The difference Cupric has is that they have Barclay Bank's...

The difference Cupric has is that they have Barclay Bank's Resource fund at call. “Barclays is committing at least US$100 million to this venture but with the right projects we could line up more capital if it was warranted”. Poor old DML is at the whim of Australian retail investors who (generally) take a shorter term investment horizon.

Also, given that Cupric Canyon have only completed the one deal to date (Hana Mining) from what I can see, they would seem to be motivated to get this deal done and to successfully onsell the merged assets to demonstarte their credentials.