African company meetings, plus Real Energy, Lucapa and First Graphene

INDABA was once the premier mining conference in Africa, as well as being an escape for Londoners from the miserable February weather. It probably is still the go-to conference for the big boys, but the new and emerging stories are better seen at satellite conferences such as Arlington’s PreDABA and the 121 Conference. These gatherings provide opportunities for analysts and investors to have discussions with companies without having them be accused by ASIC for having secret briefings (for now).

You can usually manage 10 meetings or more each day, of 30-40 minutes each. It is much better than listening to a group presentation in an auditorium where you can’t interrupt and question what is being presented. There were in excess of 100 companies available for meetings at 121, and a lesser number at the more intimate PreDABA, so you need to choose carefully to get the maximum benefit. Invariably it is a mixture of catching up with companies that you know well and from which you are looking for an update, and new stories that have come to the market more recently. While ASX-listed stocks are the most relevant to us, TSX-V and AIM-listed companies also feature. It is more difficult for us to deal on these exchanges, but often they are simply “different dogs with the same leg action”. That said, it can be interesting to see what valuations these markets place on assets.

There is quite a bit of detail to go through, making it laborious for me to write up, and probably equally so for you to read. I’ll progressively go through them over the next week or two. In the meantime, there has been interesting news flow from stocks that we have covered in past Weeklies. 

 WeeklyComm9February2019.pdf