Investor. Any references to securities are not recommendations or solicitations to buy or sell anything. I may have positions in securities mentioned.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Financier Stanford convicted on 13 of 14 counts - Yahoo! Finance
Financier Stanford convicted on 13 of 14 counts - Yahoo! Finance
HOUSTON (AP) -- A Houston jury has convicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford on all but one of the charges he faced for allegedly bilking investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
HOUSTON (AP) -- A Houston jury has convicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford on all but one of the charges he faced for allegedly bilking investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.
The federal jurors found Stanford guilty on 13 of 14 counts he faced. They found Stanford not guilty on one count of wire fraud.
The 61-year-old Stanford looked down when the verdict was read.
He faces up to 20 years in prison for the most serious charges but could be imprisoned for much longer if a judge orders his sentences be served consecutively.
Prosecutors say Stanford orchestrated a 20-year scheme that took billions through the sale of certificates of deposit from his Caribbean bank.
Stanford's attorneys blamed his ex-chief financial officer.
Feasability Complete
This is an example of junior gold companies taking the next step towards production and it is included here for illustration purposes only.
Many Steps in the process of developing a mine remain to be completed.
Positive Feasibility Study Outlines Annual Gold Production of 200,000 Ounces at Victoria's Eagle Gold Project, Yukon
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -02/22/12)- Victoria Gold Corp. (TSX-V: VIT.V - News)
("Victoria" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of a
National Instrument 43-101 definitive feasibility study for its 100%
owned Eagle Gold Project located on the Dublin Gulch Property, Yukon. A
conference call will be held on Thursday February 23, 2012 at 9:00am
Eastern Time (see details below).
"Completion of this
definitive feasibility study is a significant milestone for development
of the Eagle Gold Project," stated John McConnell, President & CEO,
"the project is economically robust and, with several years of 200,000
ounces per year of gold production at an operating cost less than US$600
per ounce, we are well on our way to creating a mid-tier gold company".The feasibility study was prepared under the direction of Tetra Tech, Inc. ("Tetra Tech"), an industry leading, international engineering firm, supported by a globally recognized feasibility study team, all of whom are independent of the Company, including:
-- Merit Consultants International Inc. ("Merit"), responsible for the
capital cost estimate ("CCE") and construction and project execution
activities;
-- SRK Consulting (U.S.) Inc ("SRK"), responsible for the in-pit Mineral
Resource;
-- BGC Engineering ("BGC"), responsible for geotechnical engineering
pertaining to on-site infrastructure, waste rock storage area and pit
slopes;
-- Kappes, Cassiday & Associates ("KCA"), responsible for metallurgy; and
-- Knight Piesold, responsible for water management.
The feasibility study builds upon the pre-feasibility study completed
by Scott Wilson RPA (see news release dated, March 9, 2010) and confirms
the technical and financial viability of constructing and operating a
29,500 tonne/day ("tpd") open-pit gold mine including a three-stage
crushing circuit, in-valley heap leach and an adsorption desorption gold
recovery plant ("ADR plant") operation at Eagle.---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Highlights of the Feasibility Study (all amounts in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Probable Gold Reserves (oz) 2,300,768 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Average annual gold production (oz, first 5 years) 212,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Average annualized gold production (oz, LOM) 192,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Initial capital expenditure $ 382,799,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Capitalized pre-stripping for mining operations $ 16,941,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating costs ($ per tonne processed, first 5 years) $ 11.95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating costs ($ per tonne processed, LOM) $ 12.21 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating cost per ounce ($US/oz, first 5 years) $ 542 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------First production is targeted for Q4 2014 following a two year construction phase beginning in 2012. Probable Mineral Reserves of 91.6 million tonnes of ore grading 0.78 grams per tonne (g/t) result in 2.3 million contained ounces of gold. Life of mine ("LOM") payable gold production is 1.7 million ounces. Initial capital costs are estimated to be $382.8 million including contingency, excluding working capital of $31.2 million and pre- stripping of $16.9 million.
In-Pit Mineral Resources
SRK estimated an in-pit gold Resource for the purpose of mine planning using Inverse Distance Squared at a cut-off grade of 0.2 g/t constrained within a US$1,500/oz pit optimization shell. A total of 22,439 assay intervals with gold assays in 183 drill holes were used to define a wireframe with assays capped at 13.0 g/t Au. The capped gold assays were composited into 3 m intervals from the top of the drillhole with breaks at the wireframe boundary. Composite intervals less than 0.5 m in length were added to the composite immediately above. A block model with a cell size of 15 m x 15 m x 7.5 m was used for the grade estimation.
Mineral Reserves
Probable Mineral Reserves are the economically minable portions of the Indicated in-pit Mineral Resources as demonstrated by this feasibility study.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eagle Mineral Reserves ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Classification Ore Gold Contained Gold (000's tonnes) (g/t) (oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proven 0 0 0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Probable 91,594 0.78 2,300,768 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proven & Probable 91,594 0.78 2,300,768 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------Mining
Eagle is an open pit mine and will operate as a drill, blast, shovel and haul operation with a nominal rate of 29,500 tpd ore and mine life of 9 years. Ore will be hauled to the first stage crushing unit located toward the north east side of the pit. Total ore to be mined and processed is 91.6 million tonnes grading 0.78 g/t for a total contained 2.3 million ounces gold. Grades are significantly higher in the initial 3 years and include 21.6 million tonnes of ore grading 0.94 g/t, significantly accelerating cash flows in the first few years of operations.
Waste rock will be hauled to one of two waste rock storage areas immediately to the south and north of the open pit respectively. Waste rock storage will be managed to allow for future pit expansion. The ratio of waste to ore is favourable at 1.45 to 1 and total waste material is 132.4 million tonnes.
Processing
Ore will be hauled from the open-pit to the primary crusher at a nominal rate of 29,500 tpd. Following the primary crusher, the ore will be conveyed through a secondary and tertiary crushing circuit to a final crush size of 6.3 mm and conveyed to an in-valley heap leach pad. Ore will be stacked in 10m lifts using grasshopper conveyors and leached for 150 days. The pregnant solution, laden with gold once leaching is complete, will be pumped to an ADR plant where gold will be stripped from the solution and poured into dore bars. Life of mine recovery is estimated at 72.6% with significantly higher recovery in the initial three years as a result of greater oxidation of ore in the upper portion of the pit.
Infrastructure
The project is well supported by local infrastructure. Eagle is accessed via an existing year round road connecting to the Silver Trail Highway. Grid power currently runs along the highway and Victoria has a letter of intent in place with the Yukon Energy Corp to support grid power via a spur line to be constructed along the existing access road. A sizable gravel airstrip is located in Mayo approximately 85km by road from the project site. An existing construction ready 100-person camp is currently operational at site. All mine site infrastructure to be built for Eagle is located within a few kilometers of the open pit.
Capital Costs
The initial capital cost for Eagle is estimated (in Q1 2012 dollars) at CAD$382.8 million with an accuracy of 15%, includes contingency of $38.2 million and excludes $16.9 million in pre-stripping for mining operations. The contingency allowance was calculated based on assessed risk factors for each of the major capital cost categories. Direct costs include the mining fleet, crushers, heap leach, processing plant, power, water management systems, infrastructure, communications and temporary construction camp. Indirect costs include initial fills, spares, commissioning and start-up, engineering and procurement, construction management and freight and logistics.
Life of mine sustaining capital costs are estimated at $132.9 million and closure costs (net of salvage value) are $64.2 million.
Initial Capital Cost Estimate
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Initial Capital Cost Estimate (all amounts in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mining $ 36,266,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Site General $ 33,522,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Process $ 96,399,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ancillaries $ 21,153,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power Supply & Distribution $ 11,113,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Water Management $ 5,085,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heap Leach Pad $ 63,833,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Owner's Costs $ 8,913,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indirect Costs $ 68,277,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contingency $ 38,238,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Directs, Indirects, Owner's Costs, and Contingency $ 382,799,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - excluding $16.9 million pre-stripping for mining operationsOperating Costs
LOM site operating costs, are CAD$12.21 per tonne processed, as summarized below:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Year Tonnes Average Gold Cost Operating Leached Grade Produced ($CAD per Cost (000's) (g/t Au) (oz) tonne ($USD leached) per oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2014 1,284 0.89 23,719 $ 12.64 $ 629 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2015 9,720 0.93 207,132 $ 12.84 $ 554 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2016 10,607 0.96 233,119 $ 11.28 $ 472 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2017 10,544 0.89 215,040 $ 11.63 $ 525 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2018 10,589 0.80 201,180 $ 11.92 $ 577 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2019 10,634 0.78 202,216 $ 12.08 $ 584 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2020 10,647 0.78 190,141 $ 11.34 $ 584 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2021 10,654 0.63 153,346 $ 11.47 $ 733 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2022 10,302 0.59 136,377 $ 11.71 $ 814 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2023 6,613 0.58 88,558 $ 11.41 $ 784 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 17,924 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2025 3,745 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total or Average 91,594 0.78 1,672,496 $ 12.21 $ 615 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Financial Analysis
Base case: consensus based long-term gold price US$1,325/ounce gold and US$/CAD$ exchange rate of $0.92: -- Net Present Value (NPV) at 5% is $380.8 million, pre-tax -- NPV at 8% is $273.1 million, pre-tax -- Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is 24.1% -- Payback is 3.1 years --------------------------------------------------------- Gold Price FOREX PRE-TAX PRE-TAX Pay Back ($USD) (CAD/US) IRR (%) NPV, 5%, (yrs) (CAD M$) --------------------------------------------------------- 1,200 0.92 17.2% 224 3.7 --------------------------------------------------------- 1,325 0.92 24.1% 381 3.1 --------------------------------------------------------- 1,400 0.92 27.8% 475 2.8 --------------------------------------------------------- 1,600 0.92 36.9% 726 2.3 --------------------------------------------------------- 1,800 0.92 45.1% 976 1.9 --------------------------------------------------------- 2,000 0.92 52.8% 1,227 1.7 ---------------------------------------------------------
Aspects Not Included in This Study
There are numerous initiatives currently underway which may further enhance project economics, including: -- undertaking an expansion study - SRK has been engaged to look at the possibility of expanding the Eagle Gold project to a second heap leach pad and, if viable, increase throughput to run two pads concurrently; -- undertaking an equipment trade-off study to investigate used equipment and equipment leasing arrangements; -- conversion of Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources, particularly at depth, to increase reserve potential and decrease waste; -- increase recovery potential of ore in weathered sediments through further metallurgical testing; -- further refinement of water management and water treatment to reduce potential closure costs; and -- further investigation of process stacking plan and leach solution application to accelerate gold recovery.
Permitting
Permitting of Eagle remains on track and we anticipate completing the
environmental assessment process and receiving a Quartz Mining License
to allow for non-water related construction in the second half of 2012.
Receipt of a Water License is expected in 2013. Development Schedule
Construction of the Eagle Gold Project is anticipated to begin in the second half of 2012 and finish in late 2014 with initial production also beginning late 2014. We believe there are opportunities to further improve the schedule and will be examining this in greater detail in advance of project construction.
Conference Call Details
A conference call to discuss these matters will be held at 09:00 am EST on February 23, 2012. Investors are invited to participate by connecting to the call using the following dial-in number:
Participant dial-in numbers: 416-695-7806 / 888-789-9572 Participant pass code: 5136770A replay of the conference call will be available until March 1, 2012 by calling 905-694- 9451 / 800-408-3053 and entering pass code 6256287. An mp3 will also be available for download on our website.
About Eagle
Victoria's 100% owned Dublin Gulch gold property is situated in central Yukon Territory, Canada, approximately 375 kilometers north of the capital city of Whitehorse, and approximately 40 kilometers from the town of Mayo. The property is accessible by road year round, and is located within Yukon Energy's electrical grid. The Company has constructed a 100 person all season camp at the project site.
The property covers an area of approximately 650 square kilometers, and is the site of the Company's Eagle Gold Deposit, which has been estimated to host a NI 43-101 Compliant Mineral Resource of 222 million tonnes averaging 0.68 grams of gold per tonne, containing 4.86 million ounces of gold in the "Indicated" category, inclusive of Probable Reserves, and a further 78 million tonnes averaging 0.60 grams of gold per tonne, containing 1.49 million ounces of gold in the "Inferred" category.
About Victoria
Victoria is a high growth gold company with a focus on adding value per share through efficient exploration, project development, accretive acquisitions and effective marketing. Maintaining a low risk profile through project diversification, sound financial management, and operating in secure jurisdictions are key priorities for Victoria's management team.
Qualified Persons
In December 2010, Victoria commissioned Tetra Tech to complete the Eagle Gold Project feasibility study in accordance with NI 43-101. The initial and sustaining capital costs estimates for the Eagle Gold Project in the feasibility study were compiled and reviewed by Merit under the direction of Jay Collins, P.Eng. The scientific and technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Peter Guest, P.Eng., Director Engineering for Tetra Tech, and overall manager for the feasibility study. Both Mr. Collins and Dr. Guest are Independent Qualified Persons within the meaning of NI 43-101.
This release was also reviewed by Rich Eliason, Acting VP, Exploration, of Victoria. Mr. Eliason is a Non-independent Qualified Person within the meaning of NI 43-101.
Readers should refer to the feasibility study Technical Report for further details of the project development. The feasibility study Technical Report will be filed in accordance with NI 43-101 on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) within the required 45 day statutory period and on the
Company's website www.vitgoldcorp.com.
Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this discussion, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities, anticipated metal production, internal rate of return, estimated ore grades, commencement of production estimates and projected exploration and capital expenditures (including costs and other estimates upon which such projections are based) and events or developments that the Company expects, are forward looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include metal prices, exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange, nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contact:
Victoria Gold Corp.
John McConnell
President & CEO
416-866-8800
416-866-8801 (FAX)
Victoria Gold Corp.
Marty Rendall
CFO
416-866-8800
416-866-8801 (FAX)
www.vitgoldcorp.com
READ MORE @
Source:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/positive-feasibility-study-outlines-annual-223300529.html;_ylt=Aj4S4KgFW6aM2c_0j_MtXqyVuodG;_ylu=X3oDMTIzM2JscXEzBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEluZmluaXRlIEJyb3dzZSBTcGxpdARwb3MDNwRzZWMDTWVkaWFJbmZpbml0ZUJyb3dzZUxpc3Q-;_ylg=X3oDMTJ0dnFub3FsBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDNzViYjMzM2ItNTZmOC0zYzljLWJjZmYtMzQwNTc5NGViMTI4BHBzdGNhdANuZXdzBHB0A3N0b3J5cGFnZQR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3
Aura Minerals Provides Corporate Update - Yahoo! Finance
Aura Minerals Provides Corporate Update - Yahoo! Finance
Aura Minerals Inc.
Jim Bannantine
President & Chief Executive Officer
(604) 669-4777
(604) 696-0212 (FAX)
info@auraminerals.com
www.auraminerals.com
@yahoofinance on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook
RELATED QUOTES
| Symbol | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| ORA.TO | 1.15 | +0.01 |
 | ||
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire -02/28/12)- Aura Minerals Inc. ("Aura Minerals" or the "Company") (TSX: ORA.TO - News) is pleased to provide the following update on the upsizing of the revolving credit facility, the implementation of a gold hedging program and the status of the feasibility study on the Serrote de Laje Project (formerly known as the Arapiraca Project) in Brazil (the "Serrote Project").
Credit Facility Upsizing
Although the Company expects to generate positive free cash flow in 2012 based on current metal prices, management has negotiated an increase in the revolving credit facility to $45 million, from $25 million, to fund working capital for growth. Closing of the upsizing is expected to be in late March or early April, 2012.
Gold Hedging Program
In conjunction with the implementation of the new mine plans at the Sao Francisco and Sao Vicente gold mines in Brazil and the upsizing of the credit facility, the Company has implemented a gold hedging program to take advantage of current high gold prices and secure cash flows at these higher cost operations. Under this program, the Company has hedged 80,000 ounces of gold production between April 2012 and June 2014, using a series of zero-cost put/call collars having a put/floor price of $1,700 per ounce and an average call/ceiling price of $1,812 per ounce.
Serrote Project Feasibility Study
On July 12, 2011, Aura Minerals announced that SNC-Lavalin Inc. and its Brazilian subsidiary, SNC-Lavalin Minerconsult Engenharia Ltda., had been awarded the definitive feasibility study on the Serrote Project. Work on the design and sizing of the mine is ongoing, with the feasibility study now scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2012 as opposed to the first quarter of 2012.
The feasibility study will focus on developing the Serrote Project as an open pit mine that will supply sulphide ore to a concentrator at a rate of 8-12 million tonnes per year, producing copper in concentrate with gold credits, with potential for iron in magnetite concentrate. With all critical permits in place, and with the excellent infrastructure in the vicinity of the project, and assuming a positive result of the feasibility study, the Company expects to commence development, contracting and negotiations for project financing during the last half of 2012.
About Aura Minerals Inc.
Aura Minerals is a Canadian mid-tier gold and copper production company focused on the exploration, development and operation of gold and base metal projects in the Americas. The Company's producing assets include the San Andres gold mine in Honduras, the Sao Francisco and Sao Vicente gold mines in Brazil and the copper-gold-silver Aranzazu Mine in Mexico. Other significant assets include the feasibility-stage copper-gold-iron ore Serrote Project in Brazil.
For further information, please visit Aura Minerals' web site at www.auraminerals.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statement:
This document contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements" are made as of the date of this news release or as of the effective date of information described in this news release, as applicable. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect current estimates, predictions, expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, without limitation, statements with respect to expected time frames. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "envisages", "assumes", "intends", "strategy", "goals", "objectives" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.
All forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as various assumptions made by and information currently available to them. These assumptions include, without limitation: (i) the presence of and continuity of metals at each mine at modeled grades; (ii) the capacities of various machinery and equipment; (iii) the availability of personnel, machinery, equipment and key consumables at estimated prices; (iv) exchange rates; (v) metals and minerals sales prices; (vi) appropriate discount rates; (vii) tax rates and royalty rates applicable to the mining operations; (viii) cash costs; (ix) anticipated mining losses and dilution; (x) metals recovery rates, (xi) reasonable contingency requirements; and (xiii) receipt of regulatory approvals on acceptable terms. Although management considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. Many forward-looking statements are made assuming the correctness of other forward looking statements. The cost information is also prepared using current values, but the time for incurring the costs will be in the future and it is assumed costs will remain stable over the relevant period.
By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks exist that estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved or that assumptions do not reflect future experience. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as a number of important factors could cause the actual outcomes to differ materially from the beliefs, plans, objectives, expectations, anticipations, estimates assumptions and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These risk factors may be generally stated as the risk that the assumptions and estimates expressed above do not occur, but specifically include, without limitation, risks relating to variations in the mineral content within the material identified as mineral reserves and mineral resources from that predicted, changes in development or mining plans due to changes in logistical, technical or other factors, the impact of general business and economic conditions, global liquidity and credit availability on the timing of cash flows and the values of assets and liabilities based on projected future conditions, fluctuating metal prices (such as gold, copper, silver, nickel and iron ore), currency exchange rates (such as the Canadian dollar, Brazilian Real, Mexican Peso and the Honduran Lempira versus the United States dollar), possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, changes in accounting policies, changes in the Company's corporate resources, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, changes in project development and production time frames, the possibility of project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses, higher prices for fuel, steel, power, labour and other consumables contributing to higher costs and general risks of the mining industry, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, unexpected changes in mine life, final pricing for concentrate sales, unanticipated results of future studies, seasonality and unanticipated weather changes, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, successful completion of proposed acquisitions, permitting time lines, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, unanticipated reclamation expenses, title disputes or claims, limitations on insurance coverage and timing and possible outcome of pending litigation and labour disputes, as well as those risk factors discussed or referred to in the Company's Annual Information Form, dated March 30, 2011, under the heading "Item 4.2 - Risk Factors" and in the annual financial statements and management's discussion and analysis of the Company for the year ended December 31, 2010. The foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive.
When relying on our forward-looking statements, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by the Company or on behalf of the Company, except as required by law.
The forward-looking statements contained herein are presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's expected financial and operational performance and results as at and for the periods ended on the dates presented in the Company's plans and objectives and may not be appropriate for other purposes.
Contact:
Aura Minerals Inc.
Jim Bannantine
President & Chief Executive Officer
(604) 669-4777
(604) 696-0212 (FAX)
info@auraminerals.com
www.auraminerals.com
Investment banking - YouTube
Investment banking - YouTube
ploaded by UNSW on Nov 29, 2007
ploaded by UNSW on Nov 29, 2007
Dr Kathy Walsh from the School of Banking and Finance at the Australian School of Business has produced a video that introduces undergraduate students to the world of investment banking.
For more information go to http://www.business.unsw.edu.au/nps/servlet/portalservice?GI_ID=System.Logged...
Characteristics of Great Investors - YouTube
Characteristics of Great Investors - YouTube
Uploaded by stanfordbusiness on Aug 5, 2009
Thomas Barrack, Founder, Chairman, CEO, Colony Capital gives the keynote address to the Principal Investment Conference. Recorded: February 13, 2008
George Roberts: Don't Miss Opportunities - YouTube
George Roberts: Don't Miss Opportunities - YouTube
Uploaded by stanfordbusiness on Jul 27, 2009
When he first got started, Roberts took the chance on forming KKR because if he didn't he would always look back and say he missed an opportunity. Recorded: March 11, 2008
- 19 likes, 0 dislikes
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Feds Indict Former Online Gambling Billionaire Calvin Ayre - Forbes
Feds Indict Former Online Gambling Billionaire Calvin Ayre - Forbes
Federal prosecutors in Baltimore on Tuesday unsealed an indictment against Calvin Ayre, the former Canadian billionaire who founded Bodog, one of the world’s biggest online gambling firms. Ayre is accused of operating an illegal gambling business involving sports betting and conspiring to commit money laundering.
For years Ayre taunted and dodged U.S. law enforcement, specializing in offering online sports betting and casino games to U.S. gamblers. He was the subject of a 2006 Forbes cover story titled Catch Me If You Can, in which he said “we run a business that can’t actually be described as gambling in each country we operate in. But when you add it together, it’s Internet gambling.”
The son of grain and pig farmers in Saskatchewan, Ayre, Ayre, 50, set up his company in Costa Rica and handled billions of dollars in online wagers. He appeared on People magazine’s Hottest Bachelor List and tried to market himself as a kind of Hugh Hefner of online gambling.
Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore, indicted Ayre and three other Canadian men, James Philip, David Ferguson and Derrick Maloney. None of the men are in custody and they are believed to be in Canada. The company, Bodog Entertainment Group, is also under indictment and its domain name has been seized by federal prosecutors.
According to the six-page indictment filed by Rosenstein, Ayre worked with Philip, Ferguson and Maloney to supervise an illegal gambling business from June 2005 to January 2012 in violation of Maryland law. The indictment focuses on the movement of funds from accounts outside the U.S., in Switzerland, England, Malta, and Canada, and the hiring of media resellers and advertisers to promote Internet gambling.
“Sports betting is illegal in Maryland, and federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,” Rosenstein said in a statement. “Many of the harms that underlie gambling prohibitions are exacerbated when the enterprises operate over the Internet without regulation.”
The indictment is the latest move by the Department of Justice to crack down on Internet gambling. In April 2011, federal prosecutors in Manhattan shut down the U.S. operations of the world’s biggest online poker companies, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, indicting their founders for operating illegal gambling businesses. Federal prosecutors in Baltimore, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Kay, have also been conducting several online gambling investigations, building up to the indictment of Ayre.
Federal prosecutors allege that Ayre conspired to direct at least $100 million in sports gambling winnings by wire and by check to gamblers, working with payment processors located both in the U.S. and elsewhere, such as JBL Services, which processed at least $43 million, and ZipPayments, which processed at least $57 million. In addition, prosecutors claim that Ayre and Bodog caused an unnamed media broker to launch a $42 million advertising campaign between 2005 and 2008 to attract gamblers in the United States to the Bodog.com website.
For his part, Ayre has claimed that he has retired and transferred the Bodog brand to the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, which is located on the Kahnawake territory near Montreal. Bodog itself has changed its branding in the U.S. to Bovada.
In a defiant statement made to his web site, Ayre said: “These documents were filed with Forbes magazine before they were filed anywhere else and were drafted with the consumption of the media as a primary objective. We will all look at this and discuss the future with our advisors, but it will not stop my many business interests globally that are unrelated to anything in the U.S. and it will not stop my many charity projects through my foundation.”
Federal prosecutors in Baltimore on Tuesday unsealed an indictment against Calvin Ayre, the former Canadian billionaire who founded Bodog, one of the world’s biggest online gambling firms. Ayre is accused of operating an illegal gambling business involving sports betting and conspiring to commit money laundering.
For years Ayre taunted and dodged U.S. law enforcement, specializing in offering online sports betting and casino games to U.S. gamblers. He was the subject of a 2006 Forbes cover story titled Catch Me If You Can, in which he said “we run a business that can’t actually be described as gambling in each country we operate in. But when you add it together, it’s Internet gambling.”
The son of grain and pig farmers in Saskatchewan, Ayre, Ayre, 50, set up his company in Costa Rica and handled billions of dollars in online wagers. He appeared on People magazine’s Hottest Bachelor List and tried to market himself as a kind of Hugh Hefner of online gambling.
Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore, indicted Ayre and three other Canadian men, James Philip, David Ferguson and Derrick Maloney. None of the men are in custody and they are believed to be in Canada. The company, Bodog Entertainment Group, is also under indictment and its domain name has been seized by federal prosecutors.
According to the six-page indictment filed by Rosenstein, Ayre worked with Philip, Ferguson and Maloney to supervise an illegal gambling business from June 2005 to January 2012 in violation of Maryland law. The indictment focuses on the movement of funds from accounts outside the U.S., in Switzerland, England, Malta, and Canada, and the hiring of media resellers and advertisers to promote Internet gambling.
“Sports betting is illegal in Maryland, and federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,” Rosenstein said in a statement. “Many of the harms that underlie gambling prohibitions are exacerbated when the enterprises operate over the Internet without regulation.”
The indictment is the latest move by the Department of Justice to crack down on Internet gambling. In April 2011, federal prosecutors in Manhattan shut down the U.S. operations of the world’s biggest online poker companies, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, indicting their founders for operating illegal gambling businesses. Federal prosecutors in Baltimore, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Kay, have also been conducting several online gambling investigations, building up to the indictment of Ayre.
Federal prosecutors allege that Ayre conspired to direct at least $100 million in sports gambling winnings by wire and by check to gamblers, working with payment processors located both in the U.S. and elsewhere, such as JBL Services, which processed at least $43 million, and ZipPayments, which processed at least $57 million. In addition, prosecutors claim that Ayre and Bodog caused an unnamed media broker to launch a $42 million advertising campaign between 2005 and 2008 to attract gamblers in the United States to the Bodog.com website.
For his part, Ayre has claimed that he has retired and transferred the Bodog brand to the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, which is located on the Kahnawake territory near Montreal. Bodog itself has changed its branding in the U.S. to Bovada.
In a defiant statement made to his web site, Ayre said: “These documents were filed with Forbes magazine before they were filed anywhere else and were drafted with the consumption of the media as a primary objective. We will all look at this and discuss the future with our advisors, but it will not stop my many business interests globally that are unrelated to anything in the U.S. and it will not stop my many charity projects through my foundation.”
Aviary is Quietly Cornering a Billion-Dollar Market - Forbes
Aviary is Quietly Cornering a Billion-Dollar Market - Forbes
The Internet is awash in photos. Facebook users alone upload 250 million pictures every day. Add in the recent spate of photo-sharing apps like Instagram and Path, along with more established services like Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket, and the number of photos floating around the web begins to approach 200 billion. Most companies, including those mentioned above, profit by hosting and sharing images online; far fewer make money, or gain attention, by editing them.
Aviary, a New York company headed by CEO Avi Muchnick, is quietly cornering this vast under-explored market. By integrating its editing tools free of charge within 500 partner websites and apps – now including Box, MailChimp and Constant Contact – this 13-person company powers the edits of 1 million photos each day.
Launched in 2008, Aviary didn’t hit its stride until releasing a suite of mobile photo-editing tools for Android and iOS in September 2011, helping developers add Photoshop-like capabilities to their mobile apps. Aviary spent its first three years as a website for creative types, where image-editing tools accompanied products for creating and remixing music. Though growing respectably with a loyal cadre of customers and 50,000 daily edits, it took the proverbial pivot, beginning in April 2011, to set it on its current path.
“Making that transition was incredibly difficult,” says Muchnick, 32. “It’s very easy for companies that clearly aren’t working to decide to make a change. We had a really passionate fan base that was still growing.”
A self-taught web designer, Muchnick created Worth1000.com, a contest website for graphic artists, just before entering law school at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in New York in 2002. In 2003, the site’s “Where’s Saddam” contest produced altered images of Saddam Hussein – depicted as Zsa Zsa Gabor or Billy Idol, for example – that eventually found their way to soldiers in Iraq. CNN caught wind of the satirical leaflets tacked onto the streets in Tikrit and ran a segment sourcing the posters to Muchnick’s website. The site shot to fame practically overnight.
“The Pentagon actually issued a statement distancing themselves from Worth1000,” remembers Muchnick. “I’d have to say that’s one of the highlights of my career.”
Aviary's Mobile Photo Editor
Aviary, a New York company headed by CEO Avi Muchnick, is quietly cornering this vast under-explored market. By integrating its editing tools free of charge within 500 partner websites and apps – now including Box, MailChimp and Constant Contact – this 13-person company powers the edits of 1 million photos each day.
Launched in 2008, Aviary didn’t hit its stride until releasing a suite of mobile photo-editing tools for Android and iOS in September 2011, helping developers add Photoshop-like capabilities to their mobile apps. Aviary spent its first three years as a website for creative types, where image-editing tools accompanied products for creating and remixing music. Though growing respectably with a loyal cadre of customers and 50,000 daily edits, it took the proverbial pivot, beginning in April 2011, to set it on its current path.
“Making that transition was incredibly difficult,” says Muchnick, 32. “It’s very easy for companies that clearly aren’t working to decide to make a change. We had a really passionate fan base that was still growing.”
A self-taught web designer, Muchnick created Worth1000.com, a contest website for graphic artists, just before entering law school at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in New York in 2002. In 2003, the site’s “Where’s Saddam” contest produced altered images of Saddam Hussein – depicted as Zsa Zsa Gabor or Billy Idol, for example – that eventually found their way to soldiers in Iraq. CNN caught wind of the satirical leaflets tacked onto the streets in Tikrit and ran a segment sourcing the posters to Muchnick’s website. The site shot to fame practically overnight.
“The Pentagon actually issued a statement distancing themselves from Worth1000,” remembers Muchnick. “I’d have to say that’s one of the highlights of my career.”
The success of Worth1000 eventually brought Muchnick to the attention of Jeff Bezos, who offered to invest in his next project in 2007. Reid Hoffman and others joined that year to fund Aviary in a $4 million seed round, at that time an investment in Muchnick more than anything else. The company later raised another $7 million in 2009 from Bezos Ventures and Spark Capital. Growth, though steady, remained tepid during the company’s early years. Since July of 2011, it’s looked like this:
According to the company usage is increasing 10-15% each week, growing both as the company’s partners get bigger and as new partners adopt its tools.
Of course smoldering growth in usage is one thing; revenue is quite another. Aviary currently has several pilot programs in place where end-users pay for add-ons like stickers, filters and other tool sets. The company intends to split revenues with partners. Also in the works: licensed content like sports logos and cartoon characters.
Muchnick estimates that 10% of photos that go through Aviary’s network receive editing attention. Extrapolating that behavior to an entire web full of photos (conservatively estimated at 200 billion) means there are 20 billion photos waiting to be tweaked. A conversion rate of 2.5% translates to 500 million potential payments for add-ons – at $1.99 a piece, easily $1 billion in revenue waiting to be collected. And virtual goods, by the way, have virtually no overhead.
Aviary is the first company to approach the photo-editing market in this way and at this point, they have no direct competitors. Muchnick says, “I have no doubt that other companies will pop up as soon as they see what we’re doing.”
“For now we just need to keep innovating and staying ahead.”
According to the company usage is increasing 10-15% each week, growing both as the company’s partners get bigger and as new partners adopt its tools.
Of course smoldering growth in usage is one thing; revenue is quite another. Aviary currently has several pilot programs in place where end-users pay for add-ons like stickers, filters and other tool sets. The company intends to split revenues with partners. Also in the works: licensed content like sports logos and cartoon characters.
Muchnick estimates that 10% of photos that go through Aviary’s network receive editing attention. Extrapolating that behavior to an entire web full of photos (conservatively estimated at 200 billion) means there are 20 billion photos waiting to be tweaked. A conversion rate of 2.5% translates to 500 million potential payments for add-ons – at $1.99 a piece, easily $1 billion in revenue waiting to be collected. And virtual goods, by the way, have virtually no overhead.
Aviary is the first company to approach the photo-editing market in this way and at this point, they have no direct competitors. Muchnick says, “I have no doubt that other companies will pop up as soon as they see what we’re doing.”
“For now we just need to keep innovating and staying ahead.”
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Discovery of Stress
NOTE: Like
many people in the grinding business of understanding the stock market
and finding value in financial markets "The Stress of Life" by Dr.Selye
held an important place in my life. He made it clear that distress is
the great enemy. If you are enjoying the 'Battle for Investment
Survival' as you would a game, you are not risking "getting sick" from
the distress of the activity. He talks about stress as a good and
motivating force whereas distress is the killer. Good stress would
probably be considered "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:
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BrainConnection.com - Hans Selye and the Discovery of Stress - Part 1
Hans Selye: The Discovery of Stress
by Gerald Gabriel
G.A.S. Spells Stress
As with so many wondrous discoveries of science and medicine, it was by chance that Hungarian-born Hans Selye (1907-1982) stumbled upon the idea of the General Adaptation Syndrome (G.A.S.), which he first wrote about in the British journal Nature in the summer of 1936.
The G.A.S., alternately known as the stress syndrome, is what Selye came to call the process under which the body confronts "stress" (what he first called "noxious agents").
In the G.A.S., Selye explained, the body passes through three universal stages of coping.
2) and a second stage of adaptation ensues (provided the organism survives the first stage). In the second stage, a resistance to the stress is built.
3) Finally, if the duration of the stress is sufficiently long, the body eventually enters a stage of exhaustion, a sort of aging "due to wear and tear."
"Stress," in Selye's lexicon, could be anything from prolonged food deprivation to the injection of a foreign substance into the body, to a good muscular workout; by "stress," he did not mean only "nervous stress," but "the nonspecific response of the body to any demand."
Though his efforts were met with skepticism early on (he did suggest some fairly radical things, including the idea that stress had a causal relationship to a number of major illnesses - heart disease and cancer, among them), Selye's impeccable methods and research gradually won out, and his ideas were eventually treated with respect by health and science professionals of every stripe.
In Selye's own words, his discovery was just "enough to prevent the concept from ever slipping through our fingers again; [making] it amenable to a precise scientific analysis."
Stressed-out Lab Rats
Selye had actually been searching for a new hormone when he stumbled upon all of this. In 1934, at the age of 28, he was an assistant at McGill University's Biochemistry Department in Montreal. He was a promising young endocrinologist carrying out quite orthodox biochemical experimentation involving the injection of rats with ovarian extract. His hope was to uncover changes in the organism that could not be caused by any known sex hormone, and the initial results gave him cause for great optimism.
The rats developed a triad of symptoms from the extract injections, including enlargement of the adrenal cortex, atrophy of the thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes, and deep bleeding ulcers in the lining of the stomach and duodenum -- all of which could be increased or decreased in severity by adjusting the amount of extract.
It seemed obvious to the young Selye that he was on the verge of pinpointing a new hormone, as none then known produced these sort of symptoms. "You may well imagine my happiness!" he writes. "At the age of 28, I already seemed to be on the track of a new hormone."
His hopes began to diminish, however, when, first, placental extract and, later, pituitary extract brought about the same symptoms. But he was not yet defeated, for, he writes, "mine was supposed to be a new hormone and (who knew?) perhaps the pituitary could also manufacture this one."
Next, however, he injected the extract of kidney, spleen and numerous other organs, all of which produced the same effect. He was baffled. In a last ditch effort to clarify these bizarre results, he injected a toxic liquid, Formalin, (used in the preparation of tissues for microscopic study) and when even it produced these symptoms, he knew he had failed in discovering a new hormone.
The Unique View Afforded to the Young and Ignorant
He was left, at this point, with two options. The first and most apparent was to give up on this line of research. There was plenty of reason to believe that this trail would lead to nothing of worth, and, he knew, many capable scientists had wasted their best years being led around by just such a red herring. "I became so depressed that for a few days I just sat in my laboratory," he writes, "brooding about how this misadventure might have been avoided and wondering what was to be done now."
The other, much more difficult, possibility was to devise some new way of examining his data. This, of course, is the option he chose.
Selye revisited a theory he first began to formulate years before at the German-speaking University of Prague, where, at the age of nineteen, he began medical school. It was here that Selye unwittingly developed ideas that would eventually lead to the discovery of the G.A.S.
Selye recalled years later that as the various patients were brought in and examined during his introduction to clinical medicine, they all "felt and looked ill, had a coated tongue, complained of more or less diffuse aches and pains in the joints, and of intestinal disturbances with loss of appetite." They also generally "had fever, enlarged spleen or liver, inflamed tonsils, a skin rash" and a number of other general symptoms. It wouldn't be until later that the telltale signs would appear of, say, liver disease, and treatment could be recommended.
"Since these were my first patients," Selye writes, "I was still capable of looking at them without being biased by current medical thought. Had I known more I would never have asked myself questions, because everything was handled just the way it should be."
The main question that stuck in Selye's mind was a simple one really: how was it that doctors over the long history of medicine had spent so much time and energy on the discovery and treatment of individual diseases and had given discovery and treatment of individual diseases and had given so little thought to:
"the syndrome of just being sick"?
Though captivated by this idea, being young and inexperienced - and working under the deadlines and demands of medical school - Selye hadn't the time, energy or expertise to pursue it. He briefly mentioned the idea to his advisor who promptly chuckled at the young mans naivete, and thus the idea fell dormant for the better part of the next decade.
On "the Syndrome of Just Being Sick" and Bloodletting
The memory of the nonspecific illness did not altogether abandon Selye, though, and years later, when he was casting around for a rubric under which he could examine his failed hormone experiments, he was reminded of the symptoms of the patients in the Prague hospital. Those patients, he understood, shared something in common with his sick rats. His intention was to find out what that connection was, and he in fact decided very quickly to devote his life to the discovery of the root of this nonspecific illness.
"If there was such a thing as a single nonspecific reaction of the body to damage of any kind," he writes of his jubilant epiphany, "this might be worth study for its own sake. Indeed, working out the mechanism of this kind of stereotyped syndrome of response to injury as such might be much more important to medicine than the discovery of yet another sex hormone."
In piecing together the puzzle, Selye was aided by two other bits of medical knowledge. Certain treatments, he knew, were useful to patients suffering from just about anything. Doctors prescribed to most patients things like rest, eating easily digestible food, and protection against great variations in temperature. Also, he recalled that there existed a number of nonspecific treatments in the history of medicine - and, in fact, in contemporary medicine, too - that, though odd (some would say barbaric), had met with undeniable (if sporadic) success: practices like the injection of foreign substances into the body, fever therapy, shock therapy, and bloodletting.
It didnt take long for Selye to formulate an idea that made all of this seemingly disparate information coalesce.
There was some mechanism in the body, he rightly surmised, whose response to external agents - "noxious agents" was the best term he could then muster - was somehow general.
The quality of just being sick he had seen in the Prague patients, the shared symptoms in his experimental rats, the universal usage of certain treatments, as well as the successful practice of stressful remedies like shock therapy, when taken together, suggested that specific illnesses, if not wholly caused by a single influence, were certainly bound by similar forces; there was a link in the body's reaction to illness that gave the appearance of some internal mechanism combating the stressing agents.
The Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal System
Selye's genius, then, was in suspecting and, through research, identifying this complicated internal stress-processing mechanism, which came to be known as the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system.
This system, in short, governs the amount and kind of response the body produces to combat a stressing agent.
Simplified, the hypothalamus (the bridge between the brain and endocrine system) sends a message to the pituitary gland (a hormone-producing gland embedded in bones at the base of the skull) to release ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone) into the blood stream. This signal prompts the adrenal cortex (located above the kidneys) to create corticoids, another hormone, from available raw material. These corticoids are then dispersed to the places in the body they are needed, where they are put to use in the various stages of defense against a stressing agent.
This was the fruition of Selye's goals: the identification of stress based upon "demonstrable biological laws."
Sometimes a discovery is in part remarkable for the fact that nobody has made it before; this was just such a discovery. It "could have been discovered during the Middle Ages," writes Selye. "[Its] recognition did not depend upon the development of any complicated pieces of apparatus, but merely upon an unbiased state of mind, a fresh point of view."
The Legacy
With the knowledge of the G.A.S. and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system, it was all of a sudden possible to begin gauging the role of stress in our lives - which is precisely what Selye and a multitude of researchers have been doing for the last half century.
Selye himself went on to publish 33 books and over 1,600 scientific articles, almost all of them on the subject of stress. Among his many scientific texts, he also wrote a handful of popular books intended to educate about stress, the most popular of which was The Stress of Life, an in-depth explanation of the stress syndrome and its origins.
Selye served as professor and director at the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the University of Montreal from 1945 until retiring in the mid-1970s. But he also evolved into a sort of philosophical leader whose views on health helped to change the way the body and mind were viewed in the decades after World War II.
Selye moved easily into the role of well-being representative, and was just as likely to be asked to speak to a religious group as to a medical group.
He often spoke of the value of love, and of the essential importance in our own well-being of helping others.
This article was created by Scientific Learning.http://www.scientificlearning.com
BrainConnection.com is a Web resource from Posit Science Corporation
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