Mark,

In this case, perhaps CEO Sean Rosen had good reasons to lash out, given the "dirty pool being played. The initial offer was a hostile low ball, and allegedly based on information given out by Osisko, in confidence. That was why there was a court case, which was later withdrew to give G a chance to submit another bid (to compete with YRI offer for OSK). Also, G did not really carry out its bidding seriously enough (in one case up the ante by $0.01/s over the rival's...this is a joke and a waste of time for everybody). Finally, in oder to make the offer more attractive G up the bid by $1B over the orginal offer of $2.6B (quite a jump, almost a 40% jump). But YRI brought in AEM with a combined cash and stock offer with an estimated value of $3.9B. Yesterday, G came out with an announcement that it will not up the ante and will let the offer of $3.6B expire by today (a confirmation is needed to nail this case shut). See link below.

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/04/21/goldcorp-inc-abandoning-hostile-bid-for-osisko/

This is a good lesson for G any other companies that playing fair is important. A genuine and friendly offer that has a good chance for approval of board of the target company is much better than an underhanded and hostile low ball attempt which seemed to create bad blood all around.

I would suspect that Sean Rosen had a much better perception of G than any of us for wanting the BoD to have the decision to reject an unqualified bid. Shareholders still have the final say though. If the BoD rejected a bid that they would consider inferior in their judgement, then the "predator" company can always take the offer directly to the shareholders.

If the BoD really mess things up then shareholders can vote the gang out, or take the BoD members to court for not performing their fiduciary duties. They are there to work for the shareholders.

Just hope that G, with its big pot of spare cash following this fiasco, would not turn around too quickly to apply the same predatory practice on other potential gold targets such as PRB which would want some breathing room before the next resource estimate becomes available. I reckon that ZEN would want similar breathing room for all its ducks lining up in a neat row before entertaining a TO from anybody.

goldhunter