Fossil,

Had nothing against CLF (used to own a big chunk, but that was a few years ago). But, I do have problem with its bullying tactic against much smaller Canadian companies. If they operated with a spirit of co-operation then the chromite situation in the RoF (starting with BD in a 70/30 JV with KWG) would be drastically different. Anyway, water down the bridge, and given CLF current situation it would be safe to say that its proposed BT chromite project is dead, and it would not be premature to write an obituary for that.

Given the current situation CLF is in, it's is highly doubtful that CLF, in its current form, would survive after the July meeting with shareholders, including Casablanca of course. CLF is broke. Its share price has gone from $90/s to $14.80/s over a period of 3 years when CLF decided to purchase Consolidated Thompson for $4.9B (peak of iron ore price). It could be just bad timing, but all the wise people on the CLF BoD were supposed to have a broad economic picture to make the right decision (i.e., not buying high and taking a $1B write-down some 2 years later).

The above are just historical facts which form the basis for the current class-action suits (4 currently?) against Management and the BoD (mishandling/loss of 84% of the company market value, ~$10B, over a very short period. They cannot blame everything on the drop in iron ore price, since during this period iron ore price dropped by only ~40%.

The obituary for CLF (at least for the current mangement and the BoD) is essentially written by its own shareholders with the revolt led by Casablanca, and the class-action law suits which seem to cause direct damage to the company itself.

During the meantime in Canada, CLF is appealing the decision by the Lands and Commissioner not to grant an easement for its private road for monster trucks over KWG claims. What's the point of this appeal...still want to build private road when it's broke and does not have $600M for half of the cost (the other half is expected to be funded by the governement), let alone the $3.2B for the entire project, including a $1.8B electric arc furnace, which will also require $billions worth of electricity subsidy from the government.

Even if the Liberal party were to form a new (minority) goverment after 12 June, it would be difficult for the new Premier to justify the dishing out $600M plus billions of dollars worth of electricity subsidy, while much cheaper options (gas-fired) are available, since that would be a political suicide.

If one is adventurous, this could a good time (or wait for few more weeks) to buy CLF shares cheap and hope that it would appreciate following the shareholders' meeting. However, this is just like rolling the dice in Las Vegas.

Just my reading of the current situation. You may have yours.

goldhunter