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Having agreed to do due diligence on Endeavour and signed an NDA, I expect the Centamin board will seek a PUSU extension in due course.
Clearly, there is more "push" behind this merger than is evident from the outside. Are the major shareholders pushing Centamin towards a deal? Or are the Egyptian authorities? Or is Joseph? Some hidden force seems to be driving it on.
My own belief is that from here a deal will quite likely happen early net year. Probably on slightly improved terms from the initial Endeavour offer.
I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing for current Centamin shareholders. I'm just trying to measure the likelihood of the various possible outcomes.

Hi Mr. Tibbles!
The sad reality is rather different. Sukhari is a world class ore body, but Centamin's management team is a mess. I assume that CEO Andrew Pardey is leaving because the large shareholders made it clear that he had to go as a result of poor performance. The Chairman is also on his way out after conveniently selling his shares at the top of the market; a top that may have been manufactured by high grading. As a whole, Centamin's board (ten directors for a single mine company!) is bloated and complacent. Their reporting to market is little more than contemptuous - where are the Burkino Faso drill results, for instance?
Who knows what Centamin's all important relationship with the Egyptian authorities is really like on the inside? Certainly the oil minister was quick to make it clear that he had no objections to a takeover. And, remember, Endeavour's leading shareholder, Mr. Sawiris, is an Egyptian billionaire. Things may be very complex indeed.
I'm thinking most of Centamin's institutional shareholders would be happy with 150p per share equivalent - they must be as fed up with Centamin's shoddy management as the rest of us. The combined multi-jurisdictional company would in any case be worth more than the two companies are currently worth separately, so there's an additional "premium" there.
You might also want to research Endeavour more. It's a good well-run company. Yes, they have debts, but only because they've just built two mines. Their free cash flow is projected to boom over the next couple of years.

Hi Cowichan!
Thanks for posting the Daily Mail link. The article reads very much like it was "placed" by Centamin or (more likely) their PR company. I don't quite know what to make of it - the accusations are very old, and the Endeavour CEO hasn't even been charged with any crimes, let alone convicted.
My chief take out is that it shows that there is absolutely no love lost between the boards of Centamin and Endeavour. IMO, this "proposed friendly merger" is shortly going to turn into a hostile takeover bid.

Yes, a lot of money is going into capex - that is, building a new mine and improving other operations. And that hurts right now.
But this, in due course, will lead to increases in production and mine life - and, as long as the silver price doesn't slump, increases in free cash flow and the share price.
In a year's time Fresnillo should look like a very different investment proposition. That's why I'm here.
For me, the only real question here is judging the absolute bottom of the current share price slump in order to maximise returns. Tricky, that. But the day will come when the current share price will seem utterly ridiculous, and an absolute steal.

Hi Cowichan!
Thanks for posting.

Hi Mike!
I believe (not 100% sure) that the cut-off time for FTSE100 demotion/promotion is end of play today. Essentially, I make it a straight race between Kingfisher and Fresnillo - whichever company's market cap is higher at the end of the day will stay up. I'm thinking Fresnillo will need to go blue to achieve that - perhaps an SP of around 590p will do.

It's worth noting what today's reply from Centamin did NOT say, as well as what it did.
Normally, such an RNS would seek to boost shareholder confidence by reaffirming production guidance for the year. (Currently guidance is officially the bottom end of target range - i.e. 490K ounces, or roughly 160K ounces for this quarter).
The RNS didn't do that.
So I'm thinking that we are due another profit warning sometime over the next few weeks. That would be the fourth in two years, which is why I believe that a takeover (at an appropriate price) is for the best.
Anyway, here's hoping for an improved bid from Endeavour, or (even better) the emergence of a rival bidder.

As their RNS states, Endeavour's share price is up 320%. Centamin's share price is flat. That tells its own story.
Endeavour's team have turned round an unpromising situation in West Africa. Centamin's have have failed to properly exploit one of the world's best ore bodies, or even to inform shareholders of basic matters. If you follow gold mining closely, you'll know there really is no comparison in the standard of the two companies' management. Centamin's board is bloated, greedy, and not very good at their job. Centamin's chairman also engineered a share price pump so that he could sell out his shares at a fundamentally false valuation. None of this is exactly news.

I'm in favour of this merger in principle, but I'd like Endeavour to improve their offer.
Centamin's management have been poor, and I'm confident that Endeavour's much superior team will do a far better job of exploiting the assets. Also, putting the two companies together will (almost automatically) result in a substantial increase in market cap, compared to their values considered separately. There is also the possibility of generating substantial cost savings (e.g. G&A).
I have to say I don't think the board will find that they have unqualified support from the institutional shareholders. They've done nothing to justify such faith in them. So it will be a question of Endeavour (or a rival) offering an acceptable price.

Hi Hedgehogg!
God only knows what is really going on behind the scenes. Certainly, Endeavour have chosen their moment to strike.
I wouldn't assume that Q4 production is full-on "crap", but it's a stretch to hope that Centamin will hit the bottom end of guidance, which is the current official position. That would need them to do about 160K ounces this quarter, which I find unlikely.
The best hope for Centamin shareholders is that Endeavour have gone public now because they sense that there is a rival bidder. Sukhari is a tier one gold mine - it's not often such a good asset comes up for sale.

Hey Nickel_Investor!
Have you seen yet that the Ukrainian boss of your beloved FXPO has just been put on the international most wanted list?
You can't say I didn't warn you. Now please stop making a fool of yourself here.

Endeavour are proposing a merger, not a takeover.
Centamin are in a mess, so I reckon that most major shareholders will be in favour of the Endeavour offer in principle. I think a 10% improvement in terms from Endeavour might do the trick.
The main advantage of the merger to all is that the value of Centamin and Endeavour combined would be substantially higher (30%?!?) than the value of the two companies as separate standalone entities. Other than the obvious savings in G&A (like getting rid of Centamin's bloated and useless board!), the market simply values large diversified gold producers much more highly than smaller single mine single country operations.

Hi Arnold!
Check out: http://www.stockchallenge.co.uk/ftse.php
Every 3 months the companies that constitute the FTSE100 are revised, and some are promoted and some are relegated to the FTSE 250. The next deadline for this process is tomorrow at close of play.
Fresnillo has been flirting with relegation, but it currently looks like it will just survive. Relegation would cause FTSE 100 tracker funds to automatically sell down their Fresnillo holdings, creating the liquidity the shorters (of which there are many here) need to exit their positions at a profit.
I reckon this is the second sustained attempt by the shorters to create this favourable situation for themselves - the last was three months' ago. It's capitalism at its most stupid and destructive, but that's how it is.

Well, well, I was (mostly) right. I wrote here a few weeks back that if there wasn't an offer by Christmas then there never would be one, and that Endeavour and Barrick were the two most likely suitors. Not too bad for a blind guess!
Now that Endeavour have declared an interest, my thoughts are:
1. I'd like the merger to go through. The combined company would be much more attractive to institutional investors, and I reckon it would raise the combined entity's market cap by as much as 20%-30%. Centamin's valuation has always been held back by it being a single mine operation. Also, Endeavour's management are unquestionably superior to Centamin's current shambles (e.g. CEO and Chairman both due to depart).
2. However, the "price" is too low - Endeavour need to improve their offer. Also, I'd like them to promise to retain a London listing.
3. I also fear that the reason that the offer is so low is because Endeavour have inside information about Q4 production, and that we are in for a disappointment on that front. Their RNS also makes a rather ominous reference to the damage done by previous high grading at Sukhari.
4. Endeavour wouldn't have made this move without a nod and a wink from EMRA that they are OK with such a merger. That means Centamin are definitely "in play". Hopefully, a rival suitor (Barrick?) will emerge. One way or another, I don't think Centamin will remain independent for much longer.
Anyway, time will tell this story...

I do believe Nickel_Investor must be short Fresnillo (or betting on CFDs), and that he thinks that plaguing this bulletin board with his inane stream of consciousness will drive down the share price of a 4 billion pound company.
That's almost as dumb as betting on a Ukrainian company located in a corrupt hellhole within artillery range of Russian / separatist artillery - but not quite.
p.s. To correct the headline of this post - gold guidance indeed falls for Fresnillo over the next few years, but silver guidance is strongly up...

I agree that this is strong long term buy territory for me.
I also agree that the shorters are trying to push FRES out of the FTSE 100 again, which would automatically create the liquidity they need to exit their positions profitably. They need to get the mcap down to about 3.8bn to do that, so they've still got a fair way to go, and I'm not convinced that they will succeed.
As for FXPO (that Nickel-Investor keeps ramping here), all I can say is that in really life I really am a world expert on Ukrainian business, and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. But each to their own.

The problem is that this isn't the end of it - not even nearly. After the Inyoni / Hernic deal, the company is now horribly financially overextended and more equity will have to be raised shortly. Jubilee simply do not generate anything like enough genuine free cash flow to self-finance this rate of expansion, and it's clear that they have trouble raising loan finance (this should be a serious red flag to investors).
In particular:
1. The convertible loans issued as part of the Kabwe financing package can now be expected to convert to equity. As I see it, the company has no way of paying these off.
2. The company has spent the equity money raised for Kabwe on Inyoni / Hernic. So either the Kabwe zinc / vanadium circuit gets pushed back or the raise will have to be repeated.
3. Finally, the company is still talking about copper projects. If this happens, this will also have to be financed by new equity.
This is no way to run a sensible business. Really, it's all a bit of a scam on existing shareholders.
Anyway, I'm out. Good luck to everybody, but I think you'd do better elsewhere. Unless the chrome price (currently at historic lows) increases dramatically in the next few months (unlikely, IMO, given China's slowdown), this company is going to issue new shares again and again and again...

This happened in Burkino Faso three days ago:
https://www.kitco.com/news/2019-11-08/-So-many-dead-Survivors-describe-terrifying-Burkina-Faso-ambush.html
This is not an isolated "freak" incident, though it is by far the bloodiest one yet. Burkino Faso seems to be descending into a full-blow insurgency.
I'm not quite sure how Western companies (Centamin included) can go on mining and exploring in Burkino Faso now.

Hi Sotolo!
I'm also figuring that we're due for a wash-out in speculative gold positions, and I've sold down my gold mining stocks in expectation. There may also be a brief "melt-up" in U.S stocks if a US/China trade deal gets done.
However, our grim reality can't be avoided for very long, and the market's mood will darken pretty quickly after that, which will restore gold's fortunes.
What I can't tell you is where gold will bottom. But, IMO, it won't go down too far. Maybe $1,420???

I'm thinking much the same as you, CautionYourBlast!
I wish I knew the reason for the current share price weakness. The recent results were very strong, and the AMCU/Samancor court case really is a red herring (despite the best efforts of a couple of trolls on the ADVFN board).
For now, I'm just waiting for the knife to stop falling. It's usually better to pick it up off the floor rather than to try and catch it is it drops.