SW666...congrats! Round 1 goes to you. Titan did in fact...

SW666...congrats! Round 1 goes to you. Titan did in fact formalize their offer a few days ago, so good call on your part. I'm not so sure that I'd call it a serious offer...but it should at least get the ball rolling.

My sense, (and I could certainly be proven wrong), is that if shareholders on both sides of this offer felt that it was fair and had a reasonable chance of success, both in terms of the success of the takeover and the long range ability of Titan to develop the Core assets...the s/p of both companies would be considerably higher. Titan shares should have increased simply by virtue of the Company possibly acquiring world class assets for no money down in an all paper transaction. On the flip side, Core Gold shares should have started to creep up towards the perceived 0.422 value of the deal, if people actually saw the deal as going through, (or the current Titan s/p as being valid). That hasn't happened to any extent in either instance...which to me at least, makes the success of the offer a little suspect.

I spoke in an earlier post about Titan's current financial situation, the dilution created by the proposed Core takeover and the additional dilution necessary to fund the exploration and development of the Core properties. Titan would be well over a billion shares again...negating almost any increase in value from proving up resources.

I give Titan credit for launching the offer...there's very little downside risk to them, given the terms of the deal. As a Core shareholder, I'm not in favour of the takeover. I think it's light...even less than what the original plan of arrangement called for initially...with no financial commitment/component. I'll give you that Titan seems to be able to raise money with very little problem and that the ASX is a more mining friendly Exchange with potentially better valuations...but there's nothing that I've come across in Titan's history that convinces me that they can develop the properties and do so with the best interests of shareholders in mind. As such, Titan may have a tough road ahead of them to convince enough Core shareholders to opt into the deal to get the required number of locked in shares.

Had I been Titan, I think I might have pulled out all the stops to get my hands on Core's assets. I would have offered 5 shares to the Core shareholders to sweeten the pot, (it's only paper to them, not money), which would have increased the potential value of Core shares, (including the CGLD shares held by Titan) and led to huge arbitrage opportunities and increased liquidity. It also may have bullied any other potential suitors in the data room and eliminated competing offers. When/if the takeover is complete, do a 2:1 rollback to get the float back down to about 550,000,000 and let's say the s/p settles in around 0.30, (0.15 being the last financing price). A $45 million financing @ 0.30 increases the outstanding shares by another 150,000.000 so now we're at 700 million shares all in and all cashed up ready to drill and develop.

Just my thoughts from this side of the ocean. We'll know in a couple of weeks how this will all play out. Until then, you're up 1-0. All the best. Turtle56