Over at mailbox I’ve been asked to comment on the New Gold (NGD) friendly deal for Bayfield (BYV.v) once too often to remain quiet, so here are a few thoughts. Don’t worry, you won’t like them:
After hearing of the deal yesterday morning, my reaction was that it was opportunistic and the stock, BYV.v, might even be a buy on the potential for a competing bidder or a sweetener to see it through. It’s obviously a low bid and one that’s shareholder unfriendly (for BYV holders, anyway). I wrote as much to three or four people as well, while mulling over a speculative buy. Then I got to thinking some more and went off the idea, which is why I didn’t buy and didn’t send any alerts to subscribers either.
New Gold wants it less for the geology, more for the geography. The deposit is a dog, though it’s possible that some of the high grading spots can be added into the Rainy River pit design. Mister Randy Elephant is paying $16m or so (well, he’s not, it’s paper) for the location, not the mineralization.
Bayfield’s management have always been bullshit merchants of the highest order and woefully inept at adding shareholder value. The only thing they’ve ever been good at is suckering in the naive, so yesterday’s friendly deal (oh, officers have “locked up” under 4% of the shares on a 2/3rds acceptance deal, well done guys) was just the icing on that particular cake.
Therefore, those shareholders who’ve held this thing all the way down and are now complaining about being hung out to dry are mouthbreathers to begin with, the type that buy in because that corrupt asshole Louis James told them it was a great buy at 90c and $1.30 all those years ago. C’mon guys, are you seriously telling me that you bought into that $1.40 flow thru, then rode the thing down to 10c and 15c, and only now has the penny dropped that you were ripped off by a management team in cahoots with a bunch of pump’n’dumpers? If so you deserve what’s coming to you, good and hard.
Which brings us to the cries of disgust emanating from the herds of bagholders and “surely we can do something”. Well yes you can and what’s more, it’s easy. First you get together and raise enough capital, then you put in a competing bid for what you think it’s worth, and then you see if Randy Elephant puts in a better offer.
What, you can’t do that? You don’t have $20m, or the means to raise $20m or so in order to start a bidding war? Or you can’t convince somebody with $20m or $25m or $50m or whateveryoupretenditmightbeworthmillion to start competing against NGD? Well there’s a shocker, that might be something to do with the godawful shitstate of the junior exploreco market dontchathink?
And that’s where NGD’s bid comes in. BYV has dropped and dropped and dropped until it got to the point where Mister Randy Elephant decided the thing was cheap enough to bother with. There’s no other logical buyer (check the maps) and anyone who gets into a fight would be doing it expressly to make NGD pay more, with the risk that if they walk away they’re left with their very own white (randy) elephant. Want to gamble $20m to win $5m and risk losing that capital on a piece of shit property, while annoying someone you shouldn’t annoy who’ll find a way of screwing you a few years down the line? Nah, me neither.
Point is NGD knows it’s the only game in town and has no fiduciary duty towards the shareholders of BYV. And BYV’s run by morons who now have no choice, so they agree to this lowball predatory move. And the bleating shareholders of BYV who’ve finally, finally realized they’ve been ripped off can shout “not fair!” all they like because this is fucking capital markets, not kindergarten where everyone gets to be a winner.
So I didn’t buy any BYV. And I wish Mister Randy Elephant the best of luck. And I laugh in the faces of all those people who fell for Louis James’ spiel, on this stock and on all the other losers that he claims are winners in his perverse and criminal little universe of one.
I think that should annoy just about everybody who reads it. Job done.