This is good news for juniors if you ask me.

I predict that RPM is next. By the end of the year.

Now I am really concerned about XRC. What now, where does the XG/XRC braintrust go now? I feel let down and disapointed with this sale. I do not like it t all.

Hi Ed,

I would not be concerned at all and remember that through the Encompass Fund I am a shareholder of Extorre.

Teams of this quality simply do not dry up and blow away!

Big Al

Hello Al,
Would it be possible in the near future to get updates on:

American Manganese
Passport Potash
Premium Exploration

I am interested in their long term goals and where they expect to be 3 years from now, best case and worse case scenario?

Thank you,

Allen

Big Al,
Your above comment at the very top of the page really speaks volumes for the people you associate with. Yale took the bad and the good – and did the best he could. Congrats to him for putting character/loyalty above personal profits.
Marc

Congratulations Mr. Korelin. I see another sponsor “International Tower Hill Mines” up almost 18%.

I think Yale did a good job of assessing the alternatives and preserving some value. The high inflation in Argentina, the degradation of Argentina as a jurisdiction conducive to a development such as Extorre’s project, the slippage of precious metals pricing over the last year and the drying up of capital sources to develop projects such as this one all led to a steeply declining share price that did not have too many near-term price catalysts.

Al,
Ok, here is goes from my heart. First of all, the only winners here are investors who got in on the spin off, the 1st 8 months (prior to Sept 2010) or in the last month. The small, individual invester got burned, and took in some cases a bath. I am in @$11.30 for the record, this stock was recommended to me by a friend and mutual investor, not becaues it was one of your sponcers. Unfortunately the company ran into some big trouble in Argentina, hense, the big drop in price, actually my friend sold and told me to sell around $3.00 because it was going to $.00. That was not my game-plan, so i held to the end. Yale did good for the insiders and origional investors by providing them (and himself) with a double. Guys….this is the junior market, only 1 in 5000 make it. I do not think it much matters how the “little guy” wants to vote, the insiders who own the bulk of the stock are getting out of trouble smelling like a rose. So for me it is like a “surrender” in blackjack, take 1/2 my money back and live for another day.
Bobby

I agree in full, Al. I admire Yale for not selling, as he must have known trouble was brewing. I reviewed all the interviews in your archives and found them informative.

What happens when the market is taken to such cheap levels. The majors and mini-majors (Yamana) start to buy.

Bobby I feel your pain. I am getting burned by the junior market. My portfolio is down 60%. I hope things get better soon.

Phew! It was somewhat of a relief this morning to wake up to the news that Extorre will be taken over by Yamana. No Bobby, we were not ones that got in on the ground floor, but recently, having some of doubts regarding Argentina dispelled, we took a chance and averaged down. Despite the considerable loss, there is a lot of hope in that the acquirer Yamana is indeed a class act. I believe Peter Morrone and his crew are top drawer.
So much depends on management and it is our personal opinion that this management..well stinks. I have referred to the proposed bought deal of 50m Jan 30th of this year and its withdrawal a short time later. I believe the SP to have been over $7 per share in the bought deal, and then later $25m bought deal sometime later. Coincidentally, the links to those items on the XG website no longer work. It is my understanding that even bought deals are dilutive, but one does understand that juniors do have to raise money. What does gall us (is this unreasonable?) is that Mr. Grey should so blatantly deny it, even though it is part of their own record. Yes, it is a bad market for the juniors but if you will take a look at the dive in Extorre share price, it also coincided with the withdrawal of the prospectus. And Mr. Grey, has publicly denied this. I wonder if Eric Roth became the fall guy. Anyway, enter Mr. Mulroney!
We believe when one loses faith in management, it is time to get out. And for most ordinary shareholders, Yamana offers as painless a release as can reasonably be expected. But all of this happened on Yale Simpson’s watch. We have certainly taken him and the others off our Christmas Card list and taken note lest they turn up again in another life.
On a similar, but different not, on Mr. Simpson’s outlining the difficulties in Argentina, we are reminded (and Argentina is probably extreme) the currency controls that most countries now have. When we cross the 49th parallel the greatest terror is that we might win more than $10,000 grand at the casino and would be able to take it back  into Canada. Once very recently we were asked about $5,000. 10G is not a great deal of moolah.
Trivialities aside, there are many great sources who are familiar with the situation in Argentina. Ron Hera for one, and at the WRIC we had the privilege of talking to Mary Little of Mirasol Resources (for the record we do not hold any Mirasol) and if I may dare to summarize what she says is “If you are a good corporate citizen you have nothing to worry about in Argentina, except inflation and inflation is a problem.”
To those who are discouraged …or downright p*ed off with this deal, consider that it could be a whole lot worse, if for example Barrick had stepped. We believe that Barrick are in deep trouble at the big Pascua Lama project in Argentina and by no stretch of the imagination are Barrick good corporate citizens.
Sorry for the length of this missive
Regards as always
Tony and Marianne.
PS there are so many tonys on your site that from now on will be reverting to my older moniker “seabhac”

Yale Simpson is easily among the top ten best precious metals executives and company builders. However, this deal was done at too cheap of a valuation. Yes, there’s elevated risk in Argentina now. But I don’t think we’re going to see wide-spread nationalizations there – just for the symbolic operations like YPF. Instead, we’ll most likely see very repressive taxation. But even with that taxation, if one assumes that the price of gold is not going to go down overall in the next few years (never mind rise), a $600 million valuation would have been more reasonable. Toss on expectations for gold north of $2,000 and $800 million should be seen as reasonable. Just look at how the shares were valued back in Aug. and Sept. of 2011, hitting a high of $15 and change with gold ONLY at $1900 and change. Of course, many things have changed and in a negative direction (e.g., sentiment for the sector, fear of nationalization, etc.). But the excessive discounting of these risks in the stock has essentially given Yamana an astounding bargain.

Again, don’t misunderstand. I’m not knocking the company nor Yale Simpson. In fact, I’ve been in these shares longer than even Big Al and Yale made me a lot of money. But I’m sad to say that I think he should have held off for another six months because this entire sector is going to turn around like a bat out of hell. Another $200 million would have been easily had in my humble opinion, if not another $400 million.

Oh well. It’s good for the sector overall. We’re going to see M&A activity go absolutely bonkers in the next 18 months.

Al – thanks once again for all the years of superbly insightful radio.

Eric Dubin
Independent buy-side analyst and manager

I think Yale did the right thing by not selling out but I think a lot of shareholders
are getting f___ed! I am a former share holder and had contacted Extore,
Rob Grey on several occasions about what was going on with the company
as the shares continued to slide big time. Never once was there any mention
about the “operational issues” as Yale puts it. Extorre was very irresponsible
as a company to it’s shareholders by not disclosing any of these concerns
to protect it’s shareholders from these operational issues. I am totally disgusted
with Extorre as a shareholder and they should be ashamed of themselves for
not being more honest about the situation as the shares crashed. I am not going
to sugarcoat this “sell out” this is a raw deal for most shareholders and a panic
sell that demonstrates how deceitful Extorre has been to their shareholders.
Rob Grey you should be ashamed of yourself. You wondered why Yale had not
made any interviews for the longest time while the shares went down, he certainly
was out there when times were good and Extorre was trading well above $11-12 dollar range. Even the so called good guys like Yale Simpson can
coward and say oh well they should have sold out at $15. Well Yale you should
have held out as well!!

nancy,
I believe that your opinion is right on.
Bobby

Hey AL,
You are right about the unpredictability of politics impacting the mining industry
in whatever country that may occur, however Extorre did know about these operational issues in Argentina that were not disclosed to shareholders. Yale Simpson owed it
to his shareholders to disclose any information regarding how it might have
impacted outlook of the company. Company’s certainly do not hesitate to
proclaim the potential of discovering a new vein do they? Well consequently
when a situation that reflects the truth about the company that is not so “forward looking” from a positive standpoint, the company has the same obligation to notify the shareholders. I think Rob McEwen of McEwen Mining demonstrated good policy towards informing shareholders what maybe to expect in Argentina!
Yale and Rob Grey tear out a page from a real pro Rob McEwen!

I love this site……really some great comment by all participant…..
Thanks to Al for having Yale on…and doing the follow up to our request…
ootb….

more can be found here….

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page66?oid=153517&sn=Detail&pid=102055

This out today:
http://www.goldstockbull.com/articles/yamana-snaps-up-extorre-gold-for-a-song/

Anyone think that Yale should go back to the table and get the shareholders who were not insiders a better deal? Each time i look at the long term chart, I see little opportunity for the retail investor to have made a profit here.
How are you voting?