Generation Mining (GENM.TO) is doing everything it has to do to get the Marathon copper-palladium project across the finish line. The company published an updated feasibility study after securing the most important environmental permits, and is making good progress in securing funding for the project.
Earlier this month, Generation Mining executed a mandate letter to arrange a US$400M senior secured project finance facility for the construction phase of the Marathon project. Using the current exchange rate, this represents about C$525M in debt funding which, in combination with the C$200M to be received from Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM, WPM.TO) and the anticipated equipment leasing deal will go a long way to fund the C$1.1B initial capex of the mine.
Sure, this is ‘just’ a mandate letter, but the names of the banks that were appointed as syndicate parties (Société Générale, ING and Export Development Canada) read like a who-is-who in the mine financing world and having the backing of those banks will be helpful to actually complete the debt financing deal.
Generation Mining is obviously also working on several parallel possibilities to secure funding for the remainder of the initial capex, but it looks like the market is getting increasingly impatient. We feel that is unfair towards the company as putting the pieces of a C$1.1B puzzle together takes time.
Disclosure: The author has a long position in Generation Mining. Generation is a sponsor of the website. Please read our disclaimer.
