Rio and Ivanhoe deal was done in late 2006. At that time it was...

Rio and Ivanhoe deal was done in late 2006. At that time it was strategic partnership, where Rio invested in next few years 1.5 Billion USD for total 42 % equity. Afterwhile, it is all corporate games, specially with global financial crisis happened, it gave some momentum to Rio and at the end they got hold of controlling 51% of the equity, which is quiet bad for Robert friedland, which he looses potential for premium in takeover case.

Based in that

at that time, Reserve (proven and Probable ) were around 9 B lbs of copper and 7 MOZ gold.
overall indicated resource were at 35B lbs of copper 17MOZ gold, and in addition it had another 30 B in inferred.

Eventually whole system, has now i believe more than 90B (maybe even close to 100B in copper eq) lbs of copper global resources.

If you look at that time Rio valued the company who already sunk close to 200 m plus had 200 M cash around, 2B.

In SOLG's case it has certainly goal to reach to get proper valuation for takeover over 1 B. Yes money is gonna last 1.5 years but, i believe if there is more ore discovered at Aguinaga and Moran, it will go into position of additional raising in 2nd half of 2017. This is going to be critical moment for management to sell or develop independently a bit longer.

Lessons learned from IVN and Rio deal is that, strategic partnership with major might not work as you planned, and you may end up losing premium that could have got in direct takeover scenario. In large deposits like this big makes management to think this is company builder, but maybe not.

For me it is truly realistic in this age of time, SOLG could go over 1 B, just need some quality works to prove speculative potential.