Canadian miners tap into equity gold rush
Canadian miners Skeena Resources and Collective Mining took advantage of their appeal as proxies for soaring gold and silver prices through twin C$125m (US$90m) bought offerings of stock that priced on Wednesday night.
Gold prices are up roughly 30% and silver 60% this year, driving massive stock gains in Skeena and Collective of 100% and 300% ahead of pricing.
Skeena used its high price equity to help unlock additional financing for developing a new gold and silver mine in British Columbia.
BMO Capital Markets led a syndicated offering of 5.2m shares at C$24, a 6.3% discount to the TSX closing price of C$25.60.
The miner’s shares closed Thursday above issue at C$24.23, up 94% this year.
Skeena will soon finish permit negotiations on its Eskey Mine in British Columbia. Having the necessary permits in hand will give Skeena access to another US$750m of project financing from Orion.
Armed with bullish findings from its main gold mine, Collective found enough support for an upsized TSX offering from the original C$100m funding target.
BMO Capital Markets and Scotiabank offloaded 6.6m shares at C$19.00, a 7.4% discount from Wednesday's TSX closing price of C$20.51.
The offering was upsized from 5.3m shares at the same offer price.
Collective shares slipped 9.5% to C$18.55 on Thursday but are still well above the C$5.97 price at the beginning of this year.
The Toronto-based miner is using the money to expand drilling at its Guayabales project in Colombia, especially in a gold-rich area called the “Ramp Zone”.
Last week, Collective said it drilled two new holes in the Ramp Zone that produced 5.66 grams of gold and 13 grams of silver per metric ton of rock extracted at the site.