Guyana: Good Grief

Aaron Hodson Mar 02, 2012

 Sometimes, you just have to wonder. Guyana Goldfields, a $465 million gold company, has nine buys and three holds on it from Bay Street analysts right now. Hmmmm....  Let's take a look: In 2005, Guyana stock was above $10 per share. Two years ago, the company raised $69 million, at $6.95 per share. 

Gold prices have gone up for 11 years in a row. Tons of gold companies have doubled, tripled or gained even more in that time. 

With shares issued and acquisitions using shares, Guyana's share count has gone from 39.9 million shares in 2005, to almost 84 million shares today.

Why do analysts like this company? There shares are $5.53 today. We have no idea.

Here is what the company said back in November:

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Guyana Goldfields Inc. has signed
confidentiality agreements with six parties interested in buying
the company and its Aurora gold project in the South American
country, Chief Operating Officer Claude Lemasson said.
    “We have been on the radar of many companies, I think, for
quite a while,” Lemasson said in an interview yesterday at
Guyana’s headquarters in Toronto.
    Guyana received its license for Aurora, the first issued in
the country for a large-scale gold mine since 1991, the company
said last week. The project, which may have an initial cost of
$400 million, is now fully permitted, Lemasson said. The company
may sell stock or convertible bonds in the next four months to
raise $100 million to $150 million to fund development, he said.

So, apparently, six companies want to buy Guyana. Too bad, in February 2012 the company released the Aurora feasability study, and investors were not impressed. The project is also going to cost a lot more than expected. Shares plunged, and are down 25% so far this year, and more than 40% in the past year.

So, let's sum up: We have a company whose shareholders have lost half their value in the past seven years. Not co-incidentally, the number of shares have doubled. Shares have gone down, yet gold has gone straight up. Oh, yeah: The company needs to raise more money, as stated above.

We can't even be bothered to issue a report on Guyana. If we did, though, guess what its rating would be? (Hint. It is not one of the first four letters of the alphabet).


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