Yamana Gold & Touchstone Gold"Shares" magazine reported last February that Yamana Gold had taken a 2% stake in minnow Touchstone Gold -
"The small cap stopped drilling in March 2012 when it approached the licence area boundary. It had a hunch the mineralisation continued south but did not want to drill right to the edge as the results may have enticed its neighbour, $11 billion cap Yamana Gold (YAU), to command more money for its licence area. Touchstone bought the property, called El Cinco, in October 2012 for C$1 million. Yamana has subsequently become a 2% shareholder, having been paid in shares for its 60% position in El Cinco."
HTTP://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/articles/touchstone-ready-to-drill-larger-ground#.Ut1e6slFDcs
Yamana's current market cap. is C$8.39 billion, and its share price has risen by about a sixth in 2014 to C$11.14.
HTTP://web.tmxmoney.com/quote.php?qm_symbol=YRI
From Yamana's website -
"Yamana is a Canadian-based gold producer with significant gold production, gold development stage properties, exploration properties, and land positions throughout the Americas including Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Yamana plans to continue to build on this base through existing operating mine expansions, throughput increases, development of new mines, the advancement of its exploration properties and by targeting other gold consolidation opportunities with a primary focus in the Americas."
HTTP://www.yamana.com/
The part about development of new mines looks interesting ... and Touchstone Gold's Segovia project in Columbia looks a great fit for Yamana, both geographically, and in terms of low operating cost.
Yamana's website also says this -
"We have increased production from 1.0 million GEO in 2010 to 1.2 million GEO in 2012 and are expecting over 1.32 million GEO in 2013. We are targeting long-term sustainable production of over 1.7 million GEO."
HTTP://www.yamana.com/Investors/CompanySnapshot/default.aspx
Could therefore a joint venture between Yamana and Touchstone be in the offing?
Certainly, when a mining major takes a stake in a minnow, that does tend to make for a closer working relationship.