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Here are Canadian small cap stocks moving on news today and worth watching:
Chartwell Seniors Housing Real Estate Investment Trust announced Monday night that it has entered into an agreement to acquire 50% of a portfolio of primarily independent supportive living seniors communities in the United States from ING Real Estate Community Living Group. It said the portfolio consists of 15 communities (2,947 suites) located across nine U.S. states. Occupancy at the properties was approximately 86% at June 30, 2011. The purchase price for the 50% interest will be approximately $169.0-million, net of a debt mark-to-market adjustment of $2.5-million. As part of the transaction, Chartwell will assume debt with an outstanding balance of $135.8-million as of June 30, 2011, bearing a weighted average interest rate of 6.27% with a weighted average term to maturity of 4.5 years. The balance of the purchase price, subject to working capital adjustments, will be paid in cash utilizing Chartwell's credit facility. Closing of the transaction, subject to regulatory and lenders' approvals, is expected by October 2011, after which Chartwell will own 100% of these properties.
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The Brick Ltd. Monday night announced the appointment of Ken Grondin as chief financial officer and president of financial operations, effective Aug. 2. Grondin succeeds David Merkley, The Brick Group's current CFO, who has announced his relocation back to Ontario for personal reasons. Prior to joining The Brick Group, Grondin served as CFO of Parkland Fuel Corp., Canada's largest independent marketer and distributor of petroleum products supporting over 600 retail fuel stations.
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Synchronica plc , an international provider of next-generation mobile messaging solutions, overnight received a purchase order from an Indian handset manufacturer to bundle Synchronica's infrastructure software, Mobile Gateway, to provide push e-mail, instant messaging and social networking services for a range of devices to be introduced later this year. It said the deal, worth an initial value of $1.4-million (U.S.), was won in partnership with a reseller of mobile value added services. The reseller offers Synchronica's solutions to its customers across the Indian sub-continent. This is the third device manufacturer to license Mobile Gateway for bundling with devices targeting Indian consumers.
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Mariana Resources Limited , an exploration and development company focused in Argentina and Chile, is trading near a year low of 31 cents on the TSX. It announced that its 100% owned Chilean subsidiary has entered into an option-to-purchase agreement with Catalina Resources PLC, a UK-registered mineral exploration company which operates in Chile, to acquire a 100% interest in the 5,600 hectare Jiguata property located in Region I in northern Chile. It said this purchase agreement is in line with the company's previously announced project generation initiative to acquire prospective gold, silver and copper properties. Mariana's exploration team based in Santiago will focus on assessing the prospective nature of this target.
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Lake Shore Gold Corp. is trading not far from year lows after revising downward its 2011 outlook while reporting production results for the second quarter of 2011. As a result of lower head grades planned for the remainder of the year, reflecting mine sequencing and broader mineralized zones, the company revised its target production levels for the year, and now expect to pour 85,000 to 100,000 ounces of gold in 2011, down from our previous estimate of 125,000 ounces. For the second quarter of 2011, it said gold sales totaled 18,988 ounces while gold poured was 17,421 ounces. A total of 162,974 tonnes at an average grade of 3.55 grams per tonne were processed for 17,615 ounces of recovered gold. It added mill throughput averaged 1,790 tonnes per day during the second quarter and in the month of June averaged 1,950 tonnes per day.
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Madalena Ventures Inc. Monday night provided an update on its drilling and testing operations in Argentina. On the Coiron Amargo Block, it said the CAN X-4 exploration well was drilled in May 2011 to a total depth of 11,027 feet and cased as a potential oil discovery. "Both oil and gas shows were evident during the drilling of the Vaca Muerta and Sierras Blancas formations. During testing of the Sierras Blancas formation under choke sizes between 4 and 8 mm, the well tested over a 34 hour period at flow rates up to 650 bopd of 39 degree API light crude oil and 780 mcfd of gas at flow pressures between 700-900 psi wellhead pressure. The company intends to complete testing operations over the next several days and place the well on production."
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Rugby Mining Limited is off its early day highs after reporting the results from two drill holes of the initial drilling program at its Mabuhay gold copper project located near Surigao, Philippines, which intersected gold mineralization in both the epithermal and porphyry targets. The first drill hole (MD-001) targeted epithermal style mineralization about 450 metres southwest of the Motherlode Mine which historically produced approximately 500,000 ounces of gold. Further drilling is planned to define the extent of the epithermal mineralization.
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Lydian International Ltd. , a gold-focused mineral exploration and development company, today announced results from drilling at its Amulsar gold project in Armenia. Amulsar is a high-sulfidation style gold project, which currently hosts a CIM compliant combined Indicated and Inferred Category Resource of 2.5 million ounces at 1.0g/t gold (1.1 million ounces at 1.1g/t gold in the Indicated Category and 1.4 million ounces at 0.9g/t gold in the Inferred Category). Interim results have been received from 23 drill holes comprising primarily infill and resource extension drilling from the western extent of Tigranes and Artavasdes and have returned encouraging results. These include drill hole DDA-096 which intersected 69 meters at 1.0 g/t gold from surface, RCA-308 which intersected 55 meters at 1.6 g/t gold (open at depth) and RCA-306 which intersected 55 meters at 1.1 g/t gold.
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Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. is lower despite saying it had encouraging definition drilling results from the Martin Zone at the producing Kiena Mine Complex, in Val d'Or, Quebec. It said from the end of February through mid-May of 2011, 27 underground drill holes were completed above the 330 metre level. The drilling covers an area 100 metres high by 180 metres long.
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Mariana Resources Limited , an exploration and development company focused in Argentina and Chile, announcesd that Mariana's 100% owned Chilean subsidiary has entered into an option-to-purchase agreement with Catalina Resources PLC, a UK-registered mineral exploration company which operates in Chile, to acquire a 100% interest in the 5,600 ha Jiguata property located in Region I in northern Chile. It said this purchase agreement is in line with the company's previously announced project generation initiative to acquire prospective gold, silver and copper properties. Mariana's exploration team based in Santiago will focus on assessing the prospective nature of this target.
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Angus Mining in partnership with Forsys Metals Corp. overnight announced the full renewal of Exclusive Prospecting License 3195 relating to the Ondundu gold project in Central Namibia, and the establishment of a partnership with a local, empowered Namibian corporation. The Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy granted the renewal of EPL 3195 for a period of two years, ending May 30th 2013. The license requires Forsys and Angus to incur development expenditures of approximately $4.67-million (Canadian) during that period. Angus said it has completed the expenditures required to earn an initial 50.1% stake in the Ondundu Property, and expects to exercise this option in the third quarter of 2011. Angus has the option to acquire an additional 24.9% interest in the project by incurring an additional $6-million in exploration expenditures by November 6th, 2012. Angus and Forsys also announced the formation of a local partnership with Minden Investments Ltd., an empowered Namibian corporation. The partnership with Minden was formed to facilitate the direct participation of the Namibian community in the development process of the Ondundu Project, and to provide the Namibian community with a means by which to benefit directly from the project. Through the creation of a joint venture agreement, Minden has been granted an option to earn up to a 10% stake in the Ondundu Project.
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RDM Corporation , a developer of specialized software and hardware products for electronic payment processing, today announced that Harry Rose will be joining the company as its vice-president of Sales, effective July 25. It said Rose has more than 20 years of experience in senior sales leadership roles in the payments and financial services industries. Most recently he was Vice President and Head of US Sales for the Banking and Financial Services division of iGATE, a billion-dollar global technology provider headquartered in California.
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