I have had a number of discussions with an array of shareholders and have also spoken to Jack and asked a few questions there as well. Here are some thoughts related to those discussions:
- there is no current qualified offer on the table for a merger / acquisition of RCG by Aanaconda or anyone else. That could potentially change very quickly if an appropriate set of concessions can be arranged with the current creditor base though. Anaconda has certainly shown interest and could probably acquire the company for less than just the Dufferin would cost them, as there would likely be less competition for the company, as opposed to the property.
- As for the Tax Credits, they would be seriously beneficial to Anaconda, to use to offset profits. Potentially enough to completely offset the debt they would take on - having said that it looks like something has happened in those discussions that was enough to throw up a roadblock on that path.
- RCG has clearly been overly greedy in their negotiations or the $.25 bid 18 months ago would have been accepted or the $2m financing offer would have been accepted as a part of financing early this past fall. In my discussion with Jack I explicitly asked why that had not been followed up on and he indicated it was tabled at the board meeting and the board decided there would be too much dilution - I asked if that wouldn't have been better than where are today and his response was a fairly clear "yes", my response was "not too smart, greed won and we're losing".
- This brings me to a comment that was made regarding the company stealing shareholders money - $2m of general shareholders money was offered and not accepted, most of the financing has been taken down by insiders or near insiders, so it is very difficult to support the thought that htey were just stealing shareholders money - they don't ge the money from trading.
- There is a big difference between where Gary is at and where Eric is at - at present Gary should be out of pocket very little, because he did not BUY the majority of his shares and the assets that earned him his shares returned just fine for him. Eric remains out of pocket real money at his juncture.
- next point would be regarding the royalty sale - RCG did NOT sell a new royalty allocation according to Jack. The royalty that was acquired by Metalla was a pre-existing royalty already owned by another party and although Metalla did acquire a 1% royalty for $315k, it was this existing royalty and it was bought from the current holder, NOT from RCG. RCG received NO FUNDS from this.
- as for Damian being a paid blogger - I have known him (via Stockhouse) for nearly 2 decades and I am pretty sure he is not a paid blogger, especially given the offline discussions we have had - but I guess never say never.
- There was a suggestion of a shareholder takeover - that could be considered, but keep in mind taht would mean shareholder responsibility for the $6m-$7m debt, as well as responsibilty for the capital required to restart the mill, the funding of a geophysics and drilling program, etc. That may not be a bad idea, but we would also need to put a management team in place to run the operation - 1 that we trust enough to pay to run things.
- Quick question for Damian - for as often as I hear from you, I was VERY surprised to hear (now that there is the suggestion that having your group flex its collective muscle might be important) that your group is suddenly holding a much smaller batch of shares than had been indicated?? Explanation??
- The 225 oz of gold recovered from the mill cleanup has been sold and the funds used to simply exist.
During my discussions with Jack it was suggested that the shareholders would like to be represented should there be anything in the way of an adjudicated hearing or company plan presentation, so that our interests and potential involvement could be heard. I was told that no such actual single meeting is expected to be held, but if that was to change that he would notify me, so we could potentially arrange to have a representative there.
As for what is being worked on, the company lead for negotiations with creditors will now be Jack. The company is working on a plan that would allow them to initiate some production exercises on site that would generate revenue to be used to facilitate accommodating the creditors, there may also be the inclusion of an asset sale in the negotiations (no formal deal is in place). I have also been told that Sprott Lending has been very cooperative and is not making any overtures to bury the company.
I hope this helps.
Salut,
Leigh McBain