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Private-equity interest in mining companies has waned, leaving a handful of players to pick through the debris.
For two years, private equity was all the rage as the mining industry got hit hard by the plummeting commodity prices. Traditional private-equity firms were looking for distressed assets. Bankers and others tried to establish private-equity shops.
But today, many of the big funds have not made mining investments and others have simply given up.
“They thought they could be passive financial investors, raise some capital, put it in some companies. But it is very difficult to find something where you can actually make money,” said Isser Elishis, chief investment officer with Waterton Global Resource Management.
Globally, private-equity mining deals have slipped. Last year, the private pools of capital were involved in 66 deals worth $5-billion, compared with 83 transactions worth $6.7-billion in 2010, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.