Did some more of my own due diligence on this one. I had forgotten that Newmont has a vested interest in Stratagold, particularly in Africa.

But the African properties do not appear to be at a very advanced stage.

As I mentioned earlier, Dublin Gulch is a low grade, but potentially much larger, deposit. It's already approaching three million ounces, and is open/untested in two directions.

I feel for the initial investors in Stratagold because Victoria is capitalizing on their loss. I'm glad I didn't buy into this one. It ends up being the investors who financed the first several million ounces of gold, only to sell out at 6 million dollars.

To make the deposit have a good enough rate of return, the company will have to substantially increase the size of the deposit. Even the tungsten proposal only shows a 15.5% rate of return, which, if you are a junior, is something a bank may not take a risk on.

Victoria can buy it, but on their own couldn't finance the mine any more than Strata could. So they either have to hold Dublin Gulch until a better rate of return comes around (develop the deposit more) or plan on getting financing/takeout from Kinross.

Victoria's deep drilling has been very successful, but as a whole is behind the development curve. They still need to prove up a lot more before Kinross (or whoever) takes them out.

Quite obviously, I could be wrong here. But I think Kinross saw a deposit that could develop into many more millions of ounces going for a bargain price. They may be planning to take out Victoria in a year or two for their Nevada deposits anyways, so they a) Fed Victoria 5 million dollars (financing in December). b) Told them who to take over when the time was right. c) Promised them future financial windfalls.

Another angle to consider is that some very substantial deposits have been discovered/developed recently in the Yukon, and this is a foot in the door.

A lot of the large cap miners have expressed interest in tungsten, given its relative shortage, lately. Agnico Eagle has optioned a Yukon tungsten deposit. Looking out over a long time frame, the gold could be milled first, and then the mill be converted for tungsten , or vice versa. Kinross might be interested in tungsten, but I doubt Victoria is.

I'm not sure where Newmont figures into this one -the African properties probably get spun right back to them, or they get option to invest, which they had a chance at already and declined.

All of which points to Victoria being more of a "sure thing" takeover for Kinross and consequently a bargain at its current price.

All pure conjecture, of course.