Denver Gold Gathering Sparks Rumours

Andrew Willis, today at 7:10 AM EDT

They may have been shell-shocked and more than a little morose, but the mining executives and investors who gathered at the Denver Gold Forum this week still found time to gossip.

With bullion prices sliding and junior resource financings becoming increasingly difficult, chatter at the not-to-be-missed Denver event centred on who's zooming who in precious metals.

The resulting rumours helped boost several gold stocks on Wednesday, as the show wrapped up, at a time when the price of bullion was taking another tumble.

It's inevitable that encounters in Denver will lead to takeovers of junior companies with promising properties. That's the way this industry works.

What's more interesting, but far more speculative, is the chatter about larger takeovers.

Now, let's pause for a moment here to set the scene. In Colorado, they were mixing gold bugs, promoters, deal junkies and alcohol. That is a potent brew. Please keep that in mind when considering reports of what was being tossed about in cocktail conversations.

One fund company that had a portfolio manager in Denver reported chatter that the sector's big dog, Barrick Gold, is sniffing around Kinross Gold, which is wrapping up a $1.2-billion takeover of Aurelian Resources. There is history behind this totally unsubstantiated rumour, as Kinross CEO Tye Burt used to work at Barrick and has a solid relationship with acting CEO Peter Munk. [However, Barrick flatly denied this idea in a statement later today.]

Other deals that were being bandied about – and we are way out at the far end of the speculative spectrum here - included some sort of combined bid for IAMGOLD by New Gold and Goldcorp. This line of thought had the pair dividing IAMGOLD's properties. There was also a Goldcorp-merges-with-Kinross rumour. Whatever Kinross said during its time on the stake in Denver seems to have wowed the crowd.