FROM DEAN:
Thanks for the encouraging news.
Can you go in furhter detail of Fagans et all new buy reccomendations on the SI thread or email them back to me. Is YRI at an attractive price or do they believe the next barrage of drill results will take YRI to the levels reached in early 1997??
What is take when the news came out YRI and reached a level $1.90 it
couldn't sustain it? And a stock like Cross Lake (CRN) on Vancouver
triples in price in 1 day, trades 13m on news of compareable levels.
Didn't YRI spend millions on a campaign throughout North America to
market their strategy and goals and land holdings to all the big boys in this business. Why aren't they so excited?
Sorry Greg, I think YRI has a strong team and business plan but too much $$$$ was wasted on all this Investor Relations bull shit especially after Bre-x disaster.
In closing are the drills still in motion in Washington?
Could you please post which properties we will be seeing news on in the near future?, and which ones are shutting down for winter season?
thanks
Dean:
I've got to admit I'm having trouble with your email query. If all I am reading is frustration, I understand. It's the ruling emotion now, often overlaid with anger boiling out of that frustration. But what can I/we do about it that I/we am/are not doing about it?
To answer your specific questions:
Brian Fagen, Chris Bunka, Suddhir Khana and Paul Sarnoff have each expressed the same view: Yamana's share price SEEMS to be as low as it can go for now. The reason for the fall has been Busang + the general market malaise + the withdrawl of two of our partners + the (absolutely untrue) concern/rumour that Barrick was no longer backing us in Indonesia -- a rumour supported by two newsletter writers, neither of whom bothered to check with me and both of whom apologized for getting their facts wrong + a general lack of positive news from the field.
The four writers noted above (none of whom have written negative reviews on Yamana) each go on to say cautiously that good news is expected in the coming months, especially with the beginning of the drill season in South America and Yamana's taking over operatorship in PNG.
The next upturn would likely come from a) a significant find or addition to what has already been found in Santa Cruz, Vanguardia, PNG etc.; and/or b) the announcement of a joint venture agreement on one of our properties; and/or c) an acceptable enhancement of Yamana's cash position.
When will these things come to pass? Who knows? Will they come to pass? Who knows? What if none of them comes to pass? We've got a big problem. If any of this does happen in the near future, what will be the result (early 1997 levels?)? Who could possibly guess?
My own speculation? As I said, I just bought shares in YRI myself.
About Cross Lake, I haven't seen their news so I can't comment. I would, however, be very, very slow to compare us or our results.
"Didn't YRI spend millions on a campaign throughout North America to
market their strategy and goals and land holdings to all the big boys in this business."
(A curious characterization.) No, we have not. What we are doing is discussing projects with interested parties, of which there are many. The costs are nowhere near "millions." By any definition, "millions" would nicely obliterate every penny that has been spent this year by Yamana on anything not directly related to exploration and property development. Anything.
I'd also like to point out the core of what we do at Yamana: We identify and evaluate prospective ground, procure the appropriate rights, develop targets and then look for partners with the resources to develop or help us to develop them. That's our corporate strategy, our business. Our credibility in the industry is such that we are contacted on a regular basis by potential partners interested in looking at data. In some cases, we have been in discussions with certain companies for months. They are doing their homework and trying to make the decision about whether they are going to put millions of dollars into our properties -- some of them covering hundreds of square kilometres -- or somewhere else. But times are extremely tough. Many of these companies have cut back or are taking major write-offs. (This includes companies like Barrick.) It's not an easy process. We are dealing with levels of bureaucracy in the majors, including their management, boards, technical and financial teams. It often takes a month to get the Confidentiality Agreement signed. That is before they can look at anything. It usually takes several weeks to look at the data -- that is, if it's available where they can see it. Dataroom visits have to be arranged, especially for people who are in, say, Canada or the US, when the data is in South America. Then there are the field visits. (We have two more this month in Santa Cruz, visits from companies that are weeks away from their first view of the ground.) Meanwhile, these companies, these committees, are accessing their internal plans and objectives (eg. that's what happened with Rio Algom -- their objectives changed) ; they are assessing their financial position, especially in light of changing market conditions; they are evaluating our ground (geologically, geochemically, geophysically, strategically), the region we are in and they are assessing our proposals.
For our part, we are looking for credible partners who will stay with it.
"Why aren't they so excited?" a) Who says? b) We'll see.
Overall, I'm sorry you feel we are spending too much money communicating with investors and meeting with companies interested in our properties. I'm sorry you feel that Investor Relations in "bullshit." (Perhaps I misunderstood your definition of Investor Relations.)
Expected news / results:
Drilling has been completed for the season in Washington. This is the only project where drilling has recently been shut down for the winter. The winter season continues in Tierra del Fuego in Argentina and Chile until the end of the calendar year or early in 1998.
I would hope to see exploration / field results over the coming weeks or months from Santa Cruz, Vanguardia, Argentina, the Northern Porphyry Copper Belt, Chile, Paraguay, and PNG. Less certain, but it is also possible we will have results from some other properties in Argentina and Chile, as well as from Indonesia.
I hope this helps.
Greg |
