IPM&CS Munich - Part IV - Explorers and Miners

Int. Precious Metals & Commodities Show Munich  -  PART IV
Int. Edelmetall- & Rohstoffmesse München  - Teil 4

 

There must have been close to 100 of those companies - which was quite a surprise to me. None of the real big guys (like Barrick, GoldCorp, ...) - guess the most known one is First Majestic Silver. And then down to real small companies with a market cap of 15 - 20 EUR mn. 

 

Apart from gold and silver we had uranium, potash, palladium, platinum, tantal, rare earth, graphite, copper. Projects from all regions of the world - the Amicas, Serbia, China, India, Africa. Companies have been in all stages: exploration, starting to build the mine, months away from producing, full producer. Some of them with done financing, some with positive cash streams to further grow, some with dividend pay-out - and others where further stock dilution is to be expected.

Finding such a portfolio of companies at the show did surprise me. Think about on of those small, more-or-less unknown explorers. What can they expect at a Munich show? 100s of private / retail clients buying shares for 5.000 EUR each? Analysts showing up at the booth and asking questions, starting coverage suddenly? Institutional investors being convinced to put money into those companies?

Surprisingly, many of the small companies told me that Germany is important for them, as a big part of their shares is held by Germans (No. 2 or 3 in ranking). And this is really with retail customers, German institutional holders are hardly present. Some companies have a second listing in Germany.

What you get here is direct access to CEOs, COOs, presidents and vice presidents. I was not really preparing for the show, so I was not able digging deep with questions. To really get more out of it, you would have to do your homework ... guess most of the material presented here you can really get from the internet pages of the companies. What they are dropping here and there is a hint on news to come ... like Q3 results, new updates on drilling, ... Well, that's of course also a marketing gimmick.

 

Any highlights? Well, I am not really sure. At least interesting stuff:

BACTECH: biotechnological extraction of recourses from tailings (mine dumps)

URANERZ ENERGY CORP: in-situ recovery of uranium

 

 As a conclusion: the concept (direct company access at the show) is for sure interesting, but without more preparation on the side of the visitor, this will not really give you an edge. A nice waste-of-time; to get more out of it you have to focus and specialize on some of those companies (read: work to do!)

 

... more to come ...