ECU Silver Closes $12 Million Private Placement of Special Warrants

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Dec. 9, 2009) - NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

ECU Silver Mining Inc. (TSX:ECU) ("ECU") is pleased to report that it has closed its previously announced private placement of special warrants for total gross proceeds of approximately $12.2 million.

The size of the offering was increased due to the strong market support for the offering. A total of 16,946,000 special warrants were issued at a price of $0.72 per special warrant. Each special warrant entitles its holder to acquire upon exercise one unit, with each unit being comprised of one common share of ECU and one-half of a common share purchase warrant. Each full purchase warrant will entitle its holder to acquire one common share at a price of $0.90 at any time on or before December 9, 2011.

Casimir Capital L.P., an investment bank based in New York City, acted as financial advisor to ECU in connection with this private placement.

I bring this up because the buyers of these PP shares have been out of the money except for a period in late 2010. Today's 8 million share milti company cross has given these buyers a reasonable profit without needing be concerned about bombing the price due to overwhelming the bid. Hopefully this removes some of the share overhang of owners who bought for short term profit only. Also this price puts the 8.47 million warrents from this financing in the money by 5 cents a share and hopefully some of these are being exercised for this cross and will add money to ECU's treasury. Also, you can bet whoever bought these 8 million shares will take delivery so today's sales most likely were not naked shorts. If anyone did sell phantom shares today they may need to go into the market and buy real shares next week.