and so it begins, page-45

"If Silvergate/ASI is so wealthy and interested in Hawsons, why has it not simply acquired a 40% stake in the project directly from the liquidator of BMG?"

My gut instinct is that it has something to do with the following.

Before all of this happened, ASI held 25% of BMG for a net 10% interest in Hawsons. From here they could have taken two paths to increase their Hawsons interest: buy more CAP shares or buy out BMG. Purchasing the remainder of BMG would have cost $9.75M (75% of $13M) but yielded an extra 30% interest in Hawsons for a total of 40%. This would have to have been approved by CAP as per the original JV arrangement. In other words, to bring their interest in Hawsons up to 40% they could have paid $9.75M. The issue here though is that they then need to continue the JV arrangement which stipulates that $20M must be paid to CAP, and they must fund the BFS as well as free carry CAP to production. Alot of messing around in other words.

Instead of doing this they have asked Silvergate to buy CAP shares on their behalf. By buying CAP shares for, let's say, ~$6M, they have grabbed themselves an extra 12% net interest in Hawsons for a total of 22%. However, they also now hold this position where they can throw their weight around a bit, and they also have a 20% interest in CAP's other projects too. In other words, they have taken this option, it seems, because it gives them potential board exposure, costs them less to do so, and does not obligate them to continue what BMG started as per the original JV agreement signed and sealed some 30 months ago (hard to believe it has been that long)!

Just a guess. Happy to be proven wrong by Ed if he so chooses to do so.