“Hold on, don’t give up” is the advice from PwC for those junior explorers and miners who have the financial strength to survive the current downturn.
LONDON (MINEWEB) – 2012 has seen turmoil in the TSX-V junior mining market and for many North American juniors it’s now a “matter of life or death” according to the latest survey of the sector from PwC. The top 100 TSX-V juniors in 2012 have seen a 52% decrease in debt and equity financing compared with a year earlier, and their market capitalisation has declined 43%. It’s thus been a pretty torrid time for junior miners as their financing lifeblood dwindles away.
Investors too are deemed to be far more risk averse and wary of the volatile markets. They appear to be looking increasingly to get more out of their holdings with a bias towards dividend payers (virtually no juniors can provide this by their very nature – only one of the PwC Top 100 juniors pays a dividend) or to those who are coming up with creative ways to give increased exposure to high commodity prices.
And 2013 doesn’t look like it’s going to be much better with those with good assets being particularly prone to falling to bigger predators as cash reserves dwindle and even minimal finance remains virtually impossible to raise for some. Bought deals have fallen drastically – from 43% of all equity raised down to 29%.