Random ThoughtsTo me, the only reason, or at least the predominant reason, why BTO shares are going up is because of the rising gold price, and the only reason SBB shares are going up is because BTO shares are going up, and SBB is tracking its value based on the offer. Gold goes up, gold stocks go up, gold goes down, gold stocks go down - that is the level of sophistication and forward thinking involved, even if the investment isn't producing any gold. It is nuts in my view, but that's the reality.
Add to that the fact that we are only given about 25% of the information we would need to actually make an informed decision here, and that makes it pretty difficult. I literally just received the Information Circular yesterday - well over 100 pages of largely incomprehensible legal mumbo jumbo. Which is another thing that annoys me - the whole process around SBB holding undisclosed meetings (for months? wears?) with BTO, while publicly insisting that SBB was forging ahead, on its own, getting expensicve financing in place, hiring contractors, full steam ahead on construction of the mine with a projected completion date, vision statement all in support of SBB going it alone, appears to have all been a myth perpetrated on the unknowing shareholders who purchased shares on the strength of those representations. Oh, but we can't let shareholders know that there are potential offers being made - why is that again?
Then, after the backroom deal is wrapped up, SBB proudly announces the deal with a flourish, and long suffering SBB shareholders are supposed to be delighted with $1.87/share, despite most have them having paid considerably more than that amount over years (decades in some cases) of investing in "the story." All of a sudden the story changes, with no plausible explanation whatsoever. And then of course, attempting to get a meaningful explanation is another battle - I wrote to Bruce, as I am sure many others did, and was referred to Investor Relations. I am sure we would be told that Bruce has to be careful about what he says or doesn't say to investors, and of course there are millions of dollars at stake here - being the shares held by the executive team, among others!!
Lastly, the irony here is that SBB is touting this offer as being in the best interests of its shareholders, which can only be true if there is some risk that the board is aware of, that it hasn't told the rest of us about. I can accept that Glass Lewis thinks this is a reasonable offer, based on the information given to them, including any concerns raised by SBB itself about SBB not being able to pull this off on its own - what I can't accept is that the rest of us weren't given all of the information we should have had to make an informed investment decision, and we still don't have that information. What we do know is that there are 10 million ounces in the ground, hundreds of millions of ounces of silver at Hackett River, and full financing in place, with gold in a long term upward trend, and yet we should accept that we are all losing our shirts? Something wrong with this picture!!
Anyway, it looks like we have another 10 days or so to sort that out for ourselves - everyone will have their own unique circumstances .