Of mergers, e-commerce and gold

I have been buying The Northern Miner off the shelf for many years. It now seems to me that you are disappointing many of your readers by failing to report on big changes in some mining companies. For example, what happened to Indochina and Armada Gold Mines? I read in The Globe and Mail that Black Sea Resources is now Ivanhoe Energy. Have Indochina and Armada amalgamated to form Ivanhoe Minerals?

Or what is going on at Golden Hope? It seldom traded for years; bid was 10 cents, ask: 15 cents. Now it’s 50 cents with heavy volume, and you have no reports on the cause of this activity.

John Dee,

Toronto, Ont.

Indochina Goldfields became Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T) in June and began trading under its new name in early July. Its oil and gas sister Black Sea Resources, as you point out, became Ivanhoe Energy around the same time. There was no new business combination involving Indochina Goldfields, particularly not a merger with Armada Gold (AAU-T).

Armada is under a cease trade order from the Ontario Securities Commission, which came down at the end of June. The company had failed to file reports required under the Securities Act. That order was continued by the OSC in a hearing in July, and will remain in force until Armada complies with the reporting requirements of the Act.

Strike Minerals (STRK-C) has gone into the Internet commerce business, having acquired web sites for cottage rentals and bingo. It has kept its mineral exploration properties and at last report was “packaging several for proposed programs.” We don’t regard Strike as truly dormant, but, until there are some developments on the mineral exploration front, there is little for a mining newspaper to report.

Golden Hope Mines (GNHM-C) came to life in early July when a private placement of 1 million shares at 20 cents was taken up by National Financial Services, a private company. That gave Golden Hope $200,000 to mount an exploration program on its Gold Creek property in Nevada’s Elko Cty., which it took an option on just over a year ago. The company did some initial geophysical work last year and is drilling this summer. To date, no results have been returned.