IT'S been two weeks now since Tamaya Resource's friendly scrip bid for Iberian fell agonisingly short. Much has happened in those 14 days. The boards of both companies have been re-jigged and it is believed that Tamaya is pushing ahead with plans to delist Iberian from the Australian Securities Exchange.
And since the close of the offer on May 31, a paltry 57,000 shares have changed hands in Iberian as the liquidity dries up.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the ASX today.
The value of Tamayan scrip actually closed above the nominal offer value for Iberian for the second day running as the stock market finally gets some traction over the potential of the company.
Remember Tamaya was offering four of its scrip for every one Iberian share.
Tamaya shares today gained 2.5 cents, or 10 per cent, to 27.5 cents on significantly higher volumes. Iberian closed unchanged at 90 cents.
Based on the now closed offer, Iberian should be worth $1.10.
But no-one seems to want Iberian shares. That puts the 14 per cent or so which held out against the offer in a difficult position.
Did they miss the boat? Did they make the wrong decision? Do they know something that the Tamayan holders don't?
Those are some pretty significant questions which only the Iberian folk know the answer to.
One thing is for sure, Tamaya boss Hugh Callaghan is knocking on plenty of doors around the country letting everyone know his plans to take Tamaya into the mid-tier category.
With cashflows from its Chilean copper assets, and now the controlling stake in Iberian's Armenian gold project Lichkvaz, things are starting to get interesting for Tamaya.
And it looks like Callaghan has received a co-operative ear from Shaw Stockbroking.
One week after the unsuccessful Iberian bid closed, Shaw put out a note on Tamaya labelling the stock a buy.
"Through Iberian, Tamaya hopes to be producing gold at a rate of 100,000 ounces per annum at the Lichkvaz project within the next two years," Shaw reported.
Copper production at Chile should also increase to 14,000 tonnes a year.
Shaw also commented that Tamaya had "high probability" for resource and mine life extensions.
It put an upside valuation of the stock at 62 cents, more than double the price it closed at on Friday.
One way or another, the dissident Iberian shareholders bet either Callaghan didn't have the scope to take Tamaya to the next level, or they felt Iberian scrip was worth more than what he had offered. Unfortunately for them it looks like they are out of the money at the moment.
