Available For Sale Investments

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2012

Investments, Debt and Equity Securities [Abstract]

Available for Sale Investments

AVAILABLE FOR SALE INVESTMENTS

The following table presents changes in available for sale investments for 2012 and 2011:

	As at December 31, 2012					As at December 31, 2011
	TGM					TGM
	Fair Value			Shares		Fair Value		Shares
Balance at beginning of year	$	1,416		2,000,000		$	928	1,300,000
Acquisitions	17,117			23,676,301		469		700,000
Dispositions	(805		)	(1,155,200	)	—		—
OCI - unrealized (loss)/gain	(2,694		)			19
Balance at end of year	$	15,034		24,521,101		$	1,416	2,000,000

During the first quarter of 2012, we acquired True Gold Mining Inc. ("TGM") shares. The acquisition was accomplished through two transactions. The first was an exercise of the two million warrants on January 9, 2012, at an exercise price of Cdn$0.45 for cash consideration of Cdn$0.9 million, the fair value of the shares acquired was $1.3 million. The second transaction was the sale of the Company's Burkina Faso subsidiary to TGM on February 2, 2012. The sale generated $6.6 million of cash plus 21.7 million TGM shares. We recognized the shares at their fair value of $15.8 million on February 2, 2012, when the sale was finalized.

Available for sale investments are recorded at fair value on the balance sheet date, changes in the fair value of available for sale investments are charged or credited to other comprehensive income. Available for sale investments consists solely of our investment in TGM. It is possible that some of these shares could be sold in large blocks at a future date via a negotiated agreement and such agreements may include a discount from the quoted price.

The quoted market price of TGM's common share has decreased since the February 2, 2012 acquisition, such that for the period ended December 31, 2012, we recognized through Comprehensive Income a loss of $2.7 million related to our share holdings. TGM's share price has experienced a high degree of volatility over the last twelve months, and is sensitive to fluctuations in the gold price. If the gold prices continues to follow its long term upward trend TGM shares could recover from the unrealized losses.