dano9008 - excellent points. On the GBG website, there is a letter from the BRP to the creditors dated mid January that is excellent read and squares with your comment that the BRP is motivated to find the value for the parties in interest. The letter indicates that there a few interested bidders involved in the process right now...and that he doesn't expect to report a deal until May. That amount of time suggests to me he expects a lot of back and forth between the interested suitors to do back and forth on price. So probably WITS is in there, and I too can't image a Chinese sovereign backed entity viewing this as a great source to feed China's appetite for gold reserves for their currency. While I agree in theory that the auction route for both properties diminishes the potential value compared to reorganizing, my experience in bankruptcy over the last 10 years is that in practice, reorganization usually provides and easier format for the lenders to snatch that value away from equity - you simply hire an IB to value the project below the claims hurdle and take it all - in the US the term is called 'K-marting the Court'. I don't know that I'd have much interest in GBG at this point if it wasn't going the route of auction on both properties, because it keeps everyone with a seat at the table honest (and equity does not have a seat without an EC, which I don't think is even allowed in Canada)
AI
