4. Other Investments

Midas Gold Corp. Combination

In April 2011, Vista completed a combination with Midas Gold, Inc. (the “Combination”), creating Midas Gold Corp., whereby Vista was issued 30,402,615 Midas Gold Shares. Concurrently with the Combination, we purchased 1,400,000 Midas Gold Shares for an aggregate purchase price of $3,632 as part of a private placement. Following completion of these transactions, Vista held a total of 31,802,615 Midas Gold Shares representing 24.9% of the Midas Gold Shares outstanding as of December 31, 2013.

During February 2014, we sold 16,000,000 Midas Gold Shares at a price of C$0.80 ($0.73) per Midas Gold share for net proceeds of $10,560 reducing the total of our Midas Gold Shares to 15,802,615 or approximately 11.2% (reduced to 5.5% in March 2015, Note 19) of the outstanding Midas Gold Shares outstanding, on a non-dilutive basis, as of September 30, 2014.

In addition, during February 2014, we entered into a lockup agreement whereby agreed not to sell any of the Midas Gold Shares we hold for a period of 12 months. As the lockup period expires in February 2015, we have reclassified our investment in Midas Gold Shares from non-current assets as of December 31, 2013 to current assets as of December 31, 2014.

Upon initial recognition of its investment in the Midas Gold Shares, Vista elected to apply the fair value option, and as such, the investment is recorded at fair value in the Consolidated Balance Sheets. Subsequent changes in fair value are recorded in the Consolidated Statements of Income/(Loss) and Comprehensive Income/(Loss) in the period in which they occur.

The following table summarizes our investment in Midas Gold Shares as at December 31, 2014 and 2013.


		Years Ended December 31,
		2014		2013

Fair value at beginning of period	$	20,990	$	69,489
Sale of Midas Gold Shares, net of costs to sell		(10,560)		-
Unrealized gain/(loss) based on the fair value at the end of the period		(4,267)		(48,499)
Fair value at end of period	$	6,163	$	20,990

Estimated tax benefit/(expense) for the period	$	1,478	$	17,915

Midas Gold shares held at the end of the period		15,802,615		31,802,615

The change in the presentation of the Company’s current and non-current deferred tax balances during 2014 is primarily attributable to the re-classification, from non-current to current, of U.S. deferred tax liabilities associated with our investment in Midas Gold Shares. The classification of the deferred tax balances was also impacted by the sale of a portion of our Midas Gold Shares, as discussed above. Our sale of Midas Gold Shares in February 2014 resulted in a reduction of current deferred tax assets for U.S. net operating loss carry forwards and of non-current U.S. deferred tax liabilities associated with our Midas Gold Shares investment.

As we elected the fair value option to account for our investment in Midas Gold Shares, we are required to provide summarized information for the period in which we held a greater than 20% interest in the outstanding Midas Gold Shares. As a result, summarized financial information for Midas Gold Corp. as of December 31, 2013 and 2012 and for the years ended December 31, 2013 and 2012, which are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards and filed on March 14, 2014, is as follows.


		December 31, 2013		December 31, 2012

Total current assets	$	14,742	$	19,864
Total non-current assets		186,673		175,957
Total current liabilities		2,432		5,108
Total non-current liabilities		919		380
Total equity		198,064		190,333


		Year ended December 31,
		2013		2012

Operating expense	$	3,908	$	7,813
Net loss		3,796		7,180