That is, that AUMN really, really wanted ECU. Don't forget, here's this company (AUMN) with a market cap similar to ours (the good prospects), but with a lot of cash. Seems to me that their prospects can't be nearly what AUMN management thinks of ECU's prospects, or how would they possibly merge essentially 50/50, when they are holding one hundred million in cash and we are holding little cash, and are actually upside down when you count our debt.

That's not to say ECU management was duped; perhaps AUMN's prospects are fairly decent - if that's the case, what does that mean ours must be???? Could it actually be as good as many here think? Could it really valued based on a reasonable discount to Argoz's numbers? Whatever it might be, without the cash, you can't really do our prospects justice, so you do this deal.

Thus, my guess is that the primary emphasis of the merged company will be to get Velardena going strong asap. Not that they won't continue with their "babies," of course they will, but I think Velardena goes right to the top of the list, with a bullet, as they say.

To me, this also means some more patience is needed. After all, what we have when the merger is closed is basically an exploration company, with very small production, with maybe a $700,000,000 market cap (pretty big for essentially an explorer, right?). The market is still going to want to see results, beyond drilling and assay results, although good ones will likely give us some nice spikes - but will those spikes be sustainable without serious production?

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.