The streets of Kalgoorlie are a little emptier today after the annual Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum wrapped up last night.
This year’s forum saw over 2300 delegates from across the mining industry arrive in Kalgoorlie for the traditional three days of wheeling and dealing, wining and dining.
It was a very positive atmosphere again this year, with more signs that the sector is in recovery mode with talk of exploration successes, deal activity and the labour market tightening.
Some of the highlights from this year’s forum and topics that everyone was talking about include:
The diggers
Hats off to all the speakers this year. A few special mentions are due to perennial favourite, Peter Cook of Westgold, with his call to arms for the industry, Nick Mather of SolGold, who impressed with his outline of the monster that is Cascabel, and Stuart Tonkin of Northern Star for his polished wrap of that remarkable success story. Congratulations to Stephen Everett and the team at Metro Mining Ltd for winning the Emerging Company Award for their Northern Queensland Bauxite project.
The deals
Whether it was the quick sale (or three) of a tenement secured over a handshake at the booth or at one of the functions, or the notable scurrying to and fro of entire executive teams with bankers and advisers in tow, the deals flowed at this year’s forum. Watch the ASX announcements as they start to fly.
The ‘do’s
Kalgoorlie turned it on again for the delegates who were looked after wonderfully by an army of hosts, servers, drivers and technicians. We thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Hartleys, RM Capital, Rothschild, PwC, Deutsche Bank and WASM to name a few.
Finally, congratulations to Sharon and Myles for honouring the traditions of Diggers and for adding those one percenters that made this year’s conference the success it was.
We look forward to assisting our clients with more exceptional outcomes in resources M&A and capital raising activity in the year ahead.