All I can say is, "Fuck."

Just when things seemed like they might be settling down from Lignum being bought out by Riverside, Tolko has initiated a take-over attempt on Riverside. ( press release )

This has set a ball in motion. The company will end up with a a significant change in stockholders no matter what now. Tolko already owns 19.9% of Riverside and there is enough stock out there held by investors that they can buy up enough additional stock to get control of the company. The only thing that can prevent that is someone else making a better offer. That leaves one of three outcomes:

1. Sale: Riverside holdings become divisions under another company under that company's corporate management,
2. Merger: Riverside becomes an autonomous or semi-autonomous division under another company, retaining most of the current management but ultimately answering to the parent company, or
3. Refinancing: Riverside finds new financial investors and retains its corporate identity and autonomy.

There's no telling which way it will go at this point.

A couple weeks ago I had an e-mail from the same headhunters that placed me here 2½ years ago. I called them back today.

Sneaky Fucker

So, Riverside stock shot up from $23.50 to over $30/share after the $29/share takeover bid by Tolko. Allan Thorlakson (founder, president and CEO of Tolko) owns 19.9% of the shares in Riverside. In round numbers, based on the report values in the news stories and the stock prices, the value of his stock went up roughly $15 million today. Basically this guy, already one of the 100 richest people in Canada, made $15,000,000 today for just talking about buying more of a company he already owns roughly 1/5 of.

Dark Canada

Jaqueline and Graham from Dark Canada just finished their interviews here with valerian and I. I think Elaine did much better than I did, I'm afraid I'm going to look like a dork in this. Very nice people, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing the film when it is done. They're hoping to be done for spring 2005.