http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
With metal prices on the way down virtually across the board and mineral exploration companies scrambling to stay afloat there is a surprising amount of backroom wrangling over a handful of Manitoba properties.
After more than five years of working the four former gold mines at Lynn Lake, Carlisle Goldfields Ltd. now has two suitors keen to sink millions of dollars into the properties.
One of them — a Russian gold mining company called Nordgold — wants to buy the entire company and is willing to pay a 140 per cent premium to Carlisle shareholders right now.
The other deal Carlisle is considering — and has already closed — is a joint venture with AuRico Gold, a Toronto-based mid-tier gold producer with a producing mine called Young-Davidson 60 kilometres west of Kirkland Lake, Ont.
The question now for Carlisle’s board and its shareholders is whether to take the money and run with the Nordgold offer or work through the joint venture with AuRico. The latter deal includes a representation from AuRico it will spend up to $30 million over the course of the next three years to produce a feasibility study for the Lynn Lake property that would be the precursor to a producing gold mine.