2014 Brought ‘Improved’ Conditions for Miners on the TSX, TSXV

Mining Weekly published an article that looks at how mining companies listed on the TSX and TSX Venture Exchange fared during 2014. Perhaps surprisingly, the news outlet, which quotes Carlos Espinosa of TMX Group Inc., concludes that conditions were “tough but improved.”

Here’s a look at some of the positivity:

Mining financing is a long way off the highs experienced across late 2009 into 2011, but at least 2013 marked a bottom, Espinosa said. ‘It was sad to see many juniors raising only around $500 000 last year,’ he added. ‘For most that was only enough to keep the lights on. To advance their projects they needed figures more like $2-million or $5-million.’

Year-to-date October, 1 207 mining companies were listed on the TSX-V, accounting for just over C$1.44-billion of the equity capital raised. This compares with C$1.1-billion for the corresponding period in 2013, although considerably lower than the C$5.3-billion achieved year-to-date October 2011.

‘So there’s been a small improvement [in 2014] and earlier predictions that over half of the TSX-V-listed companies would be delisted have simply not happened,’ Espinosa said. ‘But we’re a long way from where we’d like to be.’

Of the companies that delisted from the Toronto exchanges year-to-date September 2014, most requested to do so or because of mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity and not because they were unable to comply with the listings requirements, he added.

Click here to read the full Mining Weekly report.