Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the KEFI Gold and Copper PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your question at any time and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself, given the significant attendance on today's call. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll, and I'm sure the company would like, would appreciate your participation. I'd now like to hand over to CEO. Good afternoon.
Hi there, it's Harry Anagnostaras-Adams here. Thank you for taking the trouble to join us. What I'd like to do is to give you a walk through the corporate presentation and then to take questions. I'm aware that some people are on this call who are unfamiliar with the company or not terribly familiar with the company. Please bear with me if I'm repeating something that many of you may know, because there are people in the webinar who are being brought up to speed. Without any further ado, I'll kick off and on the screen the photo is of the Tulu Kapi deposit, that's the hill in the middle, a quiet rural district in western Ethiopia.
The most important milestone for the company is the closing of the financing and launching of the project for Tulu Kapi. We're literally in the thick of closing procedures, and I'll take you through it in some detail as we go through the presentation. It is a $390 million package. The financing has been arranged at the project and subsidiary level. The stock markets are not terribly buoyant in the mining sector, particularly junior mining. It's in fact, I'm told AIM is the lowest it's been since it was created as a stock exchange in 1995. Therefore, we've avoided use of the stock market for the development capital, and I'll take you through that as well.
Standard disclaimer, just stating the obvious that perhaps some people forget, but when we make public statements, forward-looking statements, you know, prognosis statements, obviously we can only do our best. They are forward looking and we can't indemnify or guarantee the outcome. We entered the area that we focus on, the Arabian-Nubian Shield, in 2008 and started in Saudi Arabia, where we've been for 15 years. I'd have to say that half of the time we were in Saudi Arabia, it was probably a bit of a waste of time because regulations held us up terribly, frankly. That's all history now because as of a couple of years ago, the regulations were overhauled and it's sort of, you know, on everyone's lips in the mining sector now internationally, Saudi Arabia.
Because regulatory reform has made it rapid fire for those who are in a position to do things. We have the largest exploration team in the country. In our joint venture vehicle there, we've made two discoveries because we have been there 15 years, even though half of it we couldn't work, but the other half we did work and we made two discoveries. Which is testament, I think, to the prospectivity of Saudi Arabia. Not to mention the fact that, you know, the team's a very good team and performed very well as it continues to do. We've been granted 14 licenses in the last 18 months or so, which again, is testament to how things are moving there. That compares with probably, I've lost track now, but maybe three licenses in the previous 14 years.
It's completely changed. We're at the forefront. We're at the front of that queue. We have a very strong partner, a Fortune 100, family office, conglomerate in the country. We're the technical guys, so to speak, the technical partner, and we have a strong team. Ethiopia today is even more important and even more of a turnaround, frankly, although perhaps not so well publicized or generally understood. Ethiopia, when I first went there 10 years ago, security was sort of a non-issue, to be honest. After we overhauled our project, the Tulu Kapi project, getting it ready for refinancing and launch, the country went into some turmoil. It's fair to say that it was again wasted some years on us because we couldn't proceed.
It was, you know, it was impossible to bring hundreds of millions of dollars of capital to a country that was going through so much turmoil. It was to do with the introduction of democracy. All good intent, all good, you know, purpose, but frankly, it unleashed unbottled tensions and conflicts that had been perhaps bottled up, maybe for too long. Not for me to judge. The fact of the matter is, two years ago, it turned and frankly, the turnaround in Ethiopia is even more striking to those who are involved. We are also there at the forefront of it.
Yesterday, in Perth, where I am at the moment in Australia, the Minister for Mines made a speech. You know, it's fair to say that his statement acknowledged that KEFI was at the heart of the reform process for the mining industry to turn on the industry. We're the first. We'll be the first mine development in over 30 years. The first development of any mine of scale. You know, we happen to be, for the first time, frankly, in 15 years having gone into the Arabian-Nubian Shield, one of the great underexplored frontiers. It is a world-class geological terrain. For the first time in 15 years, we're actually charging forward on both fronts. I won't dwell on some of this detail.
You can all read it at your leisure, and I don't really wanna rob time from questions. Let me just say that the numbers are strikingly obvious as to the upside here as we de-risk Tulu Kapi. Which, you know, you'll see over the next few months as we tick boxes and launch according to our schedule. The numbers of multiples of value will start to I believe be given the opportunity to reflect themselves in share prices in a market in the doldrums. For a company that has suffered setback after setback for some years up to you know the last couple of years. I think that process is about to change in the sense that we will be able to move forward and make progress.
As we de-risk, typically, statistically, one can say that it is the norm for the market capitalization of a company to start to reflect the underlying intrinsic value on one measure or another as you de-risk. You know, there's many measures you can use here, but they all show you a lot of upside, and I'll let you study them at your leisure. It's no secret that it's coming alive, the Arabian-Nubian Shield, and you've got the largest gold producers in the world have arrived. The highest profile explorer in the world, Ivanhoe, has just arrived in the last few months. There's other very good names there on the list of very well-respected, high-profile mining and development and exploration groups who've staked their claims in the country, in the region.
I think if you chatted with any of the people who are familiar with the activities in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, our name would pop up as, you know, describing to you what I have already said to you, and that is that, you know, we're there. Having been on the ground 15 years, we have the projects that are first in the queue for development for those countries. The changes in Ethiopia were not to do with, you know, what I would call systemic conflict or the, you know, inter-religious group rivalry or, international, you know, conquest-type challenges. It was purely and simply the introduction of democracy, which was incompletely welcomed, really, by almost 100% of the country.
The rapidity of the change lauded by the international, you know, community and Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the PM and so on, i t was extremely quick, ambitious, rapid change, and it brought some tensions and internal conflict, which was resolved a couple of years ago, so we're now moving on. Saudi is not a, you know, a volatile place. It's a very steady ship. The regulations didn't really let us do our work, and that's the bottom line, but now they do. As I said, both countries have turned. The development projects, Tulu Kapi, first cab off the rank in finance closing procedures as we speak. The two in Saudi Arabia are quite a bit behind that.
We have lined up the capital for Saudi as well in that, our partner puts up his portion of the equity and, the sovereign fund, the SIDF, so-called Saudi Industrial Development Fund, is engaging already. We have no doubt that once the board approves development on our two projects there, then financing will follow. That's a bit away yet. These projects take time to mature them, to prepare them, to get it all right to a bankable stage. That has been done in Ethiopia, and it has a bit of time to run in Saudi Arabia. We have a pipeline of exploration projects. I would venture to add second to none now.
Perhaps other than Ma'aden, the government-owned company in-control company in Saudi Arabia has much, much larger portfolio of longer standing obviously, but in the private sector, perhaps, if I can use that expression, I'm not aware of any group that has such advanced projects in the Arabian-Nubian Shield, nor the pipeline we have. There's a pipeline that we've assembled in Ethiopia that will emerge publicly as tenure is sorted. This is just stating the same point I made earlier, that the market cap is a fraction of the NPV. As you de-risk and announce, you know, credit approval or financing in Ethiopia, will be a big step forward, I think the biggest, a nd so on and so forth as you launch, bring into production.
Typically, the red catches up with the NPV as you bring it into production. Typically rates a bit above NPV because of the other things that will happen that are not captured in an NPV. These graphs say the same thing. I'll let you study them at your leisure. The chap who used to run Macquarie Bank mining research, perhaps one of the largest research houses for mining globally, has his own shop now, Oriole Capital, and monitors how we rate, and it tells the same story. Related to other companies, we have not rated up where we will be as we de-risk, and that provides the measure of the upside in an objective way. Oops, sorry.
I won't go through the detail on this, but the essence of what this chart means is that we have joint venture equity and project finance institutions involved in both Saudi Arabia on the left and involved in Ethiopia on the right. If you add up all the numbers on the Ethiopian side that we've already lined up, we have preliminary approvals and some already final approvals. If you add up all the numbers, you come up to a bit over $390 million. Over on the left, we haven't got it to the stage of approvals yet because their feasibility studies for those two projects have yet to come to conclusion. They're heading in the right direction.
It's just a question of when the resources which are still open and will grow significantly in our view, when they're big enough to go live and start production. It's not a question of whether we'll develop. It's a question of when do we stop drilling for additional resources, get the show on the road, so to speak, and then add more resources later. That's the Saudi story. Not too dissimilar in Tulu Kapi in Ethiopia, but we're already bankable, so we can start. There's a lot of upside there as well, and it's a high-margin mine, a high-grade mine, which is really its striking characteristic. It has no legacy issues, which is great. It's a great starter project, which is great. We've been at the forefront of reforms to make it happen from an international financing point of view, which is great.
At the very heart of it, the most important thing is that it's a high-grade mine, straightforward metallurgy and robust economics. That's the key. A wonderful starter project, frankly, to allow us to then tackle the other things in the pipeline, you know, down the track. Milestones. We're trending this slide, which I think has been in the public domain now for a quarter or two. I've lost track. We are in the thick of closing procedures. I'll explain what I mean by that now. I think we've said several times publicly that there were three critical hurdles or requirements for us to get into the detail with the banks. They really wanted three things in place before they were prepared to go into detailed documentation.
We assembled the detailed documentation for everything else, but the banks held their line very hard that three things had to happen. One is country membership for one of them with the country. Major, you know, country to country issue, not just a company to bank issue. We've assisted in that process. It wasn't our doing, but we assisted and facilitated, and we delivered that, I think in March, from memory. Security. The banks required this to be treated as a red zone even though it's a green zone in security lingo. We did that, and the government deployed military personnel apparatus to blanket the district in April, which calmed down the whole district.
Not that this district is a problem district, but the civil war that ended a couple of years ago destabilized law and order throughout the country. It just needed to be brought down to a tempo where you could move people, hundreds of people and equipment around without fear. That was done for us in April, and the security system keeps being ramped up from there, which is happening as we speak. The third thing was foreign exchange controls. We need relaxation, exemption on a number of fronts. Now that we were granted this previously, but now that we're getting down to tin tacks, we needed fine detail. The fine print had to be agreed between the banks and the central bank of the country.
That's been a pretty, you know, pretty intense process to negotiate, you know, between banks and the central bank, and to be the go-between and to make it happen as a reform of the country's regulations. It has been very challenging for us, but we've succeeded. There were very important meetings this week in Addis, and my very detailed summary report that I received in the last hour, frankly, was a string of thumbs up, which I take to mean things are going well. I'm very proud. I know it's taken a long time, but you know, it is a frontier market for mining. The countries have been through a lot of change.
We've weathered their storms, and we're positioned at the front of the queue, and I'm very proud of where we stand and very optimistic of where we're heading. Having done those three things, what's next? Well, the technical sign-off, tick. Security sign-off, tick. Although, of course, we monitor, we have monthly monitoring, and it has to stay that way as we ramp up. Detailed documentation now flying around, circulating for approvals from all the multiple parties. There's about a dozen parties. The most important thing really is board and credit approval from the banks. That's two-thirds of the capital. When you melt down the whole, you know, package, so to speak. That's the most important thing. I think that this week's progress with the central bank opens the door for that to now proceed.
I'm very thrilled about that. The banks have been working with us for years. You know, they're very serious banks. They're coming into a sector for the first time, opening up a sector for a country, they're very intense. They expect it to be done properly, correctly from all points of view, Equator Principles, IFC Performance Standards, central bank regulations to conform to international practice. It's taken time to be at the forefront, but there we are. I believe we're at that point now where we can proceed. First cab off the rank. To me, the most important milestone will be bank credit approval. Everything flows from that. We're preparing the community already.
We were confident that we'd achieve this, and we're already preparing the community for what comes next, which is moving them in stages, small bites, if you like. Procurement will follow signing of detailed documentation. I know that we've put a lot of detail of this in our quarterlies and RNSs, but you know, confirmation of ten-year return of our exploration licenses, all these things, you know. We must hold the line until all these things are done firmly, formally, definitively before we release capital. That's well understood. Again, I think it's fair to say respected. There are no closed doors to us. All doors are open.
You know, today my team was in Kalgoorlie showing the ministry and friends from Ethiopia around and you know full collaboration and it's wonderful. This is just reiterating that the two Saudi projects will come along behind Tulu Kapi. The board, a very strong non-exec director composition there, head of mining finance from Nedbank. Previous head of mining finance from Nedbank, that is. Previous head of Gold Fields of South Africa and gold operations. Previous head of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on the ESG side for 20 years or so. We're preparing the board for what's coming now.
Likewise on the management side, we've brought in some world-class management to start preparing recruitment systems, policies, procedures across the board as we go into, you know, what we expect will now be the launch in the coming quarter as we foreshadowed and the going from 50 people in Ethiopia to approximately 1,000 over the following 18 months. Mark, could I ask you how much time I've already chewed up? I don't have a clock in front of me, the way the screen's configured.
Yeah, no problems. 24 minutes.
Okay. I'll just skip over some pictures. I won't take more than five minutes because I'd like to leave 30 minutes for questions. The first thing is Tulu Kapi. A great starter project because it had no legacy issues, unlike many mine sites. It has no legacy issues environmentally or socially. That's why we picked it. Plus, of course, its robust economics. Just skipping through some of the stats. If you look at those stats in your own time, you'll see how robust it is. We get everything signed off independently. You know, we started a small exploration company, and we're putting together hundreds of millions of dollars for development, plus also just the mine services agreement is a few hundred million dollars.
You know, there's a package of contracts here being assembled, which is about $1 billion of contracting for development and operations. The way one does that, you have to have the right people, obviously, you know, with international standing in this industry and having done financings of this nature before. You wrap it in the brand of sign-off by independents of world stature. That's what we've done all the way through, which is how major development banks and major multinationals can participate in the funding at the project level.
I must say, it needs to be said that the amount of capital raised at the project and subsidiary level for Tulu Kapi is actually more than the AIM market has raised for any mining company or aggregate of all mining companies for the last year or so. You know, AIM has been particularly weak within a particularly weak sector internationally on stock market terms. Yet we've been charging ahead in an emerging market because of the positioning and the robustness of the project. One has to be proud of the fact that we're able to do that despite a stock market that, frankly, would not have backed it. Because it doesn't have access to that sort of capital today.
I dare say anyone who is familiar with the stock market for juniors and the AIM market in particular would be aware of that. The drilling of the ore body, we believe there's potential for over one million ounces additional down there. That's the ore body exposed at surface. When we first turned up, one of the first things we did was expose it at the surface, sample it, taste it, so to speak. 3-D imagery of the plant. You can see a movie of it if you want. We can arrange a drone, you know, flying through the plant in detail and a 3-D imagery of the underground can be arranged of the pit rather than the underground site layout. Nothing unconventional.
This is just showing the grade distribution in the pit and also the adit planned to get down to the underground. Saudi has different topography, but same geology, where our sites are. A 6-kilometer long gossan surface expression of mineralization, which we've confirmed at Hawiah. Now in the top 15% VMS in the world, even though it's a new discovery of ours, so it's gonna keep growing. The Saudi stock market's taken off for mining. A producing company a third the scale of our resources in Saudi is capped at over $1 billion. Saudi actually is quite different, if you like, to what I was saying about the Western stock markets for junior mining. Jibal Qutman, it's a string of pits along a well-defined structure. They're just showing you sections of these ore bodies.
Again, I'm trying to hurry it up now so we can have questions. We just exposed in the Wadi Bida mineral belt where Hawiah is a VMS belt. We just exposed another VMS system on another license, about 50 km away from Hawiah. It's within trucking distance, but there you are. You can see it, but we've got no results to report. All we've done is expose it at surface, and we're sort of cooking again to put some work around this one. Okay. I thank you very much for listening to the presentation. I hope those of you who are new to the company found it interesting, and I'll leave it for Mark to work through the questions that have been received.
That's great. Thank you so much, Harry. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just using that Q&A tab on the right-hand corner of the screen. Just before we go into today's questions, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your Investor Meet Company dashboard. Harry, we did receive a number of pre-submitted questions, and of course, given the number of attendees on today's call, you've had quite a few more. Forgive me if there's a little bit of repetitiveness. We're trying to eliminate that as much as we can. A lot of questions do talk to the funding situation.
If I read one specifically, you stated that syndicate lenders meeting with the company this week is one of the final action points remaining to the completion of the Tulu Kapi financing package. Are there any more final action points remaining? That covers a lot of the funding questions.
Yeah. I think I covered that. I mean, the main thing now is that, from the sound of it, the central bank issues, the fine print of the central bank issues are being, you know, put in place. With the meetings that have taken place this week, really the next step is to await the final credit and board approvals of the banks. I think everything from there on is procedural.
Okay. Thank you. There was a little mention of resettlement in the last update. How long does the first phase take to achieve? Will this have any bearing on first production? Is there equipment ready now to clear the site and prepare the layings of footings?
Resettlement is chopped up into stages. We don't plan to resettle the 350 households in one step. It's well sequenced out, well planned out. The last phase of it will be two years from now. It's really, you know, move the people off the airstrip site, move the people off the plant site initially. Yes, it's all sequenced out and scheduled in. There's no delays in that score. The other question was, is there equipment in the country ready to be mobilized? Yes, there's plenty of equipment in Ethiopia. There's a lot of construction in Ethiopia. A lot of construction. Just one example is it's got Africa's largest hydro scheme being built, roads being built everywhere, stadiums, buildings. A lot of construction work.
There's no problem with access to kit for earthmoving.
Thank you. Will there be a similar photo press opportunity to the umbrella agreement signing when the final financing agreement is signed later this month by all parties? Is there some form of PR push that you'll have?
I don't know that I'm not used to banks asking for photographers to come in to watch them give credit approval. Yeah, we'll take every opportunity we can to, you know, to record for shareholders everything that's reasonable to do so. Yeah. Of course we will, yeah.
Thank you. Turning the dial slightly. Will Jibal Qutman be in production before Tulu Kapi? What percentage ownership in G&M remain?
Jibal Qutman is not ready to trigger. I think I touched on that earlier in the presentation. I'd be surprised. In the scheme of mining projects that are being developed for the long term, I would expect that because it has a shorter timeframe for development, not having a community to deal with, so to speak, that you know it might be within six months or nine months or something like that, but I don't see at this stage that it will be faster. The other question was percentages. I've always said 25%-40%. You know, we started at 40. You know, given the you know how to put it, one has to be a custodian of the capital as well as maintaining progress as best one can.
If shareholders rate the company at a certain market cap, it hasn't allowed us to keep up with 40%. It's as simple as that. Turning it around the other way, the value that's been created from the expenditure that we have made dwarfs the expenditure we've made. You know, we as a partner can't have our cake and eat it. We either put the money in or we dilute. We've struck a balance on that. We've put some money in, and we've taken some dilution, always trying to protect the interest of shareholders. I think that, you know, the obsession about Tulu Kapi, for obvious reasons, people want it to get going, but the obsession about Tulu Kapi will, you know, alleviate itself as we start moving forward at Tulu Kapi.
We'll be able to tackle the Saudi side more aggressively as well, I think.
Thank you. Question here from David, who asks, "If we don't manage to get financial closure this quarter, do we lose another year due to the wet season?
I never said we have financial closure this quarter. You've got to be careful the definition of closure. I mean money in the bank. What I've said is credit approval. It all flows from that. What I've said or what we've said more correctly is that we would launch during Q4, which is closure. That's been our timetable. Yeah. Sorry if I missed part of the question, Mark, or did I cover it?
No, I think you've covered that off. Let me just turn to a question for Tom that's just come in. Any interest in a Saudi stock market listing?
Yeah, we've invested a lot of time on this, on this question, on this matter, because, you know, to be a bit flippant, we're a bit like rock stars in this game in Saudi, having been applauded and patted on the back by many, frankly, for having had the foresight to be there for 15 years and make discoveries. Now we're getting a bit of that within the industry for Ethiopia, to be honest, albeit you wouldn't know it from the share price. The Saudi authorities have only had one IPO in the mining sector in years, and there's only two listed mining stocks, both in production. The Saudi stock market's a bit away from admitting pre-production companies.
I think it's fair to say that the joint venture will look at all alternatives as we build a mining house. We're quite confident we're gonna build a mining house. It's not a one-year job. It's not a two-year job. We will build a mining house. Al Rashid are very serious people. We're very comfortable as partners. It's a solid relationship, and we will build a mining house. We will, as a joint venture, optimize the capital for each project. The individual projects are now being put into their own subsidiaries, intermediate holding companies we've agreed to insert. This is all to do with creating flexibility for us as a partnership to build the business very seriously as we move forward.
Because Saudi is taking off, and the partners have agreed to look at all possibilities. A long-winded answer, because I'd be deluding myself and the listener to say that we can come along and list in Saudi when they've never done it, you know. They're very interested in what we're doing and very supportive in Saudi, but we'll pick our moment for the best possible outcome for the shareholders of both partners. Not to say that KEFI isn't looking at other ideas as well for itself, but in Saudi, I think I've answered the question.
Yeah, most definitely. If I may just turn to a question from Desmond. Thank you, Desmond, for your question. If any of the banks refuse credit approval, what's the plan? Do we have a backstop lenders? What's our options at this point?
Well, the banks have invested, I think three years or four years. They've traversed a civil war. They've stayed in there. They're in Addis Ababa today to sort out the fine print, so to speak, on exchange controls. They're serious people. They're not doing this with a view to rejecting it. It's not like it's a secret. I've already sat in front of credit committees and the presidents of each of the banks. This is serious stuff, and it's not just coming out of the blue to anybody. There's been a very heavy investment of time in this project for some years by these banks and the development banks who have Ethiopia as a member country.
Now, to get back to your question, there'll be no shortage of takers of the project if for some reason KEFI was not capable of proceeding. Though I don't expect that to be the case, having done what we've achieved, notwithstanding the challenges thrown at us, there's no shortage of takers. The prize here for shareholders is to close that gap between market cap and intrinsic value. The only way to do that is to deliver, and that's what we're gonna do.
Thank you. Tim says, very good overview, Harry, thanks. You're very close to this process, so it's reasonable to ask: What is your gut feel for when the banks will sign this off, i.e., what else do they need? I know you've touched on that, but just wonder if you can help answer Tim's question.
Well, you know, the only reason I won't answer that explicitly is that I don't think it's respectful of the internal decision-making processes of major banking institutions for me to tell you when they schedule their meetings. I think it's presumptuous. It's not our business to talk about the scheduling of meetings inside banks. What I will say to you is that when we said, "Listen, you need to come down to Addis Ababa next week to sort out the fine detail for yourselves face-to-face with us present, so that you're completely satisfied you can stand in front of the committee and answer all the questions," they're on the plane. They're not mucking around. I don't like to presume to, you know, talk about what their internal processes are.
It's not for me to say that, but it's no one wanting to waste any time. We all wanna launch, you know, we all wanna launch in the next quarter.
Thank you. Let's have a look at the question from Steve. Are other members of the syndicate sitting, waiting to sign as soon as we get credit and board approval? Is that all in place?
Yes. I think we've said the short answer is yes. There's a process, and I think I've laid it out, or we've laid it out in some detail in the recent quarterly in particular, but also, you know, added some things in the recent RNSs. The main thing is the frustration to a shareholder is that, you know, when can you finish? On the other hand, it's in shareholders' interest that we hold the line. We will not budge until security was in order. Okay, it's in order. We will not budge until IFC has its membership, so it has the protection it needs to do the lending. That was granted. We will not budge until tenure over our licenses is affirmed in black and white in ink. We will not.
These are. We're now moving from the negotiation stage into the documentation stage. In fact, some of the documentation stage has been dragged forward, if you like. We're doing some of it already in terms of fine print. There's nothing in the timetable, which is what I would call big-ticket items of negotiation. I do emphasize that, from the beginning of this year, I don't think it's possible to have expected any more support or collaboration from the government. It's a very determined government. Frankly, the hardest-working politicians I've ever seen. Seven days a week, driven to rebuild the economy and to put Ethiopia back onto its growth path. We're the first in the queue for mining, which is a high priority. You know, I think it's under control.
Okay. Thank you. Just a question coming from Tom just a moment ago. Thank you, Tom. Have you looked at selling the project to a larger mining business, and have you seen any approaches?
In this game, it's a small world. You know, everybody. You bump into people you've known for decades. If ever we need to sell something, we know where to go. But by the same token, everybody's in it for the best deal. If your question is, what's the best way to optimize return, then the gap between market cap and underlying value tells you that the best way to optimize is to deliver. You know, if we couldn't fund these projects at the subsidiary or project level, we'd have no choice, and we'd get a small premium over the share market.
The lower the share market is driven by short-term people looking for a quick buck, the lower the takeout price on the stock and the lower the price for any sale of a project. You know, we've just got to bide our time. This is a long game. The average gestation of any project from the discovery hole to production globally has now crept up from 15 to close to 20 years. Coincidentally, that's what we seem to be looking at in this Arabian-Nubian Shield, although perhaps a bit quicker than that for Tulu Kapi, where we've only been involved half that time. You know, you can't be respected by government if you're a flipper. You can't build social license if you're a flipper. You have to be a developer.
If, for some reason it takes a sale to execute the project, we would sell it in the blink of an eye to do the right thing by, sorry, by all the other stakeholders. Right here and now, all the stakeholders want us to deliver and to be part of it.
Thanks, Harry. Question I'm sure you can't really answer, but I'm gonna pose it just so people know that we're not hiding any questions. There's questions around, you know, will the company need further funding in the short term?
I think we set that out quite clearly in the quarterly report that we repaid all liabilities at the end of June, and we made a placing, GBP 6 million-GBP 7 million. W e do indeed have working capital facilities to carry us through to post-closing. I think that's all set out in that quarterly report quite clearly.
Great. Thank you very much indeed. Question here around a business plan with KSA. Is one in place and, any comments?
Is a business plan in place? Well, I should hope so. Yes, we are. We have a business plan. There's been tens of millions of dollars spent. If you're asking where we're heading, we're heading for developing two projects and elevating a pipeline of other projects. Some of them will be developed by us. Something that's multi-billion-dollar possibility would be joint ventured out or sold by the joint venture. The business plan is not sort of esoteric. I think it's fairly self-evident. Thank you.
Okay, Harry. I think that pretty much. Forgive me for anybody who has asked a question that we haven't covered, but I'm just really mindful not to annoy anyone by repeating the same questions and getting you to respond to them. What I'll do, Harry, is I'll give the Q&A- bring the Q&A to an end, and I'll supply you with any of these other questions for you to review. If there are any additional responses, Harry, we can put those and publish those to investors where it's appropriate to do so. With that in mind, Harry, and we're coming up to 50 odd minutes. If I may just ask you for a few closing comments.
I know investor feedback is important to you, and I'll shortly direct those on the call to give you their thoughts and expectations. As I say, if I may just hand back to you for just a few closing comments, that'd be great.
Well, I suppose people who are new to the company, you're lucky. You are at a time of inflection and takeoff, and you haven't had to weather the storms that the company has weathered in frontier markets for mining, where deregulation had to be tackled, partly by us, certainly in Ethiopia. People forget we lost eight years in Saudi on a regulatory issue that stalled us completely. That also was another example, if you like, of how risky I suppose it is to go into a frontier market for your sector. We you know we carried on deliberately and tenaciously. I think people in the industry generally you know recognize that that's the only way you can make it happen.
I think the fact that all these companies that I had on that slide that have come to the Arabian-Nubian Shield have been a testament to the global recognition of the value of our mission. I think when Tulu Kapi is launched, there'll be a remarkable transformation of perceptions around the company because perceptions I do know are very much clouded by the difficulties and challenges and disappointments of what we've had to go through, you know, to get to this point. But that'll be a thing of the past very shortly, and there's no point bemoaning how difficult it was. It is or it was what it was. We're heading where we're heading. And that's what counts. Welcome for those of you who are looking at us for the first time.
Thank you for your patience and support for those of you who've hung in there with us. Thank you.
That's great, Harry. Thank you once again for updating investors on today's call. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of KEFI Gold and Copper PLC, I'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. Good afternoon to you, Harry. Thank you.
Thank you.