Lexpert Special Editions

Lexpert Global Mining 2016/17

The Lexpert Special Editions profiles selected Lexpert-ranked lawyers whose focus is in Corporate, Infrastructure, Energy and Litigation law and relevant practices. It also includes feature articles on legal aspects of Canadian business issues.

Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/724053

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 6 of 39

WWW.LEXPERT.CA | 2016/17 | LEXPERT 7 Abdel-Barr, Khaled S. Lawson Lundell LLP (604) 631-9233 kabdel-barr@lawsonlundell.com Mr. Abdel-Barr advises on a broad range of mining matters in all phases of the mining cycle, as well as acquisitions and dispositions, strategic part- nering and financing arrangements for mining projects both domestically and internationally. Abraham, QC, Brian E. Dentons Canada LLP (604) 443-7134 brian.abraham@dentons.com Mr. Abraham's practice involves all phases of mining, domestically and internationally advising explorers, developers, producers, consultants, prospectors, syndicates and financiers. He has experience participating in background studies for mineral legislation in Canada and in foreign juris- dictions. Mr. Abraham is a professional geologist and is active in mining industry organizations. Accursi, Chad Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP (416) 860-2937 caccursi@casselsbrock.com Mr. Accursi represents public mining companies and investment dealers in a variety of transactions including public and private security offerings, stock exchange listings, M&A, initial public offerings and general securities compliance matters. Ainley, William M. Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP (416) 863-5509 wainley@dwpv.com Mr. Ainley has acted for numerous resource companies and their financial advisors in corporate finance and M&A transactions. He has been lead counsel for bidders in many of Canada's largest, most complex public resource company acquisitions, and has advised many foreign purchasers in acquisitions of and substantial investments in major Canadian resource companies. Alexander, Merle C. Gowling WLG (604) 891-2271 merle.alexander@gowlingwlg.com Mr. Alexander practises Aboriginal resource law. He specializes in the negotiation of interim accommodation, impact-benefit, project participation and resource revenue-sharing agreements, within Exploration, Mining and other resource industries. Ali Khan, Abbas Bennett Jones LLP (416) 777-5388 alikhana@bennettjones.com Mr. Ali Khan practises in the capital markets and M&A areas, with an emphasis on securities offerings, joint ventures, metal streams, RTOs, acquisitions, dispositions and governance. He acts for clients in a range of industries, particularly mining. a hard cold economic lens, don't make sense unless you have sustained commodities prices. "I've been doing this for a lot of years. We do not have sustained commodity prices, we have a roller coaster. Sometimes at the very top, the apogee, you can have US$4.30 copper. en it's US$2, or sometimes less. It rolls up and down, up and down. "Look at the dead man walking on the Toronto Stock Exchange at the moment, particularly the venture [ex- change], because you can't raise money for exploration projects. You just can't. It's just impossible." at has le the majority of junior explorers – the lifeblood of any country's mining ecosystem – unable to either sell their latest find or go to markets or their bank- ers to finance the next one. Some lawyers who work in the area are concerned about what the majors will feed on once commodity prices stabilize and the cycle ticks up again. "A lot of people I talk to, senior mining people who've been in the business for decades, are really worried about things like the lack of investment in exploration," says Marion Shaw, who heads the corporate finance and se- curities group at Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP in Van- couver. "ey say: 'What's going to happen? We don't live in a post-mineral society. We need to explore, we need to develop mines.' "ere's this tremendous focus on cutting costs and productivity and profitability. Shareholders don't seem to have the appetite to have companies reinvesting in ex- ploration — meanwhile a lot of these little exploration companies are just dying on the vine." A couple of years ago, she says, the large corporate- commercial firms thought there would be plenty of transactional work to do with the majors picking off as- sets, says Shaw, "but mostly they're not." Instead, increasingly, the big companies are waiting for the smaller companies to get into a distress situation – insolvency or receivership – before making a move. "People didn't used to like to do it that way because they thought it was complicated but actually the restruc- turing statutes, at least in Canada or the US, can actu- ally de-risk it a bit. If you can buy it out of a court pro- ceeding, courts in restructuring have the power to make pretty much any order they want." Shaw, who frequently advises mining companies, calls the state of relative deal paralysis "deeply worrisome on a going-forward basis, because we're also seeing things like intellectual capital leaving the industry. "e old guys are retiring, new people aren't coming in because it's not a good career move right now, and companies aren't investing in management training. We're going to come to a point where the old guys are gone and nobody knows how to do this work well." Shaw says there are lots of sellers and lots of buyers out there with money, "but they're keeping it in their jeans. LEXPERT-RANKED LAWYERS

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Lexpert Special Editions - Lexpert Global Mining 2016/17