PLUTUS STRATEGIES

PLUTUS STRATEGIES
Focused on exploiting opportunities within natural resources
PLUTUS STRATEGIES
An agile and dynamic group with an international footprint
PLUTUS STRATEGIES
A flexible and innovative group adept at advancing exploration projects technically and corporately

About Us

Facilitators and Innovators

We seek to stand apart from our peers, not by attempting to create brand recognition through marketing, not by promoting ourselves as different for the sake of being different, but by understanding the environment we choose to operate in and being able to offer our clients a service which goes above and beyond the call of duty and continues to exceed expectations.

LONDON

London, Unitied Kingdom is currently the Groups principal place of business. London hosts the AIM market, home to a great number of natural resource companies. It is a leading natural resources finance centre with a traditional focus on Africa, Middle East, Europe and FSU.

DUBAI

Building a solid presence in the gulf has from inception been a fundamental premise of the groups long terms vision.

AUSTRALIA

Plutus has established a presence on both the East & West Coast of Australia (Perth & Melbourne). The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) remains the most liquid and active exchange for the junior resource sector and Perth hosts the head offices of more than 25% of junior explorers globally.

What we do

Plutus Strategies is an agile and dynamic group with an established international foot-print focused on exploiting opportunities within the junior natural resource sectors.

Focusing on the junior hard-rock and energy sectors these opportunities can take many forms from:

greenfield prospects
advanced exploration, feasibility stage
construction ready
early production
marginal/end of life projects; and/or
companies that service any stage throughout the project lifecycle

Opportunity in uncertain times

Founded in 2013 during a period of continued global uncertainty with a primary focus on natural resources, the very sectors that have been most impacted over the last few years is without doubt highly ambitious. History has proven, it is these times that provide the greatest opportunity. The groups ability to adapt and survive driven by awareness, insight and taking effective action has no doubt enabled Plutus to continue to grow throughout our points of presence.

Services

Focusing on the natural resource sectors,
we seek out partnerships and pursue opportunities that we believe can generate real long-term value.
We pride ourselves on developing innovative and unique strategies that create real competitive advantage

Our core compentencies:

Corporate/management restructuring and corporate strategy
Review and optimisation of asset portfolios and fund allocation
Valuations
Review of assets before acquisition from an all-encompassing technical and financial viewpoint as current providers tend to focus on one or the other
Assistance with disposal/farm out of assets
Identifying and securing funding options where appropriate including through equity/strategic partnerships/IPO’s/streaming & royalty deals/debt and to help restructure portfolios as may be required
Project Origination

Plutus offers its clients a bespoke strategic consulting service aimed at companies operating in the mining and oil and gas sector, particularly those in exploration and pre-production stages. We offer services in the following key areas: i) Restructuring of asset portfolios ii) Guiding the strategic development of assets iii) Marketing assets to potential investors and iv) Disposing/farm-out of non-core assets v) Review and optimisation of asset portfolios and fund allocation vi) Technical/financial reporting and valuation vii) Identifying and securing funding options.

Portfolio Restructuring

Poorly structured asset portfolios are common in the sector due to numerous assets added in an ad-hoc way which act as a barrier to further investment into the company from third parties. If investment is sought it is important for companies to restructure in a way that will appeal to potential investors, however knowledge and desires of the investment community may be lacking. Money and time spent on restructuring and streamlining, including where appropriate the disposal of assets and changing of boardroom makeup, can result in a more attractive investment target and better value for the client. Plutus keeps close contact with the investment community including brokerages, high net worths and other natural resource firms offer restructuring services that circumvent anyone of the described issues.

Marketing Assets

Successfully securing investment for a purchaser is rarely a straightforward process and requires a large network of potential investors that is not always available to natural resource companies. Furthermore projects for which there is little appetite in one area may be favourably viewed in another. Plutus seeks to utilise its network (principally London, Australia and the Middle East) to seek out appropriate counterparties. Deals in the natural resources sector are rarely concluded rapidly and often requires a significant amount of coordination, negotiation, as well as corporate and technical due diligence. Plutus is able to offer a full service throughout the entire process which typically lasts between 3-12 months.

Strategic Development of Assets

Many companies struggle to implement appropriate strategies to achieve maximum shareholder value. Failure to properly strategise can result in excessive dilution, poor partnership deals and at it’s worse failure to attract sufficient investment to continue. There are numerous examples of companies in the resource sector who despite having high quality assets have had to resort to fire sales, poor value takeovers and bankruptcy. Given the fickle nature of inward investment and the lack of cash-flow of many of the companies in the sector, strategy is particularly important. Where companies wish to IPO it is important that they do so with the optimal portfolio and at the optimal time so that the investment proposition is as strong as possible and dilution is minimised. Equally important in exploration is technical strategy and conducting analysis on the inherent risk of the exploration process. The financial return to technical risk ratio isn’t always very well correlated and companies may wish to optimise by not pursuing projects past certain decision points where risk isn’t adequately rewarded or stages that do not fit their own risk appetite. Plutus offer expertise to navigate both technical and corporate strategy and avoid the pitfalls mentioned above.

Portfolio optimisation

Many mid-tier, and some junior resource companies possess large asset portfolios, often as a result of acquisitions. These large portfolios may contain assets that do not justify their costs of upkeep and conversely assets which may currently be ignored but are of very high merit. In order for a company to have the best chances of success a thorough review of all assets should be conducted to properly allocate limited exploration and development funds in an efficient manner resulting in maximum benefit to the company. Assets which have very poor prospects and are expensive to maintain should be disposed of to ensure they do not act as a drag on funding other worthy assets or make the portfolio unattractive to potential investors. Plutus are able to undertake this work and offer a service that both gives robust financial analysis of assets but also thorough technical analysis deploying its expertise in understanding the requirements of todays market.

Project Orgination

Plutus have the ability to identify & secure undervalued and prospective assets and act quickly to generate significant upside. We are unbound by any internal covenants requiring independence and unafraid to commit to high worth projects. Some examples of what we can perform; identify projects of high worth to suit our partners needs, rapidly create clean corporate structures and assemble management teams, can proceed projects to the next stage corporately via pubilic offerings, strategic investors or sale, add value to projects through our technical teams and identify and secure complimentary opportunities for our partners.

Funding Options

Exploration and development projects need a constant stream of financing, some companies are able to do this out of cash flow but many others require outside capital due to lack of cash flow, high discovery/capital costs, dividend flow and financial efficiency. Therefore one of the biggest challenges in exploration is securing sources of funding to advance projects. Often board and management teams have little experience in raising the capital needed and require advice on what funding options are open to them, what they need to do and offer to realistically secure such funding and someone to ‘pitch’ their projects to the appropriate audience. Plutus offers such a service through either direct participation or intermediary services.

Techincal Reporting and Valuation

Plutus are able to offer technical reporting and valuation services on individual natural resources projects and larger portfolios. Such reports can be used to review potential acquisitions or divestments. Appropriate competent/qualified persons can be assigned for creating reports admissible to stock exchanges and utilised for fund raising purposes.

It is not the strongest that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change
— Charles Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection

Team

Directors

Niall Tomlinson

Director - Technical

Niall is an experienced geologist with expertise across a range of commodities in a number of jurisdictions including MENA, South America and Europe. Before joining Plutus, Niall was the Technical Manager for MENA focused AIM listed explorer Alecto Minerals, Senior Geologist with world renowned consultants SRK and Rio Tinto. Niall holds an MSc in Metals & Energy Finance from Imperial College London and an MSc in Mining Geology from Camborne School of Mines.

Paul Haywood

Director - Corporate

Paul has wealth of experience and success in delivering value for his investment network through a blended skill-set of corporate and operational experience including six years in the Middle East, building early stage and growth projects. More recently, Paul has been involved in senior management roles with UK and Australian public companies in the natural resources sectors including hard-rock exploration in the MENA region and O&G exploration in the FSU.

Mining & Exploration

Nick O'Reilly

Associate Exploration Geologist

Nick O’Reilly is a geologist with over 14 years’ experience in exploration programme valuation, audit, due diligence, design and project management, ranging from grassroots stage through feasibility study to production across all major commodities. Nick has a particular interest in uranium, lithium, gold and base metals exploration and has helped take projects from an early conceptual stage, through exploration, and resource definition, to a successful sale. He has worked extensively in Africa and central Asia as well as Europe and the Americas. He is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and currently Co – Chairman of the Association of Mining Analysts. Nick holds an MSc degree in Mineral Project Appraisal from Imperial College London (Royal School of Mines) and a BSc. in Applied Geology from Leicester University. He is Non-Executive Director of China Africa Resources PLC, a Director of Mining Analyst Consulting Ltd and Director of Singularity ONE (UK) Ltd.

Gareth Northam

Associate Exploration Geologist

Gareth is an exploration geologist with over ten years experience, specialising in the design of exploration strategies and management of exploration programmes. Gareth is a graduate of the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, London and has taken senior technical roles at junior mining and exploration companies following a background with Rio Tinto Exploration. Gareths commodity experience covers gold, uranium, iron ore, copper, nickel, mineral sands, diamonds and copper across Africa, Europe and South America.

Oil and Gas

Andrew Clark

Associate Geoscientist and Upstream Manager

A geophysicist with over thirty years of senior management experience in the international upstream oil and gas and geophysical services industries. A proven track record of driving growth in the services sector with his experience of managing large, varied and complex multinational operations in difficult and often unstable environments in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Previously Managing Director of United Geophysical Nigeria (1996-2005), Lagos; General Manager Worldwide Business Development for PGS Onshore (2006-2010), Houston; President of Prospectiuni SA (2011-2015), Bucharest; Presently active in introducing Central and Eastern European companies into Iran.

Tim Parsons

Associate Petroleum Engineer

Petroleum Engineer with 35 years experience. Global experience on and offshore from deep water operations in the Far East to onshore multi-rig operations in the Middle East, Amazon and Europe. Roles include Senior Drilling Supervisor at Schlumberger, Drilling Superintendent at Oxy Oman and Team Leader on shale projects in UK and France.

Dr John Helm

Associate Petroleum Geoscientist

Senior Geoscientist with 30years experience in hydrocarbon exploration. Recent roles include: Operations Geologist for ConocoPhillips in the North Sea; Team leader for BP gas operations in Azerbaijan; Sole point of contact for all geoscience issues for BP Angola and Consultant Wellsite geologist for Total in Africa.

News

Contact Us:

Plutus Strategies
3 St Michaels Alley
London, UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 3053 3631

Email:
nt@plutusstrategies.com