cheaper later and not have to pay the shareholders anything. For now, they are the only real buyer and they will lose little by just waiting this out.
4. Olma, Sprott, etc:
I believe that these folks are voting against this deal because the risk of losing all their money in this investment is not material to them. I would suggest that you should ask them yourselves, but I don't think they seriously expect to realize any value in this investment. They are likely angry--as they should be--and voting on principal rather than to maximize the value of their investment given the current situation. If the stock becomes worthless, they won't feel much pain.
Ultimately the question for everyone else is, how painful is it to you if the stock goes to zero?
5. ISS, Glass Lewis, Kingsdale; this is the way it works:
(a) Kingsdale is paid by the company to go get the votes.
(b) ISS and Glass Lewis are paid by institutional investors -- not the company, and not Kingsdale -- to make recommendations to investors. ISS and Glass Lewis exist because institutions have a fiduciary obligation to vote proxies, but don't have time to evaluate every voting decision. ISS and Glass Lewis do this analysis for them, thereby satisfying a legal/compliance need for institutional investors. ISS and Glass Lewis don't get paid anything by the companies involved. That doesn't mean that they can't make bad recommendations; it just means that they are not in cahoots with First Uranium or Kingsdale.
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Finally, though I think this should go without saying, I don't work for the company or any of the acquiring companies or any of their advisers. This is just me expressing a personal opinion.
Thanks for listening.