FKM enters its final chapter as an independent company with the most significant corporate event already behind it: Gold Candle completed its acquisition of Fokus Mining on April 23, 2026, in a deal valued at approximately USD 46 million. That completion is the lens through which everything else in the data has to be read.
Short interest jumped sharply in the week after the deal closed, though the absolute level remains extremely small. Reported short shares rose 71% week-on-week to 57,179 — a move that sounds dramatic but represents just 0.03% of free float. With availability running at effectively unlimited levels (ORTEX availability reads at 9,999%), this is not a borrow-squeeze story. The shares available to lend vastly outstrip the tiny position held short. Cost to borrow has also eased substantially, falling more than 63% over the week to around 2.5% annualised, down from peaks near 7% in mid-March. The lending market is loose, not tightened.
The short score tells the more interesting story here. It briefly spiked to 47.4 on April 16 — a reading nearly double where it has traded before and since — before collapsing back to 25.4 by April 28. That April 16 spike aligns with the period just before shareholder approval of the Gold Candle deal was confirmed on April 14, suggesting some short-dated positioning around deal risk that quickly unwound once the vote passed and the acquisition closed. The score's rapid retreat to low-twenties is consistent with the deal completing cleanly.
The ownership picture reflects a company in transition. The largest registered holder, Jean-David Moore, held 12.1 million shares as of February, representing 5.4% of the company. CFO Sylvain Champagne added 300,000 shares as recently as April 15, taking his stake to 4.15 million shares — a buy that came just days before deal completion. Insider trade data on record (though now stale, last updated May 2025) shows a consistent pattern of director purchases throughout 2024 and early 2025 at prices between CAD 0.10 and CAD 0.14, well below the acquisition price implied by the deal valuation.
FKM also completed the acquisition of the Dufay property on April 22, announced alongside the Gold Candle closing — suggesting the company was active on its own asset base right through to the final day of independence. A fiscal year 2025 earnings event is pencilled in for May 1, 2026, though given the completed acquisition this may represent a final legacy filing rather than a forward-looking investor event. What to watch is whether FKM is formally delisted from the TSXV in the coming sessions, which would mark the formal close of this story on the exchange.
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