Spiderman,

I think Gusella made the right decision by taking the financing early. He may not have made the correct choice in retrospect (we'll never know), but I think that in looking at the options in context at the time, even if this turns out to have been more expensive, it was the right move. He had to make a gamble, and he chose the conservative one that had the least likelihood of derailing long-term strategy. Long-term strategy can be more important than short-term expenses, within reason.

At the time, I was shocked that he succeeded. The sub-prime crisis had everyone in an uproar. Securing financing in that environment was impressive.

I think that another consideration lay in the approval timing for Algar. Some people (quite a few) actually suggested that the approval for Algar might come quite a bit faster than for GD, based upon the fact that the EUB already had a working history with CLL, and the application would be similar to one already processed. Who knows whether or not DG subscribed to that same theory/hope, but if the Algar approval had actually come three months faster than GD's, then having that financing in place would have been even more important than it is now.

Ok, on to the subject of Algar approval. This is the right time frame compared to GD. Gusella did at one point state publicly that he was optimistic that Algar would be approved around the end of the 2nd quarter. The second quarter ends in a few days. I think the next few weeks should hopefully see some good news with respect to both Algar and a new reserves report. And rather than an overall generic increase in reserves, I will be looking for data that shows a defined and specific framework to further delineate additional pods. Concentrated reserves are what we need. Sure, a 100% increase in overall reserves would be nice, but if it's homogenous across the property that is less valuable than a couple of sweet spots above which to build additional pods.