Good post, Ed.

And to add a couple of points to bolster your thoughts, using Wes as the whipping boy. All of them have been posted extensively in the past.

Wes left a mill/yr job to come to Noront. His salary is in the neighborhood of 200k/yr plus options. Who here would sooner pay him in dollars rather than those options?

I have had the opportunity to serve on a BOD of a publicly traded company on four occasions in the past. In every case, I was there simply for one reason, OPTIONS.

The options are valueless unless the SP goes up. Anyone who believes they would drive the SP down in order to give themselves more options cheaper has been reading too many comic books.

Company rules, as well as those of the exchanges, allow for a certian percentage of the share float (usually 10%) to be allocated as options. It is quite normal, and usual, for the full allowable amount to be aldisbursed.

If giving themselves options is what it takes to encourage them to seek a higher share price, I say more power to them, go for it.

FWIW, Richard and friends over at BOLD have just done the same thing.

best regards

K