Written by GIG subcommittee member Michael J Cairnduff.
Gold Fields' Nick Holland recently took the stage at the Sydney Mining Club to give an insight into the gold miner’s growth profile and significant investments in Australia.
Being a traditional banking and finance hub, Sydney offers a fertile field of institutional investment firms open to one-on-one meetings with reputable executives spruiking quality projects while they are in town.
This was absolutely the case in April, when high-profile industry leader Nick Holland from Gold Fields took the stage to give those gathered an insight into the South African-headquartered gold miner’s growth profile and significant investments in Australia.
Holland could not have been clearer, for Gold Fields the focus was absolutely on delivering growth in cash flow from high margin gold ounces generated from long life assets around the globe.
Gold Fields has delivered on its strategy, having beaten production and cost guidance for four consecutive years with additional operating efficiencies and growth opportunities on the horizon.
However, Holland made it clear he was quite comfortable with the size of Gold Fields’ operational portfolio and would only consider adding to it with value-accretive opportunities that met the firm’s strategic criteria.
One such investment is the Gruyere Gold Project, 200 kilometres east of Laverton in Western Australia, which is a 50:50 joint venture with Gold Road Resources with Gold Fields as the Project Manager.
Construction activity has commenced at Gruyere, with first production from the open pit and stand-alone processing operation expected by the end of 2018. Gruyere will support average annual gold production of 270,000 ounces over an initial 13-year mine life.
There is no shortage of forums for gold miners and aspiring gold miners to present their blue-sky value proposition to would be investors – albeit some more legitimate and effective than others.
Despite the long and proud history of gold mining in Australia, the cyclical nature of commodities investment in general has resulted in the demise of some traditional conference formats dedicated to the sector.
The market has been over-run in recent years by digital investor communication channels, most of which ask a significant fee for delivery to promised databases of varying size and quality.
But, despite what the analytics might tell you, there is still no better way to present your investment rationale than in person.
Face-to-face meetings with capital market participants by company executives able to articulate a clear vision for growth will never go out of fashion.
Another tradition unlikely to be eradicated is the tried and trusted lunch presentation.
Attendance at the Sydney Mining Club’s monthly lunch series and others like it in Perth and Melbourne are testimony to that.
The Sydney events have a trump card up their sleeve when it comes to attracting high-calibre speakers (and attendees) from leading miners both nationally and internationally.