Ann: Exploration Growth Strategy, page-37

As already mentioned, I bought a few more shares today. I have a time horizon of 18-48 months because I don't want to deal with a dozen of 10% gains but prefer a 120% gain (or more if possible). Here are the reasons why I bought Echo: Echo is in the middle of an area where it obviously has a lot of gold.Echo has a production facility that can be made to work again with a very manageable amount of effort and money. A bigger player - I mean NST - has built up a considerable position in Echo at much higher prices. Of course there can be many reasons for this, but this is at least not a bad sign. Also NST does not throw his money out of the window I assume and they clearly now more about mining that I do. The planned production of 100´000 ounces of gold (or more) would probably put Echo in a similar league to Aurelia (I bought a few shares at about 27 cents more than a year ago).The IRR is high, a financing with the well-known BFS probably no real magic and the ROI is attractive.The main weakness from my point of view is the relatively short lifetime of the mine in case of production. In the last weeks we had some news. Exciting and less exciting but at least there seems to be a news flow and I like that basically. There is always some movement around the SP and personally I think this is good to sort out short term share holders. Well, what would I do if I were CEO/Managing Director of Echo? I think I would be happy if I could earn a lot of money in the first place. That would be my drive to get the most out of this thing. We're supposed to vote soon on whether Victor gets these 6 million performance rights. Just to remind you, he gets 2m if Echo produces the first gold within 24 months (Bronzewing would have to work and produce). The next 2m he gets when the first 100k oz were produced within 36 months. The last 2m he gets if he produces the second 100k oz within 48 months.In ANY case: no production = no money. No sufficient production = no money. In order to get the money he would have to produce gold in spring 2021, 2022 the first 100k oz and 2023 the second 200k oz. The higher the SP the better for Victor. If you believe Echo and the BFS it should be possible to go into production within a few months. But then it's as if they are concentrating fully on this goal and are hardly going to explore any further. Echo will therefore have the flaw that after about 4 years the air has left the balloon. Short LOM = lower SP. So if I were Victor I would try to push the SP on the one hand and on the other hand maybe find a shortcut to increase my prize money. Since I also believe that the gold price will rise, it would be even easier to get a financing through at a higher gold price (e.g. 2020) and go fast into production. In the meantime, I'm pushing the exploration side. If I find something substantial in gold, it has 2 effects. A) This is good for the LOM B) Maybe someone will come up with the idea to just buy Echo. Maybe NST. In this case Victor comes to kiss his hand and doesn't have to wait 4 years to get a nice gift full of bills. Either way, Victor's motivation could be considerable. It's a lot of money. Probably more money than most share holders could make out of this story. Whether there is anything to the TO or Merger rumors with Bellevue Gold, I can't judge. But rumors are often not a bad thing... depending on the result of course. Also here the shareholders must decide and NST would look for example also that it is correct for them. Apart from Victor, who also wants to see money. Exactly like me and we all I guess. Probably my considerations are a bit too simple. I've been investing in mines for about 20 years now and (unfortunately) wasn't always right. However, I always found it positive when there was a regular news flow. Companys where you only get something new every 12 months are mostly more dead than alive. I do not like that really. If I look at Echo, I see a lot of news that could come in the next days, weeks and months. This will also lead to too much speculation and speculation leads to discussions, which I also do not find so bad. This always gives me the opportunity to buy something at lower prices or to take some profit if the SP movement is overdone. Pocket money….At the moment I think May 11th is an important date. Also in Victor's interest. In the end it's all about money. My conclusion: Where there is smoke, there is also fire and at Echo there is a lot of smoke. At the moment I think there are too many surprising and possibly positive developments in the pipeline to just get out and sell…..even if some people here think we will go down to 10 Cents. Not impossible but in my view not so probable.However, DYOR.