Gold Exploration in West Africa

[FL]

Re: WHT CDE GSS IAM; I like it

[ This is a copy of my message to a subscriber-only bulletin board. FL ]

Few, other than the parties, especially liked the Iamgold-Wheaton River combination anyway. Iamgold (IAG) has expertise and success in West African gold-only mining while Wheaton River (WHT) is a somewhat irrelevant acquisitions-based Western Hemisphere silver and gold and cetera mining company.

On the surface, ignoring the personalities and "fit" of the management personnel (about which I don't know), a Golden Star and Iamgold alliance makes more sense, building towards a real powerhouse in West Africa.

As I've opined in detail on the InvestorsHub West African Gold Exploration board ( http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1588 ), it might be that this is all leading to massive takeovers of (non AU) West African miners and explorers by Newmont (NEM).

Newmont used to not be interested in Africa, period, but now that it has got the great Ahafo property in Ghana along with its Normandy acquisitions, it realizes that it only doesn't like SOUTH Africa, and Newmont just announced that it likes Ghana a lot. Newmont is, I surmise, evaluating all individual Ghanaian gold properties in "stealth" mode. It wants millions of reserve ounces. Golden Star with Iamgold would make a ripe plum and a possible springboard to compete with AngloGold Ashanti (AU) in West Africa.

(Dislosure: I have some stock in all except CDE.)

So I'm quite pleased that Golden Star and Coeur d'Alene have this idea to "re-cut the pie." Others may be inspired to enter the fray creatively too.

FL