Bering Boy

How Much Is NovaGold Worth?

Nawar, concerning the knowledge Barrick had when pursuing NG: Barrick management was just done swallowing Placer Dome who had the institutional knowledge of the DC project. Driving Barrick's offer was a drop dead date on investment in DC or to take a 30% stake instead of 70% with NG. With very little in the way of feasibility planning, they tried to circumvent the deadline by buying out NG. In regards to their knowledge of the doing business at this isolated location at the time of the offer, I'll reiterate they had very little notion of the challenges.

How Much Is NovaGold Worth?

Although Mr. Tan is quite correct in the math, the problem with NG is execution risk. Doing business in the Arctic that has no access for 9 months of the year, the logistics of operating any large scale mining are just plain difficult and wildly expensive. Add to this the environmental concerns of affected First Peoples who live and own the adjacent lands, and the likelyhood of development in any sort of quick and efficient manner is almost zero. My reccomendation is caution. My only exposure to NG and BG are in sector weighted mutual funds.