Vancouver Stock Exchange Prime tight-lipped over NAM bid

It looks as if Murray Pezim’s Prime Capital will sit tight for a while to see where the cards fall in its takeover (via a private placement) attempt for North American Metals. (A gremlin crept into our market story last week and the company was incorrectly identified as North American Rare Metals).

U.S. gold producer Homestake Mining has upped its earlier offer for North American by $1 to $5 per share which was accepted; and Montagu Mining has exercised its right of first refusal on the private placement in North American that Prime subsidiary Pezgold Resource was to take down. (Yes, it really is confusing.) Over our report period, Pezgold was 25 cents lower at $2.80 and North American was a dime higher at $4.90.

“I can’t believe what’s going on,” Pezim told The Northern Miner today. “North American came to me looking for a White Knight (to counter Homestake) and I go for it. Then they bring in Wood Gundy and Wood Gundy starts shopping my deal around after we signed it. Then they (North American) announce they are tendering all their stock to Homestake.”

Another Prime company, Colossus Resource Equities, has improved on an earlier but somewhat less controversial bid for Delaware Resource which could put it over the top. Colossus is now offering two common shares, two series A warrants, and a B warrant sweetener for each common share of Delaware.

As The Northern Miner predicted might happen several weeks ago (N.M., Feb 29/88), Ned Goodman’s DCC Equities has tendered its 18.5% shareholding in Delaware to Colossus. Goodman is on the board of Prime. (Teck’s Keevil family calls this “networking”.) So it looks fairly certain that Colossus will get control of Delaware which closed the period unchanged at $9.87.

Illustrating again just how Prime companies are dominating the market, Golden Nevada recovered nicely during the week, gaining 55 cents to $2.80. Noranda is drilling Golden Nevada’s Grew Creek gold property near Faro, Yukon and the discovery looks like a winner. Optima Energy, previously Lathwell Resources, also came on strong rising 46 cents to $1.65. The company is involved in a gas drilling program in Washington State.

Windarra Minerals was active at presstime, climbing 4 cents to $1.24 and International Prism came to life, jumping 4 cents to 54 cents . The former has a 25% interest in the Magnacon property in northwestern Ont (N.M., Mar 28/88). Prism recently picked up ground in the Skyline area of northwestern B.C.