"Maybe the new management team will polish this newly merged company so brightly, that someone will come get it well before the 2,000 tpd mill ever crushes a ton of ore."

I'll give you my interpretation of what the aim of AUMN management might be.

These are professionals who have been leading large mining projects in the past. They want to make the next step in their career. Listening to the CC, they are thrilled by Velardena from a professional point of view (the chance of that really unique mother load that may continue and continue into depth) and dream of leading this combined company to become one of the leaders in the industry within 5-10 years. AUMN alone would not have that potential, but with the Velardena prospect in the portfolio they have become a totally different player in the market. They have seen the potential of the Velardena district and are convinced it is a world class property, possibly one of the last around of this dimension.

So I don't think they are interested in selling this off within a few years. They want to grow this company to make it really big and they know they will have to be fast to make Velardena profitable.

For us ECU shareholders, this is the best that could have happened. Instead of being bought out by a major for maybe 5%-10% of today's NPV of Velardena, we are going to stay in for 50% of that value with the prospect that that NPV will grow much beyond today's NPV and that all the other projects that are brought in by Golden Minerals will also be developed into cash generating ventures, of which we also own 50%.