RE: RE: RE: China mine closures (est 5000) Well Bar it seems to me L and L's main strategy all along has been to wait for the most propitious time to buy mines (when others were forced to close due to lack of funds to upgrade) while growing and strengthening the company's income and balance sheet. Mr. Yang who worked with forced consolidations up north talked about this. June 2013 seems to have been placed in writing and an estimated 5,000 of 12,000 or so is a whoppingly huge number and in an an extremely very short period of time. L and L has been researching possible mines to buy for a long time now (they had discussed this openly when they were getting into the wholesale distribution business - which for one of the main reasons to do so - was to become more affiliated with the pieces of the coal network).
L and L now has solid mines with steady income at a time just before this huge consolidation news was released (Helps explain more clearly why Ping Yi - which was a major source of income before higher standards were moving in - was tossed aside recently).
Dr. Lee claimed to have received pre-approval (albeit based upon further DD of course) by one of China's largest banks for financing a while back (and possibly with assistance from the government). Seems to me the ducks are now all lined up as planned.
Certainly others will be bidding on mines, but 5,000 mines is quite a lot of mines. Perhaps many will be closed and perhaps never even reopened. But I also am thinking there are many large companies that have their hands tied up with mines of their own that need upgraded (such as Hidili to name just one I am aware of). And I'll bet there are many, many, even far larger companies that have become overextended and unable to upgrade their own mines as needed.
With all this in mind, and Mr. Yang now in Bejing, I am betting we are very shortly going to see more mine purchases - this time with bank financing - at the 2x EBITA and/or possibly with joint venture(s) with larger company(s).