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To: pater tenebrarum who wrote (25231)	10/6/2000 12:17:05 PM
From: re3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

damned to ownership ? it ain't that bad <g>, its not like you are ending up with some dot com shares after the transaction is done. i read in the paper here that franco n was going to tender its shares in the special voisey bay nickel shares to inco. one group however thought the offer was ridiculously low. the story from the national post : Inco bid for VBN shares draws fire Voisey's Bay buyback: Company rejects contention that offer is too low David Steinhart Financial Post, with files from Dow Jones An unnamed group of angry shareholders is making noise over Inco Ltd.'s plan to buy back $195-million of Voisey's Bay Nickel Co. shares, a separate class of shares originally set up for investors to participate only in Inco's planned nickel project. Inco's current offer is $7.50 in cash and 0.45 of an Inco common share warrant worth $4.37. But the unidentified holders of class VBN shares called the offer "unfair" and opportunistic. In a statement, the shareholders said the company wants them to tender their shares "for a fraction of their potential value in anticipation of renewed negotiations to develop the Voisey's Bay project." Inco's offer, made in early September, expires on Oct. 16 and is subject to the tender of at least 90% of the VBN shares on a fully diluted basis. The number of shares held by the opposing VBN shareholders wasn't disclosed. There are about 26 million VBN shares outstanding. One New York analyst, who works with the shareholder group, said Inco's price is far too low and should be rejected. "We hope it's defeated and we're within shooting distance of getting the 10% [of shareholders] we need to block the deal," the analyst said. George Halatsis, chief financial officer at Inco, said: "We don't agree with this and we don't know who this group is but we stand by our original offer." The unidentified holders of Inco VBN shares said they received an evaluation of the company's offer from a former "well-known Wall Street mining and metals analyst who previously covered Inco." They said that, on the basis of this and other information, VBN shareholders are being urged to withhold or withdraw any tender of shares for a variety of reasons. The reasons, they said, include that Inco has consistently stated Voisey's Bay is properly valued on its balance sheet. If so, the shareholders said VBN shares should be valued at more than $50. They said that for the warrants to be worth the $4.37 Inco assumes, Inco common shares would have to sell at about $45. The stock is trading around the $25 mark, and has a 52-week high of $36.65. Finally, spot nickel prices have more than doubled from a 1998 low of US$1.69, making early development a more lucrative option for Inco. Inco (N/TSE) closed yesterday at $25.15, up 45¢, while the VBN shares (Nv/TSE) rose 10¢ to$10.50. When Inco made the offer, it said the VBN shares had traded at a weighted average of $8.06 a share over the previous 30 trading days. On the positive side for Inco, Toronto-based Franco-Nevada Mining Corp., the largest holder of the VBN shares, has already agreed to tender its 37% position in the class to the issuer bid