Interesting speculation. Sprott, BMO, CC, Westwind, Blackmont, Dundee and Primary Cap were all in on the $37.5 (pre-split) financing.
You could well be right.
When that financing was first announced, I wondered why they needed that much money so soon -- and speculated that perhaps they were bluffing that they fully intended on going alone (in an attempt to draw potential bidders in). But maybe it wasn't a bluff...
In normal circumstances, a major has a greater chance of bringing a project such as FDN to production. But these are not normal circumstances; and I tend to agree that perhaps, in this case, for several reasons, Aurelian is better placed than anyone else for this task...