http://www.stockhouse.com/Columnists/2010/Jul/5/Fireworks-hard-to-find

Among companies whose fates we track for good and bad, Idaho prospector Premium Exploration (TSX: V.PEM , Stock Forum ) saw its shares start trading Monday in Canada after a two-week-plus halt linked to a merger transaction. The company's chairman and its CEO, Del Steiner and Wilf Struck respectively, tell me a looming financing is all but complete and funds "in escrow." The financing is targeting a $10 million "raise" with 25-cent units. If successful, the fresh stock will be dilute the smack out of the approximately $22 million company's current stakeholders. Still, Premium shares Monday after a 13 percent decline sell for 31 cents Canadian. That is above the placement price for the current financing. For more on Premium, which we dropped as a researchable Ticker Trax investment for our high-risk subscribers, please see: Premium or Discount?

http://www.stockhouse.com/Columnists/2010/Jun/24/Premium-or-discount-for-this-gold-junior--PEM

Idaho prospector's trading halt: Day 4

VANCOUVER, Canada -- Question and answer time. We ask questions. CEOs answer them … or don’t. You decide.

If you have a question that needs answering, shoot and we will see about getting it answered.

Premium Exploration (TSX: V.PEM , Stock Forum ) – The stock as of Thursday midday is been halted from Canada trading. The situation, four days running now, is either a huge opportunity for investors or a bust. The Idaho and Montana prospector says the trading halt is pegged to a “hugely complicated” merger transaction and revised royalty rights for property owners.

We dropped Premium as a Planetary Prospect of Ticker Trax ™ several months ago. Largely, our subscriber service concluded the explorer had promising gold properties in the form of Friday Petsite and Buffalo Gulch in Idaho. Indeed, the scale of any success at those properties, which I have visited, would be, to borrow an adjective, “huge.”

Yet we concluded the chance of a 10x-return for this tiny company was remote … because of the need for fresh and massive financing cash that will water down current shareholders. (Another catch-up with British Columbia securities regulators occurred several weeks ago; it centered on the way Premium Exploration characterized data from its Idaho property or properties.)

A 25-cent financing for the 35-cent stock, as much as $10 million Canadian, is in the works and is subjecting Premium to scrutiny. Del Steiner , a Premium founder, chairman and lawyer, tells me a merger transaction announced last week, late on Friday afternoon, is before British Columbia regulators. Premium shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada.

Mr. Steiner tells me this is routine. I asked for his reasoning.

“Merger,” said Mr. Steiner. Del’s wife, Ellen Steiner , is a shareholder in one of the entities in the transaction(s) that are on Premium’s table this week and last. “Laws are the same for PEM as Newmont. Hugely complicated and non-arms length. Patience is the rule of the day.” My reply: I don’t believe I recall ever seeing Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM , Stock Forum ) shares halted for four days running.

Wilf Struck , geologist and Premium CEO, labels as “goofy” some of the original terms with Clearwater, one of three entities that under renegotiated terms is releasing control of central Idaho gold properties in return for cash and stock. “The deal with Clearwater was an open-ended realized price royalty, goofy ... an uncapped gross royalty on production from Buffalo Gulch that would have gone on forever. I went back and negotiated … a reduced cash payment by 40% and converted the gross royalty to a net smelter royalty (NSR), so that cleans that whole transaction up,” he says.

As for some Premium shareholders who thought Premium’s four main Idaho gold prospects were already “in the bag” in terms of ownership, Mr. Struck says, “We controlled all the properties under letters of interest but not a definitive agreement.” Two of the entities in this revised property sale/merger/negotiation, Kria and Valencia, are Stan Bharti companies from Canada.

On behalf of Ticker Trax , I am impressed with the scale of Buffalo Gulch and Friday Petsite. (Please see original report – for free.) Impressive, that is, as long as assay results continue to strike vast mineralized zones as drilling thus far reveals. Still, what we try to screen from our subscriber service is any paperwork, language or transaction that is remotely complicated. We at Ticker Trax told subscribers in early May that we were taking Premium off our research list. We stepped up our search for Colombia, Mexico, USA and Africa (Ghana and RSA) prospectors with attractive risk-return metrics that approach 10x for a two-year time frame.

One believer in Premium Exploration regardless of these merger machinations is Robert Moriarty . (That is Bob at a tour of Antioquia Gold’s Cisneros Project in Colombia from February of this year – Thom Calandra photo. ) Bob and his 321gold service reviewed in positive fashion the Idaho properties about three weeks ago. I asked Bob Moriarty whether he was concerned about the regulatory scrutiny and trading halt. He told me today (Thursday), “No. Not at all. The deal is confusing but I think they will be fine.”