It’s been an important year for Bushveld Minerals Limited (LON:BMN), the UK-listed company which recently spun off an investment in South African and Namibian tin into AfriTin, also listed in London.
Shares in Bushveld have increased from 1.57pence per share a year ago to 8.55p/share today – its highest level in more than three years, and values the company at £70m. In South African terms, that’s a valuation of R1.3bn which would make it worth more than Wescoal Holdings or Coal of Africa (renamed MC Mining).
According to Anthony Viljoen, a shareholder in Bushveld Minerals and CEO of AfriTin, the magic number is $100m since at that market capitalisation, it’s possible to attract more institutional support. Currently, about 80% of the share is held in retail hands. There is some institutional support – such as Barclays Wealth and Investment Management (UK) which owns about 4% as of August 31 – but there’s not enough of the larger institutions, said Viljoen. “We have a lot of retail shareholders so the share is volatile,” he said.
Right now, Bushveld Minerals is benefiting from its exposure to vanadium prices which it earned through the $11m acquisition of Bushveld Vametco, a transaction completed at the end of last year. Located in the Bushveld Complex, Vametco is slap bang in the world’s largest high grade primary vanadium resources. Given the concentration of ownership in primary vanadium production – most of it is produced from slag – that gives Vametco an important competitive advantage.
