Good post Fred and I take you point about why they may not be on...

Good post Fred and I take you point about why they may not be on the board, though, they can easily exclude themselves from any discussions when required. If they had wanted to merge, the window has likely closed, as DEGs market cap is 50% higher than GOR now and... from what I can tell, GOR is not going to be able to close that gap unless they... were able to find a way to expand their market cap (unsurprisingly, perhaps through the acquisition of another non-operating share in a gold mine....).

Without doubt, they want as many options as possible open to them.

I take your point that in the short term, the AOP sale of shares to RMS was profitable, but, GOR I imagine is trying to build a long term, high margin gold business and as such perhaps if they had acquired AOP (the price paid was still very low when all the cash AOP had was included), with the later acquisition of Roe, might have enabled GOR to actually be building their first gold mine right now (RMS has been very keen to move at a snails pace in regards to AOPs asset).

As for Tropicanna, sorry, but it's a great asset and has basically saved RRL from becoming a total basket case (I believe its shares were overvalued when it got Tropicanna and now the whole company is basically valued on it's Tropicanna asset, with it's other 3 plants being marginally profitable). Was the price paid high, sure... but it has proven to be a good investment because it is a long life asset with high margins.

That being said, I also agree that GOR have been prudent and not bought anything that would put up a red flag, but... go to the RMS threads and shareholders are by and large very happy, because of all the acquisitions RMS have made in the past.

I do agree that GOR made a great acquisition with DGO @wassa ) Would be very interesting to know the exact average price GOR has now paid for all of DEGs shares. At a guess, $1? If I get time, I will try and follow up on that.

I included the 2018 graph because it highlighted the higher stripping costs, though yes it's an old mine plan (the new one is very similar, except a higher amount of ounces, higher costs etc).

Golden highway is slightly higher grades from memory, but also smaller pits, so higher strip costs, plus trucking etc.

Wassa - I am def biased, cannot help that, just offering a different view.

GOR and Goldfields have not go to 350k even though not so long ago, GOR was shouting from the rooftops that they were the lowest AIC in the industry.
Yet they have underperformed since 2021 (yes, lots of miners have struggled, but some have not... and yes, GOR is not the operator).

Of course a strip ratio of 4 is good, that was not my point, my point was in regards to peak margins.

Anyway, GOR will likely hold up far better today due to the news it's dropped out of the race, plus, the recent underperformance, so perhaps a good place to hold some capital.

Good luck to all holders.