Stillwater Mining Co. (SWC)

[Picassa]

Stillwater withdraws offer after ‘dramatic deterioration’ on capital markets

Stillwater Mining Company on Monday became one of the first miners to find funding drying up following the punishment meted out to precious metals recently, when it announced after market close that it is withdrawing its proposed offering of senior notes due to the “dramatic deterioration of the capital markets during the past week.”

Stillwater said it still has enough funds for the $165 million net cash portion of the Peregrine transaction. The counter shed just over 1% of its value on the NYSE on Monday on a generally positive day for the markets, but is down 35% since last Monday. Stillwater is the only US producer of palladium and platinum and is the largest primary producer of platinum group metals outside of South Africa and Russia. Platinum was trading at $1,565/oz on Monday, down from a year-high of $1,916/oz.