The word on the street was that KWG had offered to Noront to take the shares as part of a joint bid, at 4.5 cents per share (pending KWG being able to find financing) so Noront wouldn't have needed to borrow as much money from the big boys. Noront allegedly declined, and opted to keep the KWG shares, even though the market price at the time was around 2.5 cents.

Whether or not this is accurate is uncertain. I don't remember seeing anything official that would confirm this.