There were no fights at Mines & Money this year.
This may seem like an obvious statement to make, but actually it hasn’t always been the case.
Strictly, of course, the fights that occurred in the past took place outside the formal structure of the event, at one or other of the various broker parties that take place after the day’s wheeling and dealing is done.
Even so, if someone were ever to invent a scientific way of measuring market exuberance, then as far as the mining sector is concerned number of fights at Mines & Money surely merits inclusion as one of the input variables.
Just after the boom peaked there were two fights and a scuffle, including one incident where the chief of a well-known broking house was held in a headlock by a former salesman from Collins Stewart.
This year though, no-one had the energy.
Indeed, the feel of the entire conference, if it wasn’t exactly apathy, was certainly one of low-key resignation.
One of the organisers spoke of “capitulation”, a word that has been bandied around a lot over the past 12 months, but which nonetheless seems apt given the demonstrably lower number of exhibitors who actually took booths on the main conference floor.
The stars of the sector – Evy Hambro, Rick Rule, Ross Beaty – still drew crowds. And indeed, there seemed to be more interest from punters in listening to insightful description of market conditions and recommendations on how to respond to them, than there was in any particular individual mining story.
One speaker even suggested that in the next three or four years delegates might look back on 2015 as “the good times”, a sentiment which sent a shudder round the room, given that nickel, copper and gold are already bouncing around at multi-year lows.
Some companies, like Condor Gold (LON:CNR), have openly hung out the For Sale sign.
Others, like Amara (LON:AMA), are still mulling their options.
Still more, like Aureus (LON:AUE), look like they are in danger of eating themselves even as the cash comes rolling in.
But having said that, there were a couple of stand-out stories.
Lydian International (TSX:LYD) announced a US$325mln funding for the construction of its Amulsar mine in Armenia.
This story has been around for a while, has made steady progress and is now ready to break ground thanks to a combination of debt, equity and streaming.
The US$60mln streaming component is perhaps a larger proportion of the raise than might have seemed normal a couple of years ago, but on the whole it was a fairly conventional deal.
What was unusual about it was how unusual it seemed.
Time was when companies putting out press releases to coincide with Mines & Money would be ten a penny, and you could have guaranteed that several of them would relate to development funding packages.
This year, Lydian’s announcement was the only substantial piece of news to come out of the industry all week, unless uncharitable types demand the inclusion of Aureus’s discounted US$21.5mln debt-equity raise.
Having said that, Lydian wasn’t quite the only stand-out story.
Those manning the booth of Mariana Resources (LON:MARL) were kept busy by a constant stream of visitors interested in catch up on or learning more about its Hot Maden gold project in Turkey.
The thing about Hot Maden is that it’s big (3mln ounces), it’s high-grade (double digit grams per tonne gold), and it is being jointly run by a strong local partner that ought to be able to provide a lot of the heavy lift when funding is required.
On the booth, Eric Roth and Glen Parsons impressed with their self-assurance and their confidence that Hot Maden will get funded, bringing to mind the old maxim that if you put the best projects together with the best people things are always going to happen, no matter what the market conditions.
On the Wednesday night, after a lower-key party hosted by RFC Ambrian on the Tuesday, SPAngel and 121 held their party.
The mood was alcohol-fuelled and upbeat, but there wasn’t much exuberance and nothing remotely approaching a fight.
That in itself is a sure sign that we’re still very much mired in a bear market.
That and the fact that there seemed to be more people at the SPAngel party afterwards than attended any of the actual speaking sessions or events inside the conference itself.