The ‘sub-mine crisis’ of 2016
- Details
- Published: Monday, 09 May 2016 10:26
- Written by ASIA Miner News
By Robert Milbourne and Anthony Nolan, of K&L Gates
FROM its peak in 2011 to the beginning of 2016, the global mining sector experienced a wrenching 90% reduction in global market capitalization, accelerating with the rapid fall in commodity prices in the past year. The losses now rival what the IMF has reported lost in financial institutions during the Subprime crisis.
COP21 - lessons from the Paris Convention
- Details
- Published: Wednesday, 20 January 2016 12:02
- Written by ASIA Miner News
By Robert Milbourne, Partner, Registered Foreign Lawyer at K&L Gates
The untold story of valuation
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 13 October 2015 13:06
- Written by ASIA Miner News
By Robert Milbourne, Partner, Registered Foreign Lawyer, K&L Gates
As seen in the development of Greece’s debt crisis, the freefall of China’s stock market in July and the more recent Chinese currency devaluation, there is a growing sentiment of widespread instability in the market. These economic conditions will have an impact on M&A, capital markets listings, debt finance and project development. One theme underlies all of these developments … valuation. Investors are quite rightly conservative when lending or investing assets into any project. This risk aversion can be amplified when valuations around assets can fall by 30% over a month, or double over a year, as we have seen in the Chinese market.
Mining sector is misunderstood … by all
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 11 August 2015 09:45
- Written by Robert Milbourne
By Robert Milbourne, Partner, Registered Foreign Lawyer, K&L Gates
FOLLOWING the global divestiture movement to abandon fossil fuels (while continuing to consume them), it appears that there is a growing contradiction between dependence on the sector and opposition to its products. One can argue that the sector suffers from a profound misunderstanding of its fundamentals from all stakeholders – governments, NGOs, consumers and even the mining industry itself.