Mark,

Keeping the cash, from the sale of BC, within PRB would work fine. Let's see how much cash we could get from the auction using eBay-like idea. Even though Karen's initial reaction was on the tepit side. Concerns: Public companies are not "allowed" to do that, etc...But, she promised to fly the idea pass Dave and the BoD. Perhaps, they would have a chuckle... but some some other novel idea may result after a chuckle, or two. The idea here to shed the non-core assets, such as BC, so that we can get some cash, and make it easier for analysts to do their valuation of a pure gold company (with Borden alone). There are many ways the BoD can consider, such as hiring some investment bankers to shop around the BC property if they are too shy to use eBay. This is essentially eBay, but in the privacy of their own circle of "acquaintances".

A minimum price of $120 M for BC would fetch approx $2/s cash. If PRB keeps all the cash within the house then it would certainly have a very strong cash position (approx $150M).

This ($150M cash) may pose as a juicy target for a TO, even though PRB BoD would appear to know how to handle such an attempt.

Here is a hybrid version of your suggestion:

- give back as special dividend of say $50M ($0.75/s) and keep the other $100M (still a very good cash position) in the treasury; and

- split the share 2 for 1, as proposed.

A bird in hand is always better, in my view.

goldhunter