Investment conferences, from where they happen to which industries they focus on and who attends, are an often unexamined reflection of the current spirit and direction of a specific industry’s investment climate.
121 Group, whose sixth annual Mining Investment conference began yesterday in Hong Kong, has taken the conference forum one step further.
The event is a quasi-speed dating affair for mining companies and Asian-Pacific investors where, prior to the conference itself, 121 Group organizes one-on-one meetings between registered investors and mining companies. Given their meeting schedule ahead of time, each party is then able to conduct relevant research and either construct a pitch or formulate a bid.
Scanning the mining companies in attendance, only one, Serra Pelada Gold lists platinum as a commodity-- notably, it’s one of only two private companies at the conference.
A poor platinum turn out is not of great surprise. Platinum’s main use, roughly 44% according to the World Platinum Council, is in the automotive industry where it is used in catalytic convertors. The shift in European attitudes and regulations toward diesel engines, however, is likely to lead to a further drop in platinum’s value.
on the other hand was listed by over one-third of the mining companies in attendance at the Mining Investment conference.Bezant Resources Plc (BZT) embodies this industry sentiment; in April 2018, BZT sold its gold-platinum operation in Colombia for £385,000, choosing instead to refocus entirely on its copper-gold portfolio.
CEO Laurence Read told the Vox Markets Podcast, “Fundamentally, we’re focusing on copper-gold. We, the board, believe it will be the real cornerstone metal.” Read emphasized usage trends arguing, “With battery technology, copper is the metal everyone needs and most of the world’s copper mines and need to be replaced.”
Now, BZT, a small-scale company, has two large-scale copper-gold projects: Mankayan Project in the Philippines and Eureka in Argentina. A company of BZT’s size is able to successfully lean on one commodity thanks to the belief shared by many, including Read, that copper-gold will be among the strongest metals for the next decade, in large part due to its battery usages.
Events such as the Mining Investment conference so focused on direct personal exchange afford small but promising companies like BZT the opportunity to evidence what strategies have made them successful to investors.
Keeping on eye on their happenings can be a creative way to stay ahead of the curve on industry trends.
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