Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Why I'm buying

Like many of you, I've been going through every possible upcoming scenario in my head. I'm no psychic and there are many possibilities as to what is to come for sure. One thing I have decided on is, given that we are days away from some more clarity, I am going to be a BUYER every day.

Here is my highly condensed list of reasons why I’m adding.

1) During the chaos of the late 2008 credit crisis, it might be possible to "steal" a company like CMM for far less than fair value. With gold being the center of attention at at all-time highs, I don't believe this is the case now. Any offer for an asset like CMM is going to attract a lot of attention and not go un-noticed. This includes both attention from speculators, arbitrage seekers as Glorieux mentioned, as well as attention from the industry, peers, and majors.

2) Any offer made has to value CMM at a significant premium to the current trading price in order to be attractive and not laughed at. This limits any risk of buying prior to a pop while things have been steady and tame.

3) I can't imagine the audacity to make an initial offer that does not value CMM at least higher than the 52 week high of .87. We achieved .87 on the POTENTIAL of going from 20k yr production to 100k+, therefore it is common sense we deserve a premium to this now that we are on the verge of ACHIEVING this and the start-up risk is off the table.

4) The volume has been extremely thin recently, as clearly anyone selling given the circumstances, has to be either incredibly stupid or a doing so to keep a lid on the stock. Like many of you, I have a large holding in CMM already, and buying now helps fight any potential manipulators. I was also buying heavily prior to the closing of the PP when there was seemingly a limitless number of cheap shares and that also proved to be a temporary phenomena.

5)In the unlikely situation where CMM does not rise to well beyond the offer price, if the sense is the minority shareholders will vote "no" to a deal, the acquirers will likely go into the market and pick up shares that they can use to vote "yes" with. This puts a firm floor on the entire range between where we are now and the offer level.

6) The remaining CMM holders will not give in to an unacceptable offer. We have been here through thick and thin including a cease trade order, vacant CEO, delays, deadlines missed and everything else. We are here because of the outstanding value and fundamentals and massive discounted gap vs peers that ultimately has to be closed. If we were skittish we would already be out.

7) CMM share holders are also extremely connected. How many stocks have their own active board like Stockigloo and such an active board on Agoracom ? We can organize and unite easily. Want us to merge with WTG? Show us the money! I don’t see any sizable assets or even a website for this entity that would justify their market cap. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. Clearly any type of merger would need to place a huge premium on CMM and a massive discount to WTG. We are connected and not going to be “fooled” out of our shares.

8) Ultimately, I believe in markets. Right now, we are in the minority group that is "in the know." We are both in the know of how extremely undervalued CMM is and also in the know that something is about to happen. When this deal hits, it’s going to be covered as major news in the industry and is going to attract attention. There is likely going to bring in a sizeable volume of new players into the game speculating on what a fair value for us is. While it may take time, I believe the markets will work. I believe the highly public nature of any transaction like this combined with the bullish gold market and desire of majors to acquire high quality assets serves as protection against us not getting a fair deal.

1 comment:

Wingfong said...

Hi RE

Great to read your well thought-out post. Like U, i have also loaded to the gills making CMM the largest investment in my life todate. "Watching" very closely developments from 7500 air miles away so U can see how important this blog is to me. Many thanks again to all contributing members for all the efforts and information. We shall prevail!