Ann: Becoming a substantial holder from NST, page-11

Cheers for that, Xenius.

And I absolutely agree with you.

I was most disappointed with the 80m at 29c news.

"NST could now argue it only needs to pay another 20-30% premium for a full takeover on the 'success' of its initial bid".

Spot on! This is how I derived my figure of 40c. Low-30s + 30% premium. Nothing to do with how I value the company. I think punters need to be realistic here. It stands to reason that NST will employ whatever strategies necessary to pick this up on the cheap. Hope I am wrong and that some of the 'pie in the sky' figures being bandied about on here are closer to the mark. As you rightly said, that comes down to the decisions of the larger fish.

And on that point. The pertinent question here is why did those larger fish offload such a huge chunk of stock at 29c?

I thought deeply about this yesterday & last night. You know - the usual thoughts. ST profiteering, blah, blah, blah. I even started to think that the strategic plan all along was to build the ounces and flog it off. It would make sense, if you study the decision-making chain. I have certainly lost count of the number of times that I badgered Simon about their intentions to transition into a producer. I was convinced in the end that this was their true intention, so it was difficult to reconcile with my questioning thoughts last evening. In the end, I think they were legit about making it.

I may be wrong here, but perhaps the prevailing sense (from the larger fish) is a question mark on management. After all, they really left themselves open here. The lame raise at 10c, the endless exploration (when many felt that they should have been in production by now), the reserve figure which was almost double what most had expected. They really have been all over the shop and put themselves in this position to be taken over. So, yeah, perhaps the decision by the bigger players reflected a certain dissatisfaction. I could be wrong, but that is my reading of it. It is one thing to be a good geologist (and explorer) and they have done an admirable job in this regard. It is another thing to protect the capital structure of a company and make bold strategic decisions that give a minnow a real chance of becoming an actual company.

"I just hope the rest of EAR's larger holders make it clear to NST that they have much larger value expectations in the event of a takeover and don't throw in the towel as easily when the end game approaches".

Still holding them all. Monday promises to be interesting, although I will be in back-to-back meetings all day and will miss the action. Hope it pushes towards 40c and beyond, but hope isn't really a strategy. All the best to you and other holders.