AntL,

Yup, the value of Voisey Bay Nickel deposit is quite different from that ZEN graphite, in many aspects:

- VB had Robert Friedland (RF) who did not mind playing the promoter role and pitching one company against another. Robert was labelled as an opportunist by some , but others would say he's a visionay who would seize the opportunity when he sees it. Whatever the label he looks like a good business head person to follow with investment in his company.

- RF had a whole bunch of shares in Diamond Fields (DF), but brought in Falconbridge (FB) to anchor DF at ~9.9%, to help start a bidding war with Inco who won the bidding when it forked over $4.3B. FB walked away with some found money ~100M (break-up fees, etc) and with the appreciation from approx 20M shares (~20% of DF) and RF walked away with his first big score of $0.5B. That was the boakground as I recall. Now, ZEN.

- ZEN is currently at ~$106M Mrkt Cap, while VB was sold at $4.3B. Question is how to head it up from $0.1B to the VB level? Some points are discussed below:

(a) AS indicated, pricing of Nickel (sell to the market to any buyer) and graphite (need to find a buyer with an agreed price)

(b) AE and his merry men/women have ~25% of ZEN (Institution: 19%, and Retails: 56%) which represents a large chunk of the company. This block, is the controlling block for any potential take-over, i.e. Management must agree with the offer before it can proceed. Of course, the possibility of a bidding war is still there, but in the case of VB, FB was dangled out there by RF as a bait, in the face of the competitors (and Inco struck). It was a public display. Not sure if this strategy is better than AE's of keeping it close to the chest. We shall see, but there must be one offer before a bidding war to get started. An open bidding war is always better.

(c) Size/quality of ZEN graphite: I would say ZEN deposit is large enough (we don't need 100 years worth of graphite, 25 years would be just enough...More deposit will be found while mining, just like in VB). The only remaining question is the proven quality that would attract a sizable off-take with a decent price offer/proposal, say north of $8500/tonne. The talk/proposal of a potential off-take (assuming that AE would be willing to expose that in public) would surely start a bidding war. Unless, management got an offer that can not be refused. AE has 5M shares and he has his price target. As an example, $10/s -> $50M would this be enough, or it has to be $17+ for ~$85M which is close to the psycholigical level of $100M? At these levels, the difference between 85M and 100M would be irrelevant (got the bragging right of being a multi-millionaire, anyway). I would take $85M, under pressure from shareholders.

Just speculating folks.

goldhunter