Who are in control of NOVO Resources?My first post here. One of my main interest is who are pulling the strings at NOV (from the point of view of potential TO or merger) and there seems to be still some questions on who are controlling what hence this is a good opportunity to list the major shareholders, based on the available information (Note: SEDAR early reports were mentioned by MM in his recent post).
It's almost certain that Eric Sprott is the master puppeteer in this saga, and soon we would see a friendly merger between Kirland Lake Gold (KL) with NOVO Resources (NVO). They will absorb NOV and keep it as a subsidiary of KL and QH would be left in charge of the Wits 2.0 operation in West Australia. They had a good experience in merging with Newmarket Gold (Australia) not too long ago, and would probably repeat the same game plan to have a all-stock deal for NOV, to conserve the cash (current cash hoard is around $267M and rising thanks to the cash flow from their low cost operation in both Canada and Australia (Fortservile is their flagship mine). They don't need to give any additional cash to NOV, since NOV has enough from the 14M shares @$4.00 plus 14Mwt @ $6 for another $84M. If required, NOV can raise additional cash from the market (to buy up Artemis?).
List of major shareholders:
A good starting point would be the pie chart (Slide 4 of the Sept 2017 Corp Presentation).
- KL: 18.8% (OS: 142Ms). The total number of shares is 11,830.268 (from NEM) +14M in the PP (see SEDAR early warning report of 7 Sept 2017, and NOV NR on 9/11 2017). In the insider report posted by previous posters on this BB, some of the transactions were attributed to Eric S., but they are using his name for convenience (indirect ownership, he is Chairman of the BoD of KL). Some were with his name, but with direct ownership, some were attributed to his Ontario number companies.
- Creasy: 7.74%
- NEM: 4.17% (left over after the sale of 11,830,268 shares @$1.6 to KL (see SEDAR early warning report of 5 Sept 2017...item 2.2 identified Purchaser as KL).
- Eric Sprott personal ownership: Through direct ownership or via his number companies: From the info available (not complete) he has at least 14.56M shares (the last batch 9.8M was at $0.66) and the same number in wts (@ $0.87?). Apparently, there were reports that he has been buying additional shares, but I have not account for those. In general term, Eric S. has about 9.9% in share plus another potential 9.9% if he chose to exercise the wts (but he won't, they are there as aces up his sleeve and would only be used only when needed...as in a TO, to make sure that he can overcome any opposition. The same goes with the 14Mwt @ $6.0 that KL has, they may be forced to excercise if NOV SP goes beyond $12.00 over a period. But remember that they could get back the 4M shares held in escrow, if they went after Artemis (4M x $12 = $48M).
- Institutional: 10.28%. It should be noted that the pie chart does not show where Eric Sprott wold fit in? Is his ~9.9% hidden in here somewhere, or down below in Insiders?
- Management & Insiders: 16.58%
It would be interesting to have a split between Management and Insiders. How much skin does QH has in this game?
What does we know so far? Eric, the master puppeteer seems to have the conn of this NOV ship.
- 25.5% as Chair of KL BoD
- ~10% +10% (wts) personal accounts and/or number companies under his control
Total: 45% of NOV
It should not be that difficult for Eric to convince others to swing a good block of votes over. At least, no other company would have enough power to barge in to take the conn from him.
Just my musings for the day.
GH