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Gold/Mining/Energy : Pangea Goldfields T.PGD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George J. Tromp who wrote (1116)	7/1/2000 4:30:27 PM
From: Enigma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1178

George - it's interesting that the analysts and headline writers love the deal - I suspect the opposite to be true from retail investors. We've had a strange sequence of events - the recent $10 million financing followed immediately by this agreed bid. As I've pointed out, the selling yesterday was completely orchestrated. One broker would sell stock in 10 seperate trades, followed by another broker with multiple trades, with nobody coming in between - all day - 5 million + shares. One has to ask who is on the buy side? Some arbs no doubt - but it looks to me that Barrick, or someone acting for Barrick knew exactly who held all the blocks of shares - as if, in a way, all of the recent accumulation of shares over the last several months has been on behalf of Barrick? I'm talking here of this deal - not of the splendid achievements of Potvin et al in putting this package together - for which they should be congratulated. But in the end they were outdone by Barrick - but are finishing up as very wealthy individuals anyway. Basicaly they were dealing from a position of extreme weakness - holding only the same number of shares in the company as Barrick - some 4 1/2 % plus the shares they had under option. Remember too tht Barrick had warrants for another million shares at $6. They must have been scared to bits of a hostile bid from Barrick in fact - and in this they were right - because it appears that Barrick has assembled a large proxy position over the last few months. The institutions who were selling yesterday bought the shares presumably because they knew this was a takeover play - we all did - but someone was in a position to quarterback this whole effort yesterday - it was extraordinary in its precision. So all of the parties can pat themselves on their backs. It will serve them right if someone else steps in with another bid -Barrick I mean - the company insiders will benefit from another bid as will we all. But someone bidding will be topped by Barrick - so why go through all the hoops now? But isn't it strange indeed, fishy even, that having raised the $10 million Potvin et al didn't stay in the game? Their rationalisation of course will be that further drilling may turn up some poor results - but I guess that Barrick simply called in its chips. The writing was on the wall when Barrick did its pp last November and was granted a right of first refusal on PGD's 70 % of Tulawaka - they were in bed from then on. I'm told that Pangea did its best to find other suitors - and I can believe it - but they had sold out and Barrick was simply biding its time. As for the 20 % interest in the titanium in Kenya no doubt Barrick will unload it.