Aug 6 2013
The vision of Brazil Minerals (BMIX) is to become a premier diversified mining company focused on Brazil. Our team is our main strength.
In our team we combine over 100 years of collective deep and local Brazilian mining experience, centered on personal relationships, cultivated face to face even in today’s world, and add to it the expertise from our team members who come from the fast-paced, quantitatively-driven world of private equity and venture capital. We mix the transparency of the U.S. capital markets with the strong respect for property rights afforded by Brazil.
We believe that BMIX is and will continue to grow as an attractive alternative to invest in the broad mining and minerals sector of Brazil. Currently, one U.S. publicly traded equity provides such diversification and it is Vale (NYSE: VALE), the Brazilian giant mining company with over $80 billion in market capitalization. Over time, BMIX intends to be an alternative to those institutional investors desiring access to this investment vertical. Differently than Vale, we will stay focused on Brazil as sole destination.
The business model of BMIX in the medium term is to control a certain number of attractive, profitable or near-term profitable operating mines, while partnering on other projects. We use capital judiciously in part given the founder’s past experience as a venture capitalist. We like to diversify our risk across minerals. We intend to maintain a small operation, outsourcing as much as possible, so as to become profitable as soon as possible, and to eventually start paying dividends to our shareholders. We like many aspects of the business model of Royal Gold (Nasdaq: RGLD), a very successful company in the mining and minerals sector.
Currently we are already a small producer of alluvial diamonds and gold through the 55% percentage ownership of Mineração Duas Barras Ltda. (“Duas Barras”), a Brazilian producer with the largest alluvial diamond and gold processing plant in Latin America. Diamonds have clearly become an attractive asset class, with good returns, little correlation to equity markets, and lower volatility than gold. Given its initial presence in Duas Barras, a significant property, there is an opportunity for BMIX over the next several years to aggregate other diamond properties and become the premier producer of diamonds in Latin America.
We also have the right to develop and own 75% of a vanadium, titanium, and iron project in the state of Piauí, Brazil. We are also the owner of the mining rights to the Borba Project, a large area where gold has been found but no geology has been done to date. Both of these properties are in Brazil; Duas Barras is at the margins of the Jequitinhonha River in the State of Minas Gerais, and the Borba Project is in the Amazon region in the state of Amazonas. Further details can be found in the Properties section of this site.
Why Brazil? Brazil is a top destination for investment for these reasons:
- Stable economy with low unemployment and a growing middle class
- Stable political environment (democratic elections, free press)
- Tradition of welcoming foreign investment
- Strong and well-capitalized financial institutions
- Inflation under control
Furthermore, Brazil is one of the world’s safest mining jurisdictions for investors as it has:
- A strong and diversified mining sector
- Pro-mining laws and procedures
- A clear permitting process with the federal government as the sole authority
- No expropriations in its history
- Needed services and human resources available for the development of new mines
Additionally, many Brazilian geologists would readily admit that only approximately 5% of the Brazilian territory has been properly geologically mapped, leaving a strong potential for new and large discoveries.
Source: http://www.brazil-minerals.com/