The gold and silver miners are in crisis, as metal prices hover around break-even for many and capital dries up for most. Dozens of companies are one or two quarters away from running out of cash and closing down, and their executives are ready to deal.

This is, in short, the part of the cycle when the smart money sets itself up to make a fortune in the next bull market. Chief among this bunch are the streaming companies that finance developing mines in return for a share of future production.

In good times they do all right but find it hard to cut deals on favorable terms because the miners have access to cheap capital from less discerning banks and equity investors. But at the bottom of bear markets — like now — the streaming companies find themselves virtually alone in the industry in having both cash and an interest in putting it to work. Miners who need financing to survive now have nowhere else to turn, and the streaming companies are feasting. Here’s a recent Bloomberg profile of the biggest of them:

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