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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

The TSX Venture Exchange gained 5.15 points to 500.14 Wednesday. Keith Neumeyer's shell graduate, active trader First Mining Finance Corp. (FF), closed up 1.5 cents to 38.5 cents on 1.44 million shares. Last month, the company closed its acquisition of Goldrush Resources Ltd. Goldrush is the fourth gold junior that First Mining has acquired for shares since it listed on the TSX-V 10 months ago. First Mining now has over 307 million issued shares.

First Mining went public through David Shaw's capital pool shell, Albion Petroleum Ltd. Mr. Shaw listed Albion in October, 2005, with a $500,000 initial public offering of shares at 10 cents. It took him almost 10 years to complete a qualifying transaction for his shell. When Albion finally launched First Mining, it rolled back 1 for 4, so the break-even price for Albion's IPO shareholders is 40 cents. We evaluate the success of a shell promotion based on the ability of most IPO shareholders to get out of their investment with a profit in the months following the closing of a QT, which itself should not take years and years. In Albion's case, after waiting nearly a decade for a QT -- world wars go faster -- the shell's IPO shareholders have still not had enough opportunity to sell at a profit. First Mining has traded between 28 and 55 cents, and it has closed below 40 cents more often than above it. This makes Albion a failure on two counts, based on our measure.

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