Copper 360 founder prepares to relinquish control

LETTING go is hard to do for entrepreneurs, as Shirley Hayes is finding out. Hayes, the founder of SHiP (Shirley Hayes IPK Pty), is the 53.2% owner of Copper 360, a mining start-up in the Northern Cape with a liquidity problem. Earlier this year, ‘speculators’ exploited its lack of free float, chasing the share down to about 215c from 470c.Hayes describes the moment she saw the trade reflected on her phone: “How is this happening?” she said, recalling the event. In the wake of the event, Copper 360 CEO Jan Nelson submitted an inquiry with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority. That aside, however, there are compelling reasons Copper 360 needs to improve its free float, which is 15%.Investors, especially institutional investors, need to be able to get in and out of the stock. At the moment only Investec and Coronation are meaningful institutional shareholders. Hayes says: “I know I need to sell a chunk of the company and we are probably coming close to that time. But it’s very difficult to do … I started this company in 2010,” she says, indicating the emotional bonds.Her rise to prominence in South African junior mining is well documented. A retrenched employee of Kelgran, a granite miner, she started her own feldspar operations, eventually generating enough business momentum to buy up copper resources at Concordia near Springbok, where she was born.It is those assets, reversed into Copper 360, that now need to start generating cash. Hayes says that will be the moment when it will be a good time to release shares — on the assumption that the company’s shares will rerate. Copper 360 shares are currently trading at 348c, against its 400c a share listing price.Copper 360 disappointed investors in its first full year of operation, producing less copper than promised and lurching into a loss. But Hayes says the commissioning of underground mining at Rietberg is the decisive turning point. Once there’s operational ramp-up, other developments are to follow.“We have a model of cluster mining. A bit like a diversified mining company has flexibility, so we can commission one of 12 nearby ‘mines’,” she says. Right now there are two other prospects — Jubilee, an open-pit mine, and Homeep-East, a decline — which can be described as near-term options. But the principle sounds intriguing, especially as Jubilee can be switched on with minimal capital.These aren’t mines in the traditional sense, but satellite deposits typical of the Northern Cape geology, many previously mined. Properly sequenced, they could smooth out the production and grade fluctuations that a single-asset firm would expect to encounter.It would be hard to bet against Hayes’s cluster mining philosophy so early in Copper 360’s life cycle. As a start-up feldspar miner, she survived by generating just enough working capital to pay for the next day’s diesel. Nowadays, Copper 360 is hardly as hand to mouth as that — but this year has the feeling of make or break about it.This article first appeared in the Financial Mail.The post Copper 360 founder prepares to relinquish control appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com