$10/lb Hathor valuation from Deadlock at Microcap.comBack in May 2012 Danny Deadlock used Hathor takeover numbers for a uranium benchmark in the area and I searched through my email archive to find the following which may help. I bought Fission at .85 and happy to be holding but was wondering if anyone had insight on how these 2011 numbers may compare to now. Based upon what has happened to the price of uranium since. If Rio paid $10/lb at that time, should we be looking at higher or lower valuations based upon uranium prices and this poor market for exploration companies? There is NO doubt in my mind this is going higher. But how much higher based upon a reasonable valuation and using Hathor as the most logical comparison.
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2011 Hathor Takeover in Northern Sask
Last August Cameco started a takeover attempt of TSX listed Hathor Resources but after a three month battle they were trumped by Rio Tinto at $640 million U.S. When the smoke settled, Hathor shareholders made approx. 80% from summer 2011 levels. Cameco was targeting Hathor's high grade uranium deposit called Roughrider which contained 58 million pounds. The takeover started only five months after the disaster in Japan.
Hathor drilled 142,000 metres and spent $100 million. They had approx. 140 million shares out and $23 million in working capital. Their deposit consisted of 30 million lbs at 11.58% plus 17 million lbs at 1.98% and 10.6 million lbs at 11%.
Pre-production capital expenditures were estimated at $468 million and average operating costs were estimated at $14.44 per lb. When the smoke settled, Rio Tinto paid just over $10 per pound of uranium. Hathor initially felt their company was worth $770 million to $1.5 billion but the final sale to Rio Tinto was much less. This did however set a benchmark valuation for large economic deposits in the region.