Don’t be greedy, LionOre shareholders: tender those shares!

More often than not, big mergers and takeovers are announced late on Sunday evening or early Monday morning — the better to prevent an information leak and any resulting suspicious trading before the official announcement.

* The trading week ended March 30 followed this pattern, with the biggest offer of the week landing on the Monday, with Xstrata bidding $18.50 in cash for each share of LionOre Mining International, or $4.6 billion in total.

LionOre shares immediately leapt above the bid, and gradually gained strength to close out the week at $19.22 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, or just shy of its all-time high reached earlier in the week.

This is such a sweet deal for LionOre shareholders — being able to cash out at a moment of peaking nickel prices — however it looks like Xstrata will need to add a little more cash to quickly complete this acquisition and move on to its next one. They have deep pockets and can afford it.

The griping we hear from some LionOre shareholders is a little surprising. Any LionOre shareholders still contemplating holding out after a sweetener is offered shouldn’t get greedy, and keep in mind that shares were trading at just $5 as recently as a year ago.

* A groundswell in the newest darling of the metals market, the molybdenum subsector, was a major theme of the week, with the spot price perking up to US$30.25 per lb. MoS2 and most moly-focused companies seeing upticks in share prices and trading volumes.

For example, Vancouver-based junior Georgia Ventures gained 300% following the simple announcement of its planned acquisition of the Creston moly project in Mexico.

Adanac Molybdenum and subsector leader Blue Pearl Mining also both saw good rallies, with Adanac lining up $37.5 million in financings, boosting the resource at Ruby Creek and tabling a resource at the B&C project in Nevada.

To reflect its new enhanced status, Blue Pearl plans to change its name to “Thompson Creek Metals” in May and seek a U.S. listing later this year. The company plans to produce 21 million lbs. of moly this year and 27 million lbs. next year from its Thompson Creek and Endako mines in Idaho and B.C., respectively.

Meanwhile, on Bay Street, the Sprott Molybdenum Participation Fund is raising $75 million in an initial public offering, with monies to be invested in molybdenum stocks as well as actual molybdenum.

* With the global diamond business broadly plateauing in the past year, it was a pleasure to see Aber Diamond’s record earnings of US$104 million for 2006 and continued success as it expands downstream into the high-end retail diamond business through its now wholly owned subsidiary Harry Winston.

In 2006, the company enjoyed record attributable production of 3.9 million carats from its 40% stake in the Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories, and completed its acquisition of the rest of the “jeweller to the stars,” Harry Winston, that it didn’t already own.

* Venezuela jumped back into the news in a big way on March 28 with some uncharacteristic good news: Gold Reserve reported that the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment had approved the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the exploitation and processing of gold and copper mineralization at Gold Reserve’s Brisas project in the famed Kilometre 88 district of Venezuela’s Bolivar state.

Gold Reserve’s shares responded accordingly, shooting up $2.53 on the day, or 49%, to $7.66 in Toronto. Crystallex International shares rose in tandem, closing up 29% on the day at $4.50 in Toronto.

Showing just how hot the markets are these days, a day later, Crystallex announced a $36.2-million bought-deal at $4.25 per share — a sum that was quickly boosted to $53 million by the end of the week.

It was very smart for Crystallex to rush the financing before Hugo Chavez makes another boneheaded speech or declaration designed to kill foreign direct investment by Western capitalists.

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