This is the silver lining Sandstorm quote halfway down
Globe says financial pinch good for Silver Wheaton
2013-02-22 05:14 PT - In the News
See In the News (C-SLW) Silver Wheaton Corp
The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that global miners are aggressively pursuing alternative avenues to finance their projects, mainly the bond market. The Globe's Tim Kiladze writes miners both big and small are turning to fixed-income investors to get their hands on new cash, raising $113-billion by selling new bonds in 2012, up from about $80-billion the year prior. In large part, the shift is spurred by miners being shut out of equity markets. Just last month Brazilian giant Vale SA raised $1.9-billion by selling its gold streams to Silver Wheaton. Justin Cochrane at Sandstorm Metals & Energy, which buys such streams, says more high-profile miners are weighing this option. "The quality of the opportunities that we're looking at has really improved," he said. In the past year alone, HudBay Minerals Inc., Inmet Mining Corp., Colossus Minerals Inc., as well as Vale, have all sold metal streams. From Labour Day to the end of 2012, Canadian miners raised almost $4-billion in the high-yield market, with borrowers including Inmet Mining Corp., Thompson Creek Metals Company and New Gold Inc. Barrick Gold has deferred around $4-billion in capital spending since last July.