is a friendly t/over @ $1.40/share possible?, page-21

Ivortower - it must be getting late in the day because I don't quite get your point. The cash that IRN held was received from Xstrata as the exercise price for their rights to Tampakan as inherited from their previous acquisition of MIM - I am fairly certain that those facts are accurate but stand to be corrected!

The fact that they have spent a chunk of that cash is actually an enormous positive for the company though it is hard to quantify exactly how beneficial it has been. Quite clearly, the further through the pre feasibility study stage, the extended pre feas stage, the final feas stage, etc, etc that IRN go through (along with Xstrata as willing spenders of their share of the costs) then the greater the likelihood of the project getting funding and moving to production. If you had to take a guess at what value has been added by IRN spending $XXXMil on studies it would have to be exponential value.

At the risk of (continuing) to be boring please bear in mind that all of the target prices that brokers have picked are based on present day value of future earnings and that the discount rate that these figures are hit with is enormous due to unknowns and the fact that their aren't any earnings for 7 years - the closer we get to production then the less the numbers will be discounted likewise giving the shareprice an exponential lift the closer that we get. At the risk of being moderated I would also point out that most honest analysts will admit to pulling their price targets quote "out of their collective arses"! Spot the ex equity salesman rather than the ex equity analyst!