JUNIOR MINING

McEwen’s U.S. Gold finally completes Cortez Trend juniors M&A

Über gold-mining investor Rob McEwen chalked up two remarkable accomplishments in the past few days: finalizing the merger of four junior explorers in Nevada’s Cortez Trend; and earning Canada’s highest civilian honor.

RENO, NV - 

During the past week, everything has been coming up roses, or perhaps even golden roses, for Toronto über-mining investor Rob McEwen.

After many months of wrangling and regulatory hurdles, U.S. Gold (TSX, AMEX: UXG) announced Tuesday that it had complete the acquisition of junior explorationists White Knight Resources, Nevada Pacific Gold and Tone Resources, which now officially gives U.S. gold a large land package in the Cortez Trend in northeastern Nevada.

Meanwhile, Canada's Governor General announced that McEwen is one of 71 new appointments to Canada's highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada. While McEwen is probably best known as the former chairman and founder of Goldcorp, he is also a philanthropist who is the benefactor of the McEwen Centre of Regenerative Medicine at the Toronto General Hospital.

The Order of Canada was established in 1967 to recognize outstanding achievement and service in various field of human endeavor, and is considered the country's highest civilian honor for lifetime achievement. Three different levels of membership are awarded,--Companion, Officer and Member. McEwen was named a member for his contributions to industry, commerce and business.

McEwen made takeover bids for White Knight, Nevada Pacific and Tone because they have contiguous properties, all situated near Barrick's Cortez Hills operation. In a March interview with the Financial Post, McEwen called Nevada "a very prolific area with very large deposits. I want to be next door to some of those because often you find gold nearby."

He hopes to create more intermediate gold producers in the Silver State through putting the four land packages together, drilling them and seeing what happens.

McEwen's U.S. Gold has acquired 11,968,165 shares of Nevada Pacific Gold, 2,799,926 shares of Tone Resources and 4,160,732 shares of White Knight. U.S. Gold issued 0.35 of an exchangeable share for each remaining White Knight common share, 0.23 of an exchangeable share for each remaining Nevada Pacific common share and 0.26 of an exchangeable share for each remaining Tone common share.