Commercial Services
Due Diligence
85% of takeovers destroy value for the acquiring company. You can improve your chance of being in the 15% by:
- A thorough understanding of the technical foundation and potential to improve an operation.
- An assessment of the organisation’s current effectiveness and a rigorous plan for improvement.
- Comparing 'turnaround' plans with past performance in comparable organisations.
- A sober assessment of the potential, costs, and ramp up time of improvements.
- A rigorous 'war plan' to deliver the gains for the first month, first 100 days, and the first year.
You may not always like our answers. Even so we think you need to hear them, to keep your powder dry for the right opportunity.
Concentrate Contracts
Many operators miss opportunities to tweak product quality to increase margin. Contract terms between concentrators and smelter/refiners are based on decades-old technology and annual negotiations. This leaves opportunity for arbitrage which could be exploited either by the smelter or the concentrator – but is usually left to the metal trader.
We have a detailed knowledge of concentrating, smelting and refining, concentrate contracts, the impact of impurities and an extensive database of concentrate quality and smelter capabilities. Combined with an understanding of your operation, technology options and trader’s business models, we can help you extract more margin. Don't worry, the traders will survive.
Technology and IP
We have experience in assessing hundreds of technologies, applying dozens of them in our operations, and then developing and globally commercialising five major technologies (in grinding, flotation, smelting, refining and leaching).
Taking technologies from concept to global product engenders a rare understanding of the many elements that must align to cross the 'innovation valley of death' to build a business. You can't afford to learn from mistakes – one poor application can be fatal to the reputation of an emerging technology. Starting as a technology purchaser and moving to technology supplier develops instincts that you can’t learn from books.
Insurance Claims
Settling an insurance claim for an operator requires a realistic discussion of what was practically possible both in the base case and after the event in Plan B. This needs people who understand the limits of operations and technology who can speak with the credibility of decades of experience in which they had to develop 'Plan Bs' to recover their own operations from significant events.
