The annual Mining Indaba conference is being held in Cape Town, South Africa from 6 to 9 February 2012. The event, one of the most substantial gatherings of mining industry stakeholders in the world, comes at a time when many miners continue to enjoy buoyant markets for their commodities but access to capital remains limited. Doubts also remain about the eurozone and the ability of the Chinese and Indian economies to maintain momentum, and this is particularly affecting the new issues markets.
Representatives from Charles Russell are attending the event and we look forward to hearing further from mining company executives and financiers about their expectations and plans for the year ahead. In particular, the perceived outlook for commodity prices, the availability of private capital, the prospects for capital raisings and IPOs and how companies are planning to progress their projects should economic circumstances remain unchanged or deteriorate.
For our part, the economic malaise has resulted in us assisting clients with fewer conventional fundraisings than usual and advising on increased numbers of joint ventures, farm-ins, project financings and other debt finance arrangements. We expect this trend to continue in the near term, although we are already beginning to see limited signs of a resurgence in fundraisings. We also expect that a relatively small improvement in market sentiment may lead to increased M&A activity over the year ahead as company's with available cash look to make the most of the relatively low share prices of other industry players.
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