DrNo1962
There are many underlying factors that come into play which I would like to highlight and maybe offer some clarity on this subject.
1) At the time of the JV, Nickel was at an all time low and nickel commodities were being sold for less than fair value. So at the time 30 million was very much in line with the industry standard. In fact they valued Dumont at close to what the overall market cap was. This is important because Beta Hunt and Reed copper were essentially left out of the consideration of value of the company while making that deal. Here are a few examples of nickel companies you might be familiar with that had very low market caps in 2017, in and around the time the JV with waterton was announced along with todays market cap for reference to the change in the nickel market in just 4 years.
- Poseidon Nickel $A34 mm in 2017 - $222 mm today
- Mincor $A44 mm in 2017 - $432 mm today
- Giga $C2.6 mm in 2017- $32 mm today
- FPX $C14 mm in 2017 - $127 mm today
As you can see, valuations of Nickel sulphide deposits at the time were drastically different than today. I will also say those are some pretty nice returns.
2) I actually discussed the deal with Waterton with Mark and he explained that at the time they wanted to use that 30 million to acquire other nickel assets that were dirt cheap due to the general nickel market. A few of those targets were Poseidon and Mincor because their path to production was much faster with far less capex required to get the projects going. Unfortunately as fate would have it Cobalt 27 came along and got everyone fired up about nickel and the assets of interest became unatainable as they wanted more with renewed interest in Nickel emerged.
So while you may look at the 97 million recieved by RNC and KRR and say that was a terrible deal because it's being shopped for 1 billion CAD, you have to consider the overall market and look at why the transactions were completed in the first place. As noted above the JV with Waterton was to aquire additional nickel assets. The 10 million withdrawl and lowered interest came after the world famous FDV discovery which shifted their focus to gold and Paul Huet chose to monetize the remaining 28% Dumont as they have transitioned their full focus to Australia.