Mining Companies: Where to Get Money? – Investor Presentation

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 08, 2010

Mining Companies: Where to Get Money? – Investor Presentation

In earlier posts, we discussed some issues regarding the essence of what investors want to know.  Here are some of the hints as to how present yourself. It is only natural that you want to provide as much information as possible to entice investor. However, in many cases the abundance of information scares the people off, so initial task is to get investor engaged. Here comes Investor Presentation – a short (usually a Power Point) production supported by the Executive Summary.  This should not be more that 12-15 slides that usually are presented in electronic format either on screen or by flip-chart – all should take no more than 25-30 minutes. There is a lot of information on the Web regarding how to make Investor Presentation (some of the links are provided in this post) – so I will not go into much detail.
Among the key features of any Investor Presentations are:

• Highlights of investment attractiveness of your business
• Balanced amount of your business details
• Professional look and established content (One very important piece of advice: Use Professional Language! I often come across businesspersons who think that they themselves can make Investor Presentation – this is wrong! Investment industry has a specific language – and investors are used to it)

In the following graph I attempt to show what may be included in a typical Investor Presentation for mining company.

One very important observation. They say that investments are made in the management team, not in the idea. Thus it is very important to show that you and you management team have a good experience in your business. Here the accomplishments play a great role: Did you ever raise some funds? From whom? Did you exactly know how to start mining operations from scratch? Did you ever successfully sell your mining products? To whom? So, convince the investors that you are an A player with an A team.

And some tips for making Investor Presentations and meetings with investors:

• Build up and report a transparent and persuasive story
• Do not assume that investors understand your business: elude any jargon and professional terminology
• Reduce the amount of information
• Explain any numbers and what is behind them
• Have a faultless, convincing account of what your future plans
• Take your time, don’t rush
• Avoid simple mistakes: every document should be proofed, no typo or grammatical mistakes; and each page should be numbered
• Coach management team before meeting with investors

And finally, here is an excellent source to view real Investor Presentations with actual audio and video slides: RETAILROADSHOW web-site. RetailRoadshow.com provides public access to online roadshow presentations for current public offerings (IPOs and other offerings). You can view the online roadshow for a current offering and download and read the prospectus. (This all started way back in 2005 and you may read WSJ article about it). While this is tailored for investors – this is an excellent source to watch and train for investor presentation. One this is bad – these roadshows do not live long – just till the listing date.

It happens that right now, we have mining company – doing business primarily in South America – and we may watch and listen to their investor presentation:

And as usual some links:

• Excellent guidance Presenting to Investors: The Elements of a Compelling Case by SJF Advisory Services
• And another one: Tips for Investor Presentations from USTAR
• A Template for Investor Presentation by Daryl Scott, Scott Technology Group, Inc.
• Wisconsin Investment Partners 15-minute presentation template
• Strategic Business Overview from Houston Technology Center
• Building and Delivering  the Presentation by Cooley Goodward LLP
• This is a good tutorial: The Investor Presentation from The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and this: New Venture Challenge Phase II Kickoff
• Investor Presentations by Susan Block, BLOCK BOWMAN &ASSOCIATES, LLC – a good practical advise
• PREPARING YOUR INVESTOR PRESENTATION by CATALYST Corporate Finance Lawyers
• PREPARING YOUR INVESTOR PRESENTATION by Lions Capital Group
• Demystifying the Investor Presentation by Cheryl Isen
• As an example of a quality Investor Presentation, you may download the one from Homeland Energy Group Ltd. – a mining company, doing business in South Africa.