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Day: May 28, 2012

Mining Maven [Catherine McLeod-Seltzer] Says Share Slump to Spur Merger Boom – by Liezel Hill – (Bloomberg.com – May 28, 2012)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Mineral prospectors and promoters are “some of the most optimistic
people on the planet,” McLeod-Seltzer says. “We’re like cockroaches
— we’ve survived a lot of nuclear winters.”

Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, one of Canada’s top mining dealmakers, is forecasting an increase in mergers and acquisitions because of a shortage of financing.

Mining stocks are trading close to a three-year low as commodity prices decline on concern that growth is slowing in China, the largest metals consumer. McLeod-Seltzer says that as investors shun equity offerings and banks shy away from making loans, more mine developers will be bought by larger competitors looking to add output and reserves.

“I see these downturns as opportunities,” she said in an interview in Toronto. “The company that’s going to create value for shareholders today is the one that’s not timid.”

McLeod-Seltzer, 52, who sits on the boards of five miners including Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp. (K), says that during her 28-year career she has raised more than $600 million for new companies searching for mineral riches.

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Re-igniting the Challenges of [Mining Sector] Sustainability – Should We Be Afraid? – by Sam Walsh: Rio Tinto Chief Executive, Iron Ore and Australia (Sydney, Australia – May 24, 2012)

Introduction
 
Any discussion of sustainability really needs to grapple at its outset with some questions of definition.
 
What does the word really mean anyway?  It’s a word that has gained phenomenal currency in the past decade or two and, depending on its context, can take on quite different meanings and overtones.

We hear it uttered routinely by environmentalists, economists, biologists, politicians, lobby groups, bicycle salesmen, wind-farm proponents, purveyors of alternative medicines and even mining company executives.
 
In the hands of all these different people the word can be put to work almost as a banner or slogan for their particular cause.
 
The one thing they have in common is they’re all in favour of it. I can’t recall ever hearing someone attack the idea or imply sustainability is not something for which we should all be striving.
 
We hear and read that we need sustainable water supplies, food production, economic growth, employment, education systems, logging, energy sources, industries …

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Ottawa under the gun to end CP strike – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – May 28, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

As the economic impact of the strike against Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. mounts, industries across the country are urging the federal government to intervene when Parliament resumes Monday.

More than $50-million of grain is stuck in elevators and thousands of new cars and trucks are effectively stranded, awaiting CP to get the trains rolling. Manufacturers and miners are sounding the alarm about disruptions to the supply chain while the propane industry is worried about bottlenecks.

Supply chain pressures for both imports and exports are becoming severe, Port Metro Vancouver said Sunday. The port is part of a growing chorus of industry groups and companies urging Ottawa to introduce back-to-work legislation as the CP strike by 4,800 members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference enters its sixth day on Monday.

“For CP, this walkout has resulted in tens of thousands of carloads of freight not moving every day on our Canadian network,” said CP spokesman Ed Greenberg, adding the railway has laid off 2,000 other CP workers because of the walkout by the Teamsters.

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Last tango in Argentina? – by Peter Foster (National Post – May 25, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Its spending and expropriation spree hardly provides a model for Greece

 That Argentina is being hauled before the World Trade Organization by the European Union for its beggar-thy-neighbour trade and investment policies at the same time as it is being hailed as a model for Greek salvation confirms that we live in interesting times. That Argentina’s policies — in particular the recent expropriation of YPF, the local subsidiary of Spanish oil giant Repsol — are ostensibly being guided by an academic with Elvis sideburns who combines Che Guevara with John Maynard Keynes suggests a stranger-than-fiction narrative somewhere between Gabriel García Márquez and Ayn Rand.
 
This bizarre situation is of more than passing interest to Canadian mining companies in Argentina. Might they be next? Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s firm stand at the recent Summit of the Americas against Argentinean sabre-rattling over the Falklands certainly did not endear him to Argentina’s dragon lady, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
 
Greece’s prospective exit from the euro is claimed to be parallel to Argentina’s decision 10 years ago to ditch a link with the U.S. dollar. Argentina, it is claimed, hasn’t done too badly since, which offers some hope for the Grexit. However, while abandoning the euro may allow it to devalue, Greece does not have the abundant natural resources of Argentina. Also, unlike Argentina, it does not have a currency. Finally, Argentina is not a model for any government whose interests go beyond power-hungry populism.

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Glencore to lay out final Xstrata merger plans – by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Victoria Howley (Mineweb.com – May 28, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

Glencore moves into the final stage of its long-awaited $30 billion takeover of Xstrata, as shareholders are sent detailed documents on the deal, kicking off a charm offensive ahead of July votes.

LONDON (Reuters)  –  Glencore will this week move into the final stage of its long-awaited $30 billion takeover of miner Xstrata, as shareholders are sent detailed documents on the deal, kicking off a last charm offensive ahead of July votes.
 
But Xstrata investors hoping for an improvement to the all-share offer are likely to be disappointed, at least for now.
 
That is because of technical changes set to support Glencore shares over the coming weeks, share sales by prominent naysayers and stake-building by Qatar, whose sovereign wealth fund now has more than 9 percent of Xstrata and is expected to back the deal.
 
Glencore, which already owns almost 34 percent of the miner, is offering 2.8 new shares for every Xstrata share held to conclude its long-standing plan to create an integrated mining and trading powerhouse. Those terms will likely be confirmed in the documents, due out by Thursday, though Glencore can still increase the bid up until a few days before shareholders vote.

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Rain brings relief [Timmins fire]- by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – May 28, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Size of blaze smaller than originally projected

Sunday brought a welcome sigh of relief for Timmins residents as rain and cooler tempertures helped to reduce the size of the Timmins 9 forest fire. The blaze, just 30 kilometres outside the city centre, is 70 kilometres long and has consumed thousands of hectares of forest west of Timmins.

Despite the positive outlook today, Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren offered some grounding words at Sunday’s press conference.

“Yes, the fire has shrunk in size, from a community perspective this is a relief,” he said. “But we need to remember the size of this fire, remember that it will take more than a days water bombing and a days rainfall to control it.”

With the addition of 20 new four-man crews from British Columbia working the southern flank of the fire, just north of Gogama, the Ontario fire rangers have been able to concentrate their efforts on the northeastern flank on the Kenogamissi and Cache areas, saving every residence and cottage in the area, only losing a couple of sheds and a vehicle.

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