The 49% owned by the Government of Myanmar is a bit of a unique variation of the theme. All the posters calling this opportunistic/low ball/worth a shot are seeing the economic and political reality of where MYL management find themselves.
Past experience in Mynmar would indicate that foreign investors can be locked out for decades, so the attraction of exiting at a loss at 3.5c is still the best of several other worse options i.e. nothing happening for 20+ years or having the Junta take it off MYL and giving it to someone else for free. So far, the Myanmar Junta seem immune to any foreign or internal criticism or external pressure and seem prepared to go the full "North Korea" living in splendid isolation apart from their Chinese allies. I think for the Mynanmar junta - they are going to be on the receiving end of a perception that Myanmar is now essentially an internal province of mainland China, and no serious foreign investors apart from China will be prepared to invest in Myanmar so their fate will be well and truly tied to the party leadership in Beijing.
The only alternative that MYL management have is trying to wait out the Mynamar junta, and you would be relying on complete effective trade sanctions (except for China) and a possible internal revolution fueled by food shortages and inflation displacing the junta. Even the best case of a democratic revolution could be many years away and even then - getting a mine permitted and constructed would still be a long torturous process while a new democratic or some other government found its feet.
Remember that, although all of Perilya management are located in Perth, there are long and possibly "estranged" lines of communication between the Australian management of Perilya and the parent company Zhongjin Lingnan, we can't assume that they were briefed beforehand, can we? Perilya have Paul Arndt on the board of MYL. Would John Lamb have even had the time to tell Perilya about this non-binding proposal? Even if the proposal arrived on the Fax machine this morning? The announcement talks about co-operation for Yintai going forward but do people think that Yintai flew into Perth and went into a data room weeks ago? I doubt it. Anyway, Paul Arndt/Perilya and Zhongjin Lingnan are now aware of the Yintai proposal, so it will be interesting to see the justification and the commitment to the Bawdwin project and how they move going forward.
Devastating development for John Lamb - I think he would have loved to have got Bawdwin up and running. Anyone else on the ASX need a base metal senior executive?
