RE:RE:RE:From Scotia this MorningIOC did not " hold the dividends to LIF " only . IOC has three owners one of which is RIO TINTO at over 50%. All three have suffered the hold. You can bet that RIO was not happy and made that felt by the board of IOC.
IOC was purchased by RIO when RIO bought North in the late 90s. IOC was an unintentional part of that purchase as RIO was after North's Austrailian operations. When RIO discovered what it had in Canada they decided to keep it as long as it paid it's way. At that time North had started a project to reopen the pellet plant in Sept-Iles, closed and in moth balls since the early 80s. RIO tolerated the project until Oct 2001 when it was stopped and the plant returned to moth ball status. About 5 years ago RIO ran out of patience at paying taxes on a non-producing operation and destroyed, demolished, the concentrator and pellet plant. I hope the evolution of the market for pellets has made them realize the error. It was a world class plant: two lines of concentror, pellet production, and induration machine with name plant production of 6 million tons per line. At todays costs it would probably cost 2 billion to recreate it.