I was just thinking the same thing. There is no way that both companies hire the same engineering company and end up together at the Munich conference.
It sounds like to me from NioCorps perspective there may be synergy between the 2 companies.
APEX secures mineral and land purchase rights, spends their own money to prove mineral reserves and secures option to purchase land while it is still affordable at 10K/acre. Once NioCoprp is up and running and profitable, NioCorp secures APEX's ownership and APEX makes a profit. Besides, even if APEX does end up extracting minerals, they would probably use NioCorps processing facilities which would be profitable for NioCorp.
I predict MS will be forthcoming on what this all means. APEX's interest can only help NioCorp secure the EXIM loan augmenting what has already has been and will soon be an anticipation of positive drill results for NioCorp..