Good morning and welcome to the KEFI Gold and Copper investor presentation. Today we are joined by Executive Chairman, Harry Anagnostaras-Adams. Questions are encouraged throughout this webinar and can be submitted via the Q&A box situated on the panel on the right-hand side of your screen. I will now hand over to Harry to begin the presentation.
Yeah. It's loads but.
Good morning, London. Well, just to, I suppose, recap what this presentation is. We've timed it to follow a very important announcement the other day and to be before a very important general meeting next week. Both the announcement and the general meeting to do with the launching of a full development of the Tulu Kapi project in Ethiopia. There'll be some questions and answers on the webinar. We'll answer whatever we can. We'll answer whatever has missed out as best we can on our website later, if there are any leftover questions. Please be mindful of the fact that we can't give away confidential, we can't breach confidentiality restrictions or release price-sensitive information in this forum. This is not a regulated forum. It's not a compulsory regulatory process. It's just us trying to be more communicative and transparent with our shareholders.
On that note, the format for today is that I will fairly quickly skip through a presentation we uploaded to the website yesterday only, and then we'll take the questions. The next slide, please. The recent milestones. I mean, the most important thing to say is that we're now funded for the development, plus the cost overrun reserves we require, plus the, what I call, initial preparation of some opportunities, not their heavy-handed pursuit, not their development, but to tickle them along so that progress continues to be made with the minimum of capital allocation. Now, at that moment that gave us all some heart palpitations a month or so ago when the Iran war broke out, clearly it was unknown territory. Certainly, I was in no position to look into a crystal ball to understand what would happen over the coming weeks or months.
There we were, pregnant with a project that we'd worked on for all these years, and we needed to get on with the show and protect the project for everyone's sake, and we did that. Here we are, fully funded, and here we are at the Ethiopian strategic project, under the laws of Ethiopia. Which means that we get access to diesel. A diesel, you know, light turned up the other day in Djibouti. That'll be flowing through Ethiopia shortly. As you can see, we keep our finger on what's going on very closely. We're being protected better than, I suppose, a non-strategic project. I'm in Australia at the moment, and I can tell you that farmers can't get diesel. Whereas we in Ethiopia are being looked after because of the importance of the project.
Now, the outcome of what we've just done, and assuming the shareholders do approve it next week, is that despite whatever fears one might have had or what fears and risks remain in the general capital markets, we're actually funded. That's an almighty important milestone to have reached. We've done so in a way which onboarded major institutional participants. No bucket shops. The various emails and messages suggesting we were led by the nose by silly traders or bucket shops, whatever, it's just not right. These are all institutional investors. I admit that we upset some existing shareholders who were offered participation because they were cut back so hard because we needed to bring on major institutions as much as possible. Here we are, where we've got a very strong syndicate of bankers, contractors, partners in the form of the government, and we're away.
The numbers are terrific, and we've got a lot to work for and a lot to expect. I won't go through any more of the details on this slide, but I just wanted to convey to you the essence of the moment, at least as best I can judge, that we're away instead of sitting here fretting over the Iran war. Thank you. Next slide, please. This summarizes the package, if you like. You'll note that on the right-hand side, cost overrun and working capital, that's sort of the locked-up money, if you like, for a rainy day. $6 million set aside for tickling priority growth opportunities instead of letting them slide away out of our hands, and to some detriment if we don't at least keep our foot on them. That's over the next 30 months or so, that amount of capital.
Here we are, a company that was capped in the stock market at, I don't know, $30 million, $40 million, $50 million a year ago. Today, we've closed a $400 million capital-raising structure. At the same time, we've worked out how to do it and retain well over 80% of the main asset. I'd like to say it was easy. It wasn't easy, but nevertheless, we've done it, and we should all give ourselves a pat on the back for our patience that we've got there. On top of that, the other capital providers or proposers that have been milling around are still milling around with offers on the table, which we can avail ourselves of as warranted as we go forward, as we assess what's best and what's not best for the company's viewpoint. We're in a particularly strong position now.
If I may say, despite the world feeling quite shaky, we're in a strong position. Next slide, please. The board, I call them the old war horses. On the right-hand side, you can't get much more experienced operators than that, building and operating mines in Africa and around the world. Alistair on the social and environmental side, world-class in that territory. Addis, you can't get a more effective. He's a Canadian citizen, actually, or dual citizen with Ethiopia, but he understands modern business internationally and knows how to get Ethiopia to engage with it. He knows his country very well. Of course, John and myself. The board will change over time. It'll grow with a little bit of growth in numbers. Some of the board will be replaced as they step down, and we freshen it up. It's what we've always done.
Some of these directors haven't been on very long, and it'll remain the case. Succession will be built in over the next few years for myself and John. All the normal processes will apply that one would expect to apply to a company that's about to go off on a huge growth spurt. That'll emerge as time progresses, so we're all being well-advised and we're working through it properly. Next slide, please. There's not a lot to say here other than the fact that clearly number one priority is Ethiopian development on Tulu Kapi. There's a lot of latent value in the rest and in other things that we're not in a position to talk about yet. For all stakeholders' sake, we must apply the blowtorch to the Tulu Kapi side and keep the intense spotlight on the Tulu Kapi side.
The way we breathe life into and progress the rest of it, we'll have to work out in more detail before we spell it out. We're looking to set up a separate structure to breathe life into the rest, but it'll be separately managed, separately funded. We haven't worked it all out yet. Obviously, our priority has been Tulu Kapi, and please don't ask us 300 questions on how we'll do it because we haven't worked it out yet. I'm just being very open that the direction here is to make sure that Tulu Kapi is intensely managed and ring-fenced from any distraction. The rest we won't simply ignore.
If we can fund Tulu Kapi a $400 million package, including the mining fleet, it was over $400 million that previous slide, if you put the mining fleet in there, then we work out this issue of a problem of success, if you like, of having a fantastic pipeline to kick along properly, as I say, under a separate structure in due course. Next slide, please. The point of this slide really is that, if I may say, and I hope I'm not offending anybody by saying this, but culturally, Ethiopia very much rests on strong leadership. It was an empire until the mid-1970s, the world's last empire.
Even though it's a new democracy, until number one, the leader of the country, gives the direction or the blessing on a major initiative like this. Everyone else waits to see, with some apprehension, to make sure they should get behind it or get involved or whatever. That was the point of this visit. Basically, number one said, "This is on. You guys better deliver." He looked around at all his countrymen and said, "You guys better help them deliver, and it's on." That was the point of the whole exercise. Very important from the point of view of managing logistics, scheduling, prioritization, all sorts of things, bureaucracy, because I know where to go if anyone blocks me, so to speak.
We've been able to get through all sorts of challenges historically that those of you who've been with us a long time would know a bit about. Now we've got the full backing of the country and its leader, and we won't be held up for anybody. Next slide, please. The numbers, I won't go through all the details. You can go through them at your leisure. The bottom line is the numbers are a screaming buy in the sense of the upside here. The market cap of the company is less than one year's net cashflow at $3,000 gold. So you don't need a computer or calculator to work it out here. All that's lacking is people's confidence, markets confidence, either generally in the market or in the company itself. I'm sure that sorts itself out as runs get put on the board. Next slide, please.
Our conventional layout, I won't bore you, but all I can say is that I grew up in the Australian industry where there was one mine in Kalgoorlie when I was finishing my high school, and now there are, I don't know how many, scores of them. They're all various permutations of this layout. When I turned up in Ethiopia for the first time 12 years ago or so, there was one mine operating in the country. I bet you there'll be scores of them in 20 or 30 years. It'll happen much faster in Ethiopia. We're doing two things. We're at the birth of a project, and we're at the birth of a district, Western Oromia. Work hasn't been done, and we'll do it.
We've shown we know how to discover, we know how to put those teams together, and we know how to cut through to the chase. It's going to happen. We can see a number of Tulu Kapi to go after here. We're at the birth of a whole district. We're not at the birth of a project. Next slide, please. How does a company of our small size, listed on AIM, not a main mining board, raise $400 million? Well, it does so through tenacity. It does so through people who know what they're doing. The bottom line is you get everything signed off, I's dotted, T's crossed, by world brand names on every discipline. That's what we do.
We've been tracked and modeled and monitored and reported on by all these entities for a decade as they monitor and see how we're going, and report to the banks and other stakeholders. That's to put beyond any doubt the quality of the work that's done. We were invited into the country to fix a project that was on its knees. We were invited into Saudi Arabia to get cracking on exploration in a country that needed external expertise. We were invited into both of these countries because of our track record historically. Getting independents to sign off is sort of a stamp of approval, but it's the team, the quality of the team that did the work in the first place that's really quite the key.
Although you might think it's a one-man company because you only hear one person speaking, I can assure you that there's a whole solid team doing the work. One of my roles, if you like, is to shield them from distraction externally to focus on their work. You can rest assured there's a very strong team doing all these different disciplines. Next slide, please. One of the team members is an organization called Lycopodium, and the main brand name, gold miners in Africa, are down the left-hand side. This is just a little chart of how they've performed for those clients, coming in under or on budget, under or on schedule. They're, how would I put it?
At the expensive end because they're world's best, and we made them fixed price lump sum on the engineering and the procurement, which didn't help the cost side of it either. We did that to reduce risk in a country which already had risk to deal with as a frontier market, and we did that quite deliberately. It's all about risk reduction, about bringing in world's best, and that's what we've done. Next slide, please. If you'd focus your eye on the column that's called Q2 2026, you can see there that ahead of Q2 2026 is 24 or 27 months, depending whether you go to the beginning or the end of Q2 2028. This is a 27-month schedule in effect, which has already started. We're already in construction. If this had been in Australia, it would have been a 17-month schedule.
The reason I say that is a couple of reasons really. One is to obviously point out that because it's a new industry, that Ethiopia is simply not as used to all the things that it has to do for us. We know how to build a plant, like Lycopodium knows how to build a plant, and we know how to do whatever else we have to do around it. It's Ethiopia that's new to the gig, not the team, not the contractors. We've built the schedule around that as best we can. We started certain activities a long way before, which is why the schedule starts two years ago. The reason for that is that we wanted to bed in the security deployment.
We wanted to bed in local engagement with certain labor practices and iron things out while we were getting together the financing and the parliamentary legislation and so on and so forth. That's where we are. Next slide, please. The numbers, again, I won't dwell here. They do speak for themselves, but the very bottom line, bottom row, says that if in the first two years you repay all debt, that's how much cash you have left over at those different gold prices. This is going to be a cashflow powerhouse. Because it's high grade, high margin, and now we've got high gold prices. I don't think they're going to go away too quickly. I think this is a reallocation of capital in the world. It's not some speculative bubble. It's that the world is adjusting a few things that it lost sight of. Next slide, please.
Upcoming milestones. Well, obviously, reporting against progress as we go. Updating your reserves, a lot of drilling taking place on the site in the next 18 months. The underground, the DFS, we won't be developing before we start the open pit, but preparing for the development and planning for it and contracting it so that we can start the development during production of the open pit. Gold exploration, we're going to look at a lot of opportunities. The country needs expertise, and we've offered it. We've done it in other countries. We did it successfully in other countries, where we've got things going ahead of the pack and we're going to do it again here. It's not a lot of money, but it's getting in early and putting a foot on two, three, four Tulu Kapi's type of thing, where we feel there are good odds.
Saudi Arabia, the DFSs are coming through. I know it must be frustrating, but we're not the major shareholder there. We don't dictate the publicity. We're a supportive shareholder. It was our baby. We're proud of it. But it's got a standalone team now, and it'll come through, and it'll be quite something to see as it comes through. Obviously, KEFI couldn't keep up with the spending rate and had to dilute. We wish we hadn't had to dilute, but we did because we simply couldn't keep up with the spending rate. Exploration results will come through as well, and critical materials projects, again, under the heading of what I said earlier. We'll put together a new management team and structure to handle all that side of things. Next slide, please.
I think this might be the last slide I'll show you, and that is, cut a long story short, the theoretical NPV is, we're not suggesting when we show you a theoretical NPV, that that is what the stock market should be today. What it's showing you is where it should go, where the stock market should go when it's been de-risked and in production. Typically with gold, there should be, I don't know, 20% above NPV when they're in production as a typical benchmark. That would put us up not far below $2 billion in due course. In the meantime, we're a percentage of NPV as it gets de-risked. This chart, it doesn't use NPV, it uses another measure, but it's the same story. The moral of the story is the same.
That is that as it gets de-risked, it goes up the valuation curve to where it should be once it's been proven, if you like, in production and produces an average $10,000 an ounce of annual production. To keep the numbers simple, at 150,000 oz a year, that's $1.5 billion for KEFI. That's where we're heading. I think the next slide takes you onto appendices, which I won't bother on this presentation. I'm sorry I took a little bit longer than I wished to, but I hopefully answered some questions that otherwise would get asked. I'll stop there and turn to questions and answers.
Well, thank you very much, Harry. Thank you for the presentation. Hopefully, a number of the questions have been answered during that presentation. By way of introduction, I'm Tim Metcalfe. I'm Managing Director of IFC Advisory, long-term advisor to KEFI, and advisor on financial PR and investor relations. We have had an awful lot of questions through, but we're going to try and go through all of them. I have consolidated them into various areas, and a number of people have asked the same question, so I tried to put those together. There will be a bit of repetition from the presentation, but hopefully, this will address all the points that people have very helpfully and kindly made during the presentation and beforehand. Harry, the first area I want some clarification on, and we should dive into again, is the recent placing.
Previously gave guidance that Tulu Kapi was largely funded with around $30 million remaining outstanding. Can you just reiterate the rationale for the placing, its larger than expected nature, the timing, and the pricing?
Pricing, I suppose, starting at the end. Basically, the stock came off in a month, as did the whole sector, about 30%. The pricing was about 30% below where it started in the month, more or less. The reason, I would say that there was too much foot-dragging by the alternative sources we had and have still. Too many questions, too much due diligence, too much legal argy-bargy, and I had to get on with it. That's to be blunt. I called a board meeting. I said, "Listen, this Iran thing, I've got no idea what's going to happen here. We don't have time to muck around here. We're going to close this book off. We really have to get on with it, and I don't want to be sitting here in a month's time fretting over whatever the hell happens in Iran.
I want to get this show on the road and do what we said we would do." The board, I have to say, didn't hesitate because to us it was a bleedingly obvious decision to protect the business, protect the asset, protect all stakeholders. That's the sort of the simple answer. In terms of the sums, we've covered the whole requirement. We've kept the other offers that we've still got hanging around up our sleeve. We've covered cost overrun facility as well, instead of polishing that apple for another three months in a structured facility. We've put a little bit aside for opportunities. Frankly, the total package is really more like GBP 400 million, as I said earlier, because if you include the mining fleet that we've covered with the contractor, it's a bit over GBP 400 million as a package.
The amount of money we've set aside is a bit over, it's 1.5% of that, so it really doesn't even register, but strategically important. It also addressed, I must say, it also addressed the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room with KEFI has always been that through tenacity, through strength of relationship management, through experience in the industry, it's built a syndicate of big players for a project in a frontier market. The only question that kept coming up and up and up is, when are you going to get some serious investors on your share register? They're not talking about whether a small investor is a serious person or not. That's not what they're meaning. They need deep pockets on the share register.
They need to see a company that can withstand shocks, can grow with deep pockets on its register. That was the elephant in the room with KEFI all the way through the dark ages, as I call them. We've addressed that at the same time by bringing in all these institutions. I hope that answered the question, Tim.
I think so. Absolutely. Just one further clarification on that. You mentioned the institutions. I had a number of questions about what proportion of the recent placing was allocated to longer-term institutions versus shorter-term participants, many described as bucket shops.
Well, there were nobody I call a bucket shop or I regard as a bucket shop, and I openly admit that the allocation process for the oversubscription, the scaling back process for the oversubscriptions, was quite harsh on quite a few existing investors. They felt pretty hard done by, but they felt that loyalty should have been better respected and rewarded. They don't have the deep pockets that we needed, that we're looking for. This wasn't about a loyalty plan. This was all about getting this show on the road and bringing in large institutions. We also scaled back institutions. There were no traders or retail shops or whatever you want to call bucket shops. This was all institutional money.
Thank you. Just final clarification on the placing. There was, or there is an allocation, subject to shareholder approval of 853,000 shares to be issued to settle outstanding fees. Can you just give a bit more color on specifically who these service providers are and what they've been doing for the company?
There are three particular service providers. None of them have been involved with the company for less than five years. I can't remember how many years. It must be much longer, but certainly not less than five years. They asked if they could become shareholders and be issued shares instead of being paid cash for their fees, the same price as the placing people. They want to be shareholders in the company, and we took that as a good thing, and we issued them shares at their invitation at the same price.
Thank you. Moving on to the Tulu Kapi funding package. Is the general meeting next week the final step in closing things and the final trigger, or are there other steps that remain outstanding?
We're already in construction. We've already started. Some people did ask me, and I answered, so I'm about to answer now. Last October, when the banks formally finally gave board approval, I thought it was done. This is done. It's now just a matter of working through the equity piece into the right shape. That's what we focused on. If you ask our banking lawyers, and we have this team of world-class banking lawyers, when's it done? They'll say, "When you've got the last dollar from the banks in two years' time, it's completely done." All the banking facility agreements have been signed. On approval by shareholders of the meeting next week, the equity will have to settle in however many, 48 hours, whatever it is. It's done. We've already started on the ground.
I knew it would be done, and it is being done, and we're already on the ground building.
Excellent. Am I right in thinking that the debt drawdowns can follow, when appropriate, following the equity close?
The rule is that the equity has to get spent first, with the exception of the, what do you call it? The government piece, which is sort of going on a program of spending, building some infrastructure. Probably around September, somewhere in there, it'll be due to draw on the debt after having spent the equity.
Okay. The next question, I think you've answered a number of times, and people are still questioning, how quickly will full construction commence? Am I right in thinking that it has already commenced?
Yeah. If people want to see an army of bulldozers bulldozing people's houses, we're not going to show you that because that's not what we do. We first resettle the people, and then we go in with bulldozers. The first part of the schedule is actually resettling people and procuring the components for the factory, for the plant from overseas. The first procurement payments have been paid to fabricators internationally. The first resettlement compensation payments have been paid. The resettlement housing is being built. The first security camp has been built. The first construction camp starts being built this month, right now. Yeah. That's why it's a 27-month schedule. There's things to do before.
The mining, if you want to see a big hole in the ground, you only see the hole in the ground about three months before wet commissioning of the gold extraction because there's no overburden. We don't need to be clearing the surface of overburden for a year or three. We'll be delivering ore within the first week of starting to dig where the mine is.
Excellent. Presumably, although we won't be showing pictures of bulldozers into people's houses, we can and will be providing regular updates on the construction progress.
Yeah. People's lust for photos will be more than satisfied, I assure you, when we've got 1,000 people running around with their earth-moving equipment and things happening. You'll see all that.
Excellent. I've had a number of questions on risks, particularly given the recent, or the ongoing, Iran conflict. Do you see any risk to the construction timetable from equipment availability, diesel supply, energy availability, or any other sort of extraneous factors that might come up during this program?
Crikey. That's what we do. We get up every morning, and we manage risk. I just got off a meeting, of a weekly call, and I had the report on the container containing diesel turning up at the port in Djibouti and the first light vehicles of a certain category being released from customs for us. We bird dog everything intensely. We have a large team of people who bird dog government agencies, customs clearance, suppliers, managing risk every day. I think what the question is really asking is this, how does it compare with a normal situation for a gold build? Given what's happened in Ethiopia and given what's happening in Iran, I think 90%, I don't know whether it's 99% or somewhere over 90% of gold projects in the world run on diesel. Our plant and all the infrastructure will run on hydroelectricity.
The risk to this project of a diesel cost is a fraction to a typical gold mine. Point one. Point two, because we're ranked as a strategic priority project in Ethiopia, we have access and priority allocation of diesel supplies. That's in train and happening. If the world stops getting any fuel from the Middle East, I suspect there'll be some ramifications throughout the world that we'll all suffer from. From the point of view of this particular project, being particularly vulnerable to it, I don't see that. What I see is that it's been given the protection it needs, and it's not reliant on diesel for most of its energy when it does get up and running in two years' time. I'm not downplaying risk in any way, because that's what we do.
We spend 99.9% of our time talking risk and how do we eliminate that risk, and how do we mitigate that risk. That's what we do. That's what we spend our time doing, and if you see what's happened in Ethiopia over the last decade, I'd like to think you'd realize that that's what we do all the time. Not one person, touch wood, has been punched in this company, let alone shot or killed or anything like that, despite what the country went through. That's because of risk management, and we do the same for every aspect of the business.
Excellent. Just the final point on that, you touch on the Ethiopian situation specifically. Any comments you can make on current security in Ethiopia? There has been reports of conflict in the north. Any concerns over that spreading more widely and impacting the project?
I don't have any concern over it, no. I'm not trying to be dismissive, but I know you always steer clear of making political judgments. Clearly the country as a whole regrets what happened a few years ago. Clearly, the protagonists of that conflict from the North regret. The northern infrastructure and people were terribly damaged and are still in reparation. They're not going to be creating more problems. To say that 130 million people providing the largest peacekeeping force to the United Nations of anyone in the world are feeling threatened by a country of a handful of million people, it's not true. It's just not true. What is true is that the country under colonial carve-up was prevented having access to the sea. 130 million people landlocked can't get fertilizer to grow their goods for self-sustaining agriculture.
The country needs access to the sea, and it will get access to the sea. The saber-rattling I consider part of all that.
Okay. Thank you. Moving on to the next area. We've had a number of questions on the Tulu Kapi development strategy, particularly timing. Can you talk any more about what the downside was waiting to initiate underground development and exploration until the open pit is operational and generating free cash? Why look at those areas now? Are there any specific risks that are mitigated by doing it now? The final one is, I've had a couple of questions saying, were there any external drivers such as competition in the country or government expectations that require the acceleration?
Well, if I had my druthers and I had the money, or if I owned it, or if KEFI had the money as it owns it, we'd be developing the underground concurrently.
Yep.
Coexisting the two mines concurrently. Because one of the long-term weaknesses of the whole plan is a short life. It's only got a seven-year life. You can't build careers, social development policies, and long-term company strategy on a project with a seven-year life. It's a critical priority. Now, it's not today's urgent emergency, but it's a critical long-term priority. Now, having said that, we're not planning to start development of the underground during the construction of the open pit. We're planning to do desktop studies, a little bit of drilling. You won't even notice the money in the Richter scale of the spending profile of the open pit. But we'll get our heads around the whole development profile, the contracting, the design. We will start the development. The plan is to start the development in year two of the production of the open pit.
That's built into all the numbers. All the numbers you see include all the capital for the underground during production.
Excellent. Thank you. Now moving on more widely. Obviously, mentioned Saudi, the fact that KEFI's not in control of those projects. But now that the Ethiopian funding is secure, what are the key next milestones for the Saudi portfolio, particularly Jibal Qutman, Hawiah, and what should investors expect from Saudi over the coming months and the rest of this year?
Yeah. The Saudi trajectory hasn't changed. We expanded and overhauled the team there about a year ago to bring in more operational frontline experience into that team. Jibal Qutman's been banging on the door of a development commitment for some time now, but keeps getting sent back to the drawing board to improve something before we take that step. That's just internal discipline functioning. It's not a problem, it's just risk management, getting a project right before you approve its go-ahead. We still play an important role on the board. I'm not suggesting we have no influence, and nothing has happened that we disagree with in any way. It's the same scale of deposit as operation, as Tulu Kapi. But it's the Jibal Qutman, that is.
It's a much lower grade, so you have to be a lot tighter on the way things are done in certain design areas. I'd be very, very surprised if that didn't come through into a formal investment decision during this current year. The Hawiah project is sort of getting bigger than Ben-Hur. It'll take a bit longer to come through, because it keeps growing on us, and now seems to have an ever-growing gold cap as well, so there'll be another Jibal Qutman sort of idea with a higher grade down at Hawiah as well. Then the copper polymetallic will be developed. That pipeline is going gangbusters, building a head of steam there. It's a good thing we had that joint venture. It's frustrating for all of us that we had to be diluted because we couldn't keep up.
If we're not prepared to put up the money, via the stock market, then we can't complain. The show goes on. We're blessed that we had a very strong and very good partner who kept the show going and it's going to be world-class, that group. I feel very proud. The company feels very proud of what we've achieved over there. The Al- Rashids would tell you quite openly, everything we've achieved, we've achieved because of KEFI, and we wish they had deeper pockets. That's the reality of the game we're in.
We had to pick our bets, and the one that we majority own and control had to be the one that we gave priority to and we're looking at how to monetize all of that side of things as well within the subset of what I mentioned earlier, and I'm sorry I'm being like a big teaser and I'm just giving little tidbits, but we just haven't had time to address it. I think that, we've got a good quality of assets, albeit only 13%. We've got fantastic opportunities for the critical materials space in both countries, and they're complementary with each other. We've got copper targets and gold targets in Ethiopia. Somehow we just have to work out how to put it together. I think it's an easy problem, frankly, compared to what we've just done.
We just need some time to get to it, that's all.
Understood. Just on the funding of Saudi, is any of the funds raised in the placing allocated to the Saudi portfolio?
No.
No. Final question on Saudi. There's been mention in the past of a potential Saudi listing for GMCO. Is that something that's still on the longer-term agenda?
On the longer-term agenda, yeah, it is. There's only two mining companies listed in Saudi. To be listed in Saudi at this stage of that capital market, you have to be Saudi-controlled. The only candidate is Gold and Minerals, the company there, when it's ready. We're converting it to a joint stock company so that it's got flexibility, but it needs to mature as an organization with some development and production coming through before we go there.
Okay. Thank you. Moving on to KEFI corporately. A number of questions in various different areas. The first is on management and board composition. Do you believe the current leadership structure is optimal and right for the next phase of KEFI's development? Or do you think that there are further enhancements and changes needed over time?
Well, if you call it, key people have had to make commitments to the large capital providers not to run away, because they need commitment to deliver on the project. The people putting up well north of 70% of the capital have asked for commitments from the leadership team to make sure we deliver for everybody. We will. We keep our word. It's not a question of replacing key leadership, but there are a number of things we have to do and we've already started doing. We have to refresh the board. We do that regularly. We'll do that. We have to build succession. I'm not like that famous American investor, Warren Buffett, who wanted to keep working till he turned 100 or whatever. I'm not that type of person. We want to build succession in a certain way that empowers the company locally.
We've run this company, although some people might think otherwise. The cash cost of running this company has been kept extremely low, when you consider the scale of the project that it has been cooking up. Our head office comprises two people, and it's just grown 50% in the last month because we appointed a third person. Everybody else is in the field, including myself. On the ground in Tulu Kapi, there'll be 1,000 people within 12 months. The governance systems are being completely expanded on any number of levels. It's a huge transformation taking place on governance and so on. Yeah, an institutional shareholder specialist will come on board as well, and so all these things will happen. It was premature to start going down that pathway until we got the show on the road.
Absolutely. There's been a stated intention to move to the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Can you tell us what progress has been made on that and what would need to be done to achieve a main market listing?
Well, the first thing is to actually have started development. We can only say that today, and so first tick, if you like. Second tick will be onboarding an institutional broker. Well, I think the very fact that we used a major global institutional broker to just do what we've just done tells you that we've already set a platform for ticking that thing off as well fairly quickly. Then there's the process of the paperwork, and I honestly, I don't recall. I know that one of the companies that the team set up was EMED Mining, which after some years, dual listed on Toronto. After some years, main board listed in London, then pulled the Toronto listing because it wasn't worth the effort, which has frankly been my experience.
You've really just got to have one main board that functions properly, whichever one you pick, and make it work instead of diffusing the focus. I think we'll go the same route. I think we'll stick to the London main board. We'll be one of only a handful of gold counters in London. London has always been incredibly supportive of us and understands frontier markets better than anybody. It may not understand mining, but that doesn't matter once we're up and running. People can count profits, and they've got to know the company. How long the paperwork takes, Tim, I don't know. I should have thought early next year would be a good target, but we need to knuckle down with some advisors and work that out in detail now that we've nearly got the first two ticks.
Yep. Makes sense to me. I've been doing main market listings for 30 years.
Okay.
It's a lot of hard work, but I think something that will certainly benefit KEFI in the future. A number of questions on sort of specifics on capital structure. I can even probably answer one of these. Obviously, we're a penny stock at the moment. Are there any intentions to consolidate the shares to get a more appropriate share price for a larger company? I would presume that might be part of the process for going to the main market, but I don't know if you've got any comments on it.
Well, no one has raised it. If it is an issue, we'll address it, but no one has raised it so far.
In terms of communications, shareholder engagements, you've dealt with a lot of this. There's been some skepticism regarding whether construction's started, on-site progress. You've mentioned that we will be providing plenty of visual updates. KEFI has provided quarterly updates in the past. Will you commit to providing those going forward and frequent announcements as development progresses? Because that obviously doesn't naturally lead to quite the same frequency of announcements that we've had when the funding structure has been put in place.
I think it's a good idea. My natural tendency is transparency, much to my not always to my benefit, but transparency, I think, is the critical thing. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for confusion. It just suppresses misunderstandings. We got criticized for having these webinars. We got criticized for quarterly reports, and I thought that, "Gee," "We're in so much the doldrums in the market," where the market didn't even want to talk to companies of this size at the time until a year or so ago. That I thought it felt to me like self-flagellation of the poor beast. I think that now that it's game on, I think that it's perfectly appropriate recommendation to resurrect the quarterly reporting. That's how I've grown up.
It's mandatory in Australia, and that's how we've always done it the way we've grown up, thinking that it's the right way to do things. If it's welcomed by shareholders, we'd more than oblige, yeah.
Thank you. I'm just looking at the questions that are still coming through, and one particular clarification that has been asked by a couple of people. Just going back to the community resettlements. Can you just clarify exactly what stage that's at? How many households still need to be moved? And are there any issues with that holding the project up?
If I could, I don't know if someone can put back up that schedule. If they can, if someone's listening and put up that Gantt chart, that schematic chart, I could be quite precise. If not, don't worry. What it shows is that we have been talking to them for a hell of a long time. Here we are. Let's look down at community resettlement. It's halfway down the page. Okay. The surveys were all done before Q4 2025. Then we put the first 90-odd households' compensation funds in the bank back then, ready for disbursement as soon as they signed on the dotted line. That's 90 out of 350, say, so that's a quarter. There's four phases to resettlement.
Because it was the first phase being implemented, there's been this almighty scurrying around and so on and so forth, getting their act together to receive their money by the book. Exactly by the book, not any shortcuts, by the book. We've been irritatingly disciplined to the community, I'd have to say, but critical to do it correctly for the first phase. That Prime Ministerial visit a month or so ago was. What was it? Two months. I've lost track of time now. Two months ago. It was so important because it sort of told everybody to get on with it. Since then, we've actually done that. We've closed out the first phase. That's 90 out of. That's a quarter of the households.
As you can see there, we've got the next three phases scheduled into that roster there that you can see on the chart. It's basically the first phase removes people from, resettles people from the first areas for workings. We've already started building the initial construction camp by having paid out that area. Next, we'll be able to build the airstrip and other early priority things. By the end of Q3 2026, we will have access to the plant site, so that footings can commence construction around October for footings for the plant, so that when plant parts start getting delivered, they can be erected onto the site. That chart tells you the plan. There's a bit of float here and there built into the system, but that's the base plan. I don't know if that answers the question, Tim.
I think it does, and thank you very much there, Harry. I think we're now over the allotted hour, so just want to thank everybody who submitted questions. We have had a huge number, and apologies if I've been dotting about, but I've been trying to get through them all. Harry, before we close, anything you'd like to say in terms of concluding remarks?
It's always sort of anticlimactic when you get to this moment. I've been at this moment a number of times in my career. My boss that I worked for for over 20 years always used to say to me, "Harry, just stop for a moment and turn around and look behind you. Stop just staring at the top of the hill in front of you. Just turn around and look behind you occasionally and see how far below the valley is." I think that's an important thing. We've come a long way, and we all deserve a bit of appreciation. The patience of shareholders, the challenge of understanding an industry that's a bit obscure or technical or whatever in a country that's obscure and new to the gig.
You've been very brave investors, to be honest, and you deserve all the rewards that you get, but it is important to turn around and look where we've been for everybody's sake, and then turn around and then say, "Wow, where we're heading." I think that's where we are. I think that's an important point for everybody. I try to say that to all the key people. There's so many hardworking people, you have no idea, their families behind them. Their families let them go off to Ethiopia. There's ones on rotation rosters and so on. A lot of work's gone into this. I'd hate for you to think that there's this one guy running around jabbering on about it. There's a whole team of people working extremely hard, and all you shareholders who give it your best shot in all good faith.
Everyone deserves to see how far below that valley is before you start focusing on the next hurdle for everybody. I appreciate and thank you, everybody.
Thank you to Harry and Tim for joining us today. That concludes the KEFI Gold and Copper investor presentation. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following this event. A recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar.