Rockfire Resources (LSE:ROCK) — Investor Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the ROCKFIRE RESOURCES PLC Investor Presentation. That is recorded presentation. Investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just click Q and A, scroll to the bottom, type your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. I'll review all questions submitted today and publish responses where appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to David Price, CEO. Good morning.

0:28 Good day. How are you? And, welcome to everybody. Thank you for joining me today. So ROCKFIRE RESOURCES, it's quite a unique a unique position for our company and, one that was completely unexpected as our, one of the managers in, Dubai, Craig Preston, said he said that, ROCKFIRE is probably the only company in the world that, was drilling for zinc in Greece and ended up finding a gold refinery in Dubai. So I thought that was quite apt, and actually highlights how unique ROCKFIRE is in the position we find ourselves today. Now I think that's something that the investors can take away with a tremendous positive that, in fact, ROCKFIRE is looking at buying a gold refinery in Dubai, and that doesn't mean to say that we will detract from any of the other work that we're doing. But what it means is that ROCKFIRE is assuming that all goes well with our due diligence.

1:33 We'll end up owning 100% of a very historic and very unique gold refinery in Dubai. And I wanted to focus on this today because, it's quite a big story, and it's quite exciting for the management. It's quite exciting for the refinery, and, of course, it's quite exciting for all of our investors. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the history of how we ended up here in this position. A number of people have said that they, were surprised by this, this transaction and the announcement that we had made to the stock exchange. And I wanted to give you a little bit more background of how we find ourselves in this position. And back in June, ROCKFIRE was approached by an investor in Dubai to be able to invest into ROCKFIRE.

2:25 They liked the story in MOLLO, of course, with the critical minerals, and they took part in a placement back in July. Now since that time, the investor has suffered unwarranted attention and, and has approached ROCKFIRE and said, would you be interested in buying the the gold refinery in Dubai? So we looked at the gold refinery, and, we found that it's it's actually a really great business. It's a tremendously run business. The management is excellent. The people working in the refinery are absolutely brilliant. They're amazing group of people. And, of course, it's a very good business. And as you'll see from our actual RNS back in about three weeks ago, four weeks ago now, they had processed 3,800,000 ounces of gold during 2022 and one point two six million ounces of silver.

3:27 So there's an enormous throughput in the in the actual operations. They had revenues of £3,900,000,000, and that is an amazing business for ROCKFIRE to be buying into. And we're very proud of that that this opportunity has come along. So, of course, as management of ROCKFIRE, we said that's a that's a great opportunity for us. What it means is that ROCKFIRE will have revenue, and that's important. It's important for investors. A lot of investors say, how are you gonna monetize ROCKFIRE, Dave? And this is precisely how we intend to do that. And, buying buying a business that is profitable is a tremendous, spot for us to be in and a great opportunity and something that we will, absolutely put our best into.

4:14 As you can see from the slide in front of you, Emirates is located in, Dubai, of course, called the city of gold, for very good reason. Emirates has actually been operating for more than twenty five years. It is a very well renowned refinery throughout not only The Middle East, but also into Asia and Africa, of course. And they produce the finest quality of gold and silver bullion. They actually produce nine four nines, 99 nine nine nine point nine purity of gold, which is a tremendous purity of gold. Of course, you can't get any more pure than that. And it produces not only gold bars and silver bars, but also coins, metals, and, of course, corporate branding gold ingots and memorabilia.

5:01 So that's a a wide range of products that the refinery actually creates. So I wanted to show you a quick video now just before we go on through this presentation, and the video shows the Emirates Gold, the refinery, and it'll give you a flavor for what's ahead for ROCKFIRE.

5:48 So that's pretty exciting video. The, the next slide there, as you can see, I'll, I'll bring that up, is, is, of course, the gold. And, Emirates is committed to get to, the highest business standards, compliance, ethics, and ROCKFIRE takes that responsibility very, very highly. So it's important that, responsible gold sourcing is something that is dear to all of our hearts at, ROCKFIRE and, of course, Emirates, and we continue to, to actually apply that responsible gold ethic to our work. As we go forward, of course, ROCK FIRE management will become more involved with the refinery as our due diligence completes. And, one of the most important aspects of where we are right now with ROCKFIRE is, of course, our due diligence process.

6:39 I'll show you the next slide here. The refining, of course, in the actual, process, very important stage. There's, extremely state of the art, refining and minting that's been done being done at Emirates Gold, and it's it's state of the art stuff. So really good to have that quality. There's the quality of the minting. You can have a look at this as your leisure later. These slides will be available after this presentation. But there's some of the coins that they meant, and, of course, they then go on to, I want to talk about now about the actual the the agreement itself. I think this is very important here. We are buying a 100% of Emirates Gold and 99% of Impressive Bullion. Now Impressive Bullion is actually the the trading house, so the gold trading house associated with Emirates Gold. So we are buying two businesses for a total consideration of 20,000,000 US dollars.

7:36 We've already acquired 10% of both of the companies with a $2,000,000 deposit that we put down last week, and the remaining shares will be transferred on completion of the due diligence. There's a number of steps to go through in order to complete the transaction. One is, of course, we have to do due diligence on the two businesses, and that's that's a given. Now the interesting thing about Emirates and Impressive is that, of course, they are businesses that have, suffered from a reputational self, damage due to previous owners of the company. And, of course, the businesses themselves are very well run. We're not buying any distressed assets because it's a bad business or because, they're actually, running it badly. It's run very, very well. And, the reason that we're buying this now is, of course, unwarranted, reputation of previous owners of the company. So that's an opportunity for us.

8:36 And as you can see, we do have to have a publication of admission document. ROCKFIRE is currently in, a suspension. And until we complete the admiss the admission document and we actually hold a general meeting of our shareholders, then then completion will take place. So we hope that you'll all participate in that general meeting, which will be announced as we progress. And, as I mentioned, the due diligence is well on track, and we have accountants and lawyers and advisers coming at our ears at the moment as you'd expect with a transaction of this size. And, so we're we're going through all of that at the moment. A lot of people ask how long that will take, and I guess that sort of process is something it's hard to put a time limit on.

9:23 In in experience from, the London Stock Exchange previously, other people have had experiences with this, and they say anywhere between two and eight months, that sort of time frame. So it's it's a moving target, and, unfortunately, I can't be more specific on that at this time. But what I can guarantee is that we're working as hard as we possibly can. We've got lots and lots of people working on this, and, it will be completed as quickly as we can. And that's probably the only assurance I can provide at this point in time. Of course, we need, regulatory approvals. Now the regulatory approval approvals are not only in London, but, of course, in The UAE as well. So there's a process to go through, and one of the critical things is Emirates to be reinstated on The U UAE good deliveries list. Now that's a that's a certification of the gold, and that's something that we're keen to get back as quickly as we possibly can.

10:24 And that's something that we're we're working hard on. We need to satisfy the due diligence on the two businesses as mentioned earlier. We're proposing a fundraise of £14,700,000 approximately, and that will be to, complete the remaining 80% I'm sorry, 90% acquisition of the companies. So we already have binding but conditional subscription agreements for that entire amount, which is which is tremendous to have that in place already. So we have some tremendous people with really great, vision to be able to assist us with this, and it's the belief and the vision of where we can take ROCKFIRE that is really exciting to people. So, we're looking at a company that will have, cash flow, positive cash flow, and we will be looking at other projects as well. And I think this is also important is that part of part of the strategy for building a a vertically integrated gold company, which includes exploration and mining of gold, bringing new clients in with with sourcing of gold for the refinery, then minting of the of the product. We also have the the, of course, the trading the gold trading. So it's a it's a gold focused company, and it's something that, we're very excited about. You can see there the final bullet point, Gordon Hart and David Price, have joined the management team of the target companies already.

11:50 We've spent a bit of time in Dubai recently and plan to be spending a bit more time there going forward. So, ROCKFIRE is, is tremendously well placed. It's a a great story. This is only a very short presentation because I wanted to bring everybody up to date and explain that RNS a little bit more because I have had some questions about that. So, look, feel free to to email. You can see there the info at ROCKFIRE dot co dot u k. That will come to me, and I'll be able to answer any questions that you might have going, excuse me, going forward. So, that's really all I wanted to say today. Unfortunately, I can't say too much more because we are in a, in suspension. We do have a lot of due diligence going on, and there's a lot of activity and work going on in the background. Everybody's very busy to get this completed.

12:38 I apologize that I can't be more specific on some of the details, but I hope that brings you up to date with where we are and some of the reasoning behind it and where we expect ROCKFIRE to be going, and it's very exciting. That's fantastic, David. Thank you indeed for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab just situated on the right hand corner of the screen. Just so David takes a few moments to review those questions submitted already. I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. David, I appreciate, obviously, you're in a position where you can't answer everything that comes through. But if you wouldn't mind, just click on that q and a tab. And where appropriate to do so, if you could just read out the question and give you a response, and we'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Sure. Yep. That's great. I'll just quickly find find this answer to this one for you.

13:31 Ladies and gentlemen, do bear with me one second as David just disconnected. We'll have him back in one moment. Thank you.

14:10 Ladies and gentlemen, do bear with me. David's just reconnecting and we'll have him back in one moment just to answer your questions. So please continue to submit your questions just using the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of the screen. Type in your question and press enter. As David's back in, we'll cut through those questions. Thank you.

14:42 David, thanks. I can see you're just reconnecting there. Let's just pop on your mic and camera, continue through, and we'll start the q and a. Thank you. And, gentlemen, just bear with me. David just reconnecting now, and we'll have him back with you in one moment.

15:14 David, we've got you back. Hi. You okay? You can hear us okay? Sorry about that. I just had to duck off for a quick cup of coffee. I hope you guys did too. So anyway Fantastic. David, if you just click on that q and a tab just on the right hand corner of your screen, and just start at the top, read out the question where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Yeah. Sure. No worries. Thank you. So the question here, with China banning exports of germanium and gallium, where does the EU stand in supporting ROCKFIRE's end goal? Is there a certain threshold of market cap we need before we are noticed? So, look, the answer to that is no. There's no threshold of market cap that's required for ROCKFIRE to be noticed. In fact, we did a presentation a month ago in in Athens, and I got my country manager to do that presentation in Greek. It went down extremely well.

16:00 The they after his presentation, they they actually had the prime minister was taught was involved, and the local mayor was interviewed. So there's a lot of attention on ROCKFIRE in Greece and Europe generally. So, of course, you're quite right. Europe is actually looking for its own domestic sources of germanium and gallium particularly, And we're very fortunate to have that at Molay, and that's something that we're we're very conscious of is that the gallium and the germanium actually add tremendous value to the the actual zinc equivalent grade. So it's it's somewhere between 3540% uplift in the grade when you add in the germanium and the gallium. So it's really very good to have that there. There is a lot of exposure in Europe from the Greek press that that ROCKFIRE is is part of there, and they get featured occasionally with the germanium. So we've got great support locally, and we've got great support in Athens, and, we're getting very much noticed in Europe already. So, that's that's that's a really good thing from that point of view.

17:08 On the Mollai project from the next JORC upgrade, what's the predicted timeline for a completed feasibility study? So we're planning to be drilling for the rest of this year. That's the, that's the plan for for Molay, and that drilling will get us to, you know, indicated resources. So we'll we'll lift the confidence in the resource from inferred to indicated. That's a a very strategic part of the development of the project. Inferred resources cannot be used in feasibility studies. You can only use indicated resources. So the indicated resources is something that will be achieved by the end of this calendar year, and then we're planning to start our feasibility study early next year. Now in Greece, the pro timeline is probably going to be eight to nine, and it might stretch out to twelve months of feasibility.

17:58 And that's fairly standard in most countries. You will have quite a lengthy feasibility study. So I I would expect that if all goes well, we probably have a completed feasibility study by the end of two thousand and twenty four. So I think that's, something that, is probably achievable in relisting. What are the opportunities to scale the gold business, and how profitable can you see it becoming? Well, that's a great question. The opportunities to scale the gold business are huge, actually. And one of the things that we are planning already is that we will look at taking more off take agreements from operating gold mines and particularly from Africa, from Asia, from Europe. There's probably three possibly four refineries already in Australia, but there's there's few and far between these these refineries. And Dubai is perfectly placed for this. The situation in Dubai and its geographical position is is outstanding. So it's something that we will, we will work very hard at, and, I anticipate that we'll be looking at using lots and lots of mines and getting, getting their offtake agreements to be able to buy their their dore and refine it in Dubai. So that's something we will work very hard at. So the opportunity for scaling is fantastic.

19:18 On the other end of things, with the with the actual supply to buyers of the gold, we'll also be looking at that. And we've got a couple of key people that will be joining us, shortly, and they will be actually focused on building those new businesses of suppliers, of of, I'm sorry, of, of buyers, particularly throughout Europe. So that's something that is, is really exciting. So we've already discussed that opportunity. It is real opportunity. We are working hard towards that. And as we complete this transaction, that will become a strong focus, and we'll work very hard on that. So that's something there. So I'm just going through some of the questions. Will trading be suspended for the two to eight months mentioned?

20:03 Look. That's that's something that is still up in the air, and the the two to eight months is is is is quite a wide window. I appreciate that. And it all depends on the due diligence process. The AIM documentation is something that can be done reasonably standard, the documentation. It's a known path. What is unknown, of course, is the due diligence. So that's something that will take the time, and it's something that we have are already working very hard on. And and that's something that is worth worth keeping in mind. And I'm sorry. I can't be a bit more specific on that timing. I hope you understand why. What did the previous owners do wrong? Well, actually, nothing. The previous owners were were falsely accused of of a number of things, and I I'm not going to go into that because quite frankly, it's it's it's none of my business. I'm not going to be anywhere near the previous owners. In fact, the previous owners aren't anywhere near it at the moment. So, poor old, Emirates Gold has suffered a, a reputational damage, and, we were planning to, of course, buy those assets, and that will mean that there's no longer the previous owners or even the current owners involved in that business. We will own it 100%. So I don't wanna delve too much into that.

21:25 It's it's something that's in the past. And in fact, whatever they were accused of, my understanding is that it's, fairly unwarranted anyway. So I won't go too much more into that. What are the net assets of, Emirates? That's about, 41,000,000 US dollars of net assets, I understand. And, re my can you say what tonnage of zinc makes the mine economically viable? We're actually looking at about 400,000 tons of zinc equivalent. So the 400,000 tons of zinc equivalent is, is a, about ten year mine life operating at, at 400 at, four four million ounce resource, and, that's 40,000 ounces, tons per year. And that's something that is, in our mind, a fairly realistic size for ROCKFIRE.

22:17 And it also is an importantly, it's an import it's the right size for the deposit. You have to make sure that you've got the right size plant for the size of your deposit. There's a lot of companies that build very impressive and very large plants and then fail to feed the plant. So the objective is to make sure that we can feed the plant. And in order to ensure that we can feed the plant, we make sure that the plant is suitably sized for the deposit. So that's something that we can, that we can work on as well. Do we have a view on the jock upgrade at Moai? Are there any further news on EU funding for the germanium? Look. The, the jock upgrade, is is up in the air because, I'm not really sure how much of that indicated resource will go into into in in I'm sorry. How much of that inferred resource will go into the indicated category? And

23:08 I think I'd be a bit misleading if I tried to to put some figures on that at the moment, to be honest with you. It's something that, will come out with the with the work that SRK is doing for us. So we have a very reputable company that's doing that that work for us to be able to bring that up, and, that's that's something that, we certainly will keep the market informed once we know those numbers. Again, I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I have to be careful about, how much of that in inferred will will actually end up in the indicated category. Category. So, about that. So that's the that's the end of the questions, and, thank you for the questions. Feel free, as I mentioned, to send any further questions to [email protected], and I'd be very happy to, to answer them for you. David, thanks very much indeed for the presentation and for addressing those questions.

23:57 And, of course, any further questions that come through, as David said, we'll be able to get those to David for his review and publish back out. David, just before we redirect investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to you and the team, can I just ask you just for a few closing comments, please? Sure. Look. As I've mentioned before, ROCKFIRE is moving from a a very small explorer of zinc and gold and copper and silver to actually a gold refiner with cash flow, and that's something that will, I hope, be reflected in the in the share price. It I I think that it will be, and that's up to when we when we actually come out of suspension is when the reality will actually set in and people can actually start to trade. So I think people will become excited as they learn this story.

24:43 And the as I mentioned earlier, probably the best thing is that we can build, Emirates Gold to be a a global provider of, of really high purity gold. And that's something that we're focused on and something that we will be working hard to achieve. David, that's fantastic. Thanks again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session? You'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order David and the team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and it's greatly valued by the company. On behalf of David and the team at ROCKFIRE RESOURCES PLC, we'd like to thank you for today's presentation, and good morning to you all. Thank you.