"TGR: You mentioned Barrick finding more gold reserves via acquisition. Do you see any interesting plays if you want to invest in a junior miner or an explorer for that potential acquisition opportunity?

BK: One of the most interesting speculations is a smallish gold company called Canplats Resources. It has a gold deposit at Camino Rojo in Mexico. It's been drilling; working up this prospect, doing all of the geology, all of the engineering, all the estimations—everything they need to come up with a good prospect and can say, 'This many ounces of gold are buried in this pile of rock.'

Right next to the Canplats acreage is acreage owned by a Mexican mining giant called Fresnillo plc. The geology of the Canplats property is very similar to an operating gold mine not too far away that Goldcorp owns, and so Goldcorp also has taken an interest in the Canplats property. And I've heard that the good folks at Newmont Mining, another exceedingly large mining company, have sent engineers to get their boots dirty walking around the Canplats property.

So, here is a company with an established claim in a fairly stable jurisdiction that they've done a lot of drilling and a lot of basic estimation on. There's Fresnillo, Newmont and Goldcorp, all of which might get into a bidding contest to see who can make the best deal with Canplats. That's the kind of thing that could take a dollar stock like Canplats and knock it out of the park—some immense payback on that."
    -   The Gold Report Interview with Byron King (05/12/09)

"The 100% owned Camino Rojo (Spanish for 'Red Road') project is one of the sturdiest in the junior Mexican space. Informed by 111 diamond and reverse circulation drill holes (totaling 35,997 meters) the company released the first independent resource estimate for the Represa Zone on November 24, 2008 and established measured resources of 0.235 million ounces gold, indicated resources of 3.210 million ounces gold, and inferred resources of 0.555 million ounces gold. A total of 60.7 million ounces of silver resources have also been outlined in measured and indicated categories.

It's notable that 86% of the total gold resources are classified as measured and indicated. It's also notable that 1.44 million ounces (or 42%) of the Measured and Indicated resources are in oxides, boding well for metallurgical recoveries and hence the economics of any future production scenario.

Preliminary metallurgical test work (results released January 13, 2009) look favorable and with more step out drilling to demonstrate added size potential, Goldcorp and other larger producers would have to take a serious look at this asset. With a great project, a respectable management team and board, and a relatively tight capital structure, investors should keep this company near the top of their watch list."
    -MICHAEL STAROGIANNIS,   WOLVERTON CAPITAL MARKETS (02/27/09)

"We are initiating coverage of Canplats Resources with a Speculative Buy recommendation and a C$3.25 target price. Our C$3.25 target price is derived from a target multiple of 1.0x NAVPS of C$3.29, and utilizes a discount rate of 15.0% to factor in the high cost of equity capital afflicting most development-stage resource companies at present. Our net asset value estimate is based upon an open-pit heap leach scenario with initial production beginning in 2012 and production continuing over a mine life of 16 years. It factors in no upside for the sulphide resources at Camino Rojo, and is based solely upon the current oxide and transitional material at the Represa zone. We envisage the deposit continuing to expand, but have not factored in additional ore tonnes in our discounted cash flow analysis. Trading at a significant discount to its peer group in terms of Enterprise Value to Resource Ounce, and a sizeable discount to its NAVPS as well, Canplats represents a compelling investment poised to rerate to the upside upon completing an economic assessment and achieving its permitting and development milestones. Applying a target multiple of 1.0x NAVPS, we recommend Canplats Resources Corp as a Speculative Buy with a 52-week target of C$3.25."
    -DAVID STEIN,   CORMARK SECURITIES (02/25/09)

We initiate coverage on Canplats Resources Corp. with a SPECULATIVE BUY recommendation. The recent discovery of the Represa deposit at the Camino Rojo project has been one of the few three million plus gold ounce discoveries located in a relatively mining-friendly environment. In addition, given that the target adjacent to the Represa zone, the Don Julio zone, has had only minimal drilling completed, and much of the remaining property at Camino Rojo has yet to be explored, we believe the property holds a considerable amount of exploration upside. Based on these characteristics, and given that Canplats is trading at a significant discount to many of its peers, we believe that the company should garner significant attention as a takeover target from established gold producers looking for growth and exploration upside.

Given the relatively short time that Canplats has been drilling the Camino Rojo property and the number of promising targets that have been identified outside of the Represa Zone, we believe that further drilling should provide continued positive results for investors.
    -HAYTHAM HODALY,   SALMAN PARTNERS INC. (01/26/09)

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