3. Other Investments

Midas Gold Corp. Shares

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 Midas Gold Shares we owned to 15,802,615 or approximately 11.2% of the Midas Gold Shares outstanding, on a non-dilutive basis, at that time. This sale resulted in a realized gain on other investments of $155 based on the realized value at the time of the sale compared to the fair value of the Midas Gold Shares at December 31, 2013, net of costs to sell.

During March 2015, we sold 8,000,000 Midas Gold Shares, at a price of C$0.46 ($0.36) per Midas Gold Share, for net proceeds of $2,772, reducing the total Midas Gold Shares we own to 7,802,615 or approximately 5.5% of the Midas Gold Shares outstanding, on a non-dilutive basis. This sale resulted in a realized loss on other investments of $348 based on the realized value at the time of the sale compared to the fair value of the Midas Gold Shares at December 31, 2014, net of costs to sell. We also entered into a lock-up agreement whereby we agreed not to sell any of our remaining Midas Gold Shares for a period of six months.

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 Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets. Subsequent changes in fair value are recorded in the Condensed 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 March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014.


		March 31, 2015		December 31, 2014

Fair value at beginning of period	$	6,163	$	20,990
Sale of Midas Gold Shares, net of costs to sell		(2,772)		(10,560)
Realized and unrealized loss during the period		(738)		(4,267)
Fair value at end of period	$	2,653	$	6,163

Estimated tax benefit/(expense) for the period	$	122	$	1,478

Midas Gold Shares held at the end of the period		7,802,615		15,802,615