本文详细研究了近十几年来在全球矿业领域逐渐兴起的一种融资方式—金属流融资(Metal Stream Financing)。金属流融资是矿业实践领域约定俗成的称谓，没有精准的定义，被认为最早开始于2004年的加拿大矿业资本市场，具体模式是矿业公司和投资方签订融资协议获取一笔较大金额的预付款，用于旗下某个矿山的开发建设资本支出，同时矿业公司承诺未来矿山投产以后，会以大幅低于届时金属市价的价格出售约定比例或数量的金属矿产品给投资者，投资者提取金属矿产品以后再自行安排运输到市场出售以获取价差。金属流协议中约定的标的金属通常会是贵金属例如金、银或矿山主要金属产品以外的某些伴生副产品，约定的交付期限通常会横跨十、二十年甚至更长。本文作者通过以自己亲身实操的与国内顶级的矿业公司Z公司合作收购的境外金矿为例，详细分析了该矿山签署的金属流融资协议的特点，归纳并总结了该种融资方式的收益和风险特征等，对融资方和投资方的会计影响、投资IRR测算、估值并探讨了通过公募REITs实现退出的可行性。作者认为，融资方和投资方可以在充分熟悉和理解这种融资方式后，在真实矿山开发活动中加以广泛应用，这样既可以为难以获得开发融资的矿山提供资金，又可为投资方创造以相对适中风险获取较好回报的机会。
This article performs a deep research and analysis on metal stream financing, which is gradually accepted by the mining industry in past years. Metal stream financing is not an official name, actually, it is originated from the investment practice of Canadian mining industry, back in year 2004. The mode is that the mining company and the investor sign a financing agreement to support the capex of mine construction. Immediately the investor will pay a large amount of advance payment to the mining company. Then the mining company promises to sell the agreed proportion or quantity of mineral products to investors annually at a price significantly lower than then market metal price, after the mine construction is completed and in production. The investors will promise to buy the mineral products annually accordingly and sell them in market for arbitrage. The agreed metal will usually be precious metals such as gold, silver or associated by-product minerals. The delivery period of the agreement usually lasts more than ten years. The author systematically analyzed the characteristics, return and risk of metal stream financing agreement, by illustration of a real gold mine acquisition completed and co-invested with the leading mining firm Z. The author also showed the accounting influence on both investor and financing party, the IRR calculation for investor, valuation and feasibility of exit of investor via public offering of REITs. The author believes investor and financing party should use this method of financing frequently in real world by study and understand it, which could bring more fund to the mining firms as the financing party, and generate lucrative return for investors in a relatively medium risk.
