Without a doubt, Bill Murphy owned alot of ECU at a low price, but he also continued to buy much more at much higher prices. Those of us who knew M Roy and S Altmann respected and trusted them and their long range plans to merge the company.

Supposedly, there were numerous inspections of Valardena by prospective merger candidates. There was even a strong rumor that ECU's neighbor, Penoles might be interested.

When ECU merged with Golden Minerals in mid-2011, I asked Steve Altmann if this merger was an example of the proverbial "1 + 1 = 3" He told me that inactuality, it was "1 + 1 = 10," because each company was adding the necessary components which the other lacked.

AUMN brought desperately-needed capital and could retire ECU's debt, production expertise (supposedly), and a flagship, El Quevar. ECU contributed the flagship, Valardena and exploration expertise. What wasn't anticipated was an absolute annihilation of the metal prices the very month of the merger, Sept. 2011 during which the combined company fell from $20/sh. to $7/sh. Having tracked the short sellers for years, we can all assume that they had a field day with no regulator in sight! It must be understood that this 67% decline in ONE MONTH following a merger "made in heaven," was mostly caused by the metal annihilation, pure and simple.

It also did not help that AUMN underestimated the development of the access ramp and thus went through their healthy bank account rather quickly and then had to approach the capital markets for more equity financing against the backdrop of a horrible sector sentiment.

It also was a mistake by Clevenger to put incompetent Dave Dipps in charge of Valardena, especially at such a critical time. Clevenger owns that one!

Currently, I have faith in Sentient Group which now probably owns nearly 25% of the company. I believe Sentient, like the rest of us, will wait this out for a metal price recovery.