27-Sep-2024: Media-Speculation-in-The-Australian-newspaper.PDF

Ostensibly this announcement is to deny the rumour is true, but the reality is that it spreads the rumour from just readers of The Australian newspaper and website to everybody - and while DEG clearly haven't received a buyout proposal from Agnico Eagle Mines, i.e. there is no proposal on the table today, it doesn't mean the speculation is baseless, as DEG have commented that apart from simply stating that they have NOT received a proposal from AEM (listed on the NYSE in the USA and the TSE in Canada), it is DEG's policy to not comment on rumours or media speculation. 

So they could well be in talks with AEM that have not yet progressed to a written offer that needs to be disclosed, or for that matter they could be in talks with a number of parties; we do not know. We do know is that with a market capitalisation of $3.2 billion (with a "B", not an "M"), DEG is already too large to be taken over by any Australian listed and Australian HQ'd gold producer except for NST - and Northern Star haven't shown any interest in DEG to date, so if DEG DO get taken over, it would have to be by a large multi-national like AEM who have a market capitalisation of A$63 Billion according to this: https://companiesmarketcap.com/aud/agnico-eagle-mines/marketcap/

The DEG share price hasn't reacted much to this news - or lack of news - being up 5 cents roughly, same as they were before the trading pause and "Nothing to see here" announcement, and still around 5 cents/share below their year high of $1.445 (set intraday on 4-Dec-2023).

There are always rumours, but I don't hold DEG, and I'm not tempted to buy them. As a rule, I don't try to make a quick buck on these M&A situations, because they often don't pan out how you expect they will. And that's assuming there is ANY substance to the rumours published today by The Australian.

I think there likely is some fire there behind the smoke, but I don't know how it will likely play out. DEG still looks expensive to me for a project developer who doesn't produce anything yet.