July 2014
MODERN MINING
3
COMMENT
I
ntriguing to see that the Mining Indaba
(or Investing in African Mining Indaba, to
give it its full name), has been sold by US-
based Mining Indaba LLC to UK-based
– and LSE-listed – Euromoney Interna-
tional Investor. Euromoney is probably not
well-known to most readers but it describes it-
self as an international online information and
events group. Among other activities, it is big
in financial and business publishing and its
titles include
Metal Bulletin, American Met-
als Market
and
Industrial Minerals
. The group
also runs a number of conferences, including
the well-known Coaltrans.
What does the acquisition mean for the
Mining Indaba? Well, according to Euromoney,
it intends growing the already huge event,
which is often described as the world’s larg-
est mining investment conference. Comments
Euromonery’s Chairman, Richard Ensor: “The
event is highly complementary with our com-
modities and investment portfolios and will
benefit from being part of a more diverse and
international platform. With Africa expected to
play a central role in the global metals and min-
ing sector for the foreseeable future, Euromoney
also intends to build onMining Indaba’s position
as a premier mining investment event by invest-
ing in content and the latest networking tools
and using our strong links with institutional
investors and governments around the world.”
The company also says that it intends
growing the conference outside South Africa,
building on the moves in this direction – not
entirely successful, by some accounts – already
made by Mining Indaba LLC.
While Euromoney is inheriting a very
healthy business, the Mining Indaba is not
without its challenges. It has been severely crit-
icised, for example, for being “irrelevant” and
earlier this year was the subject of a particularly
scathing attack by Sonzego Zibi (writing in
Business Day
) who said, “The Mining Indaba,
a gathering at which the voices of workers and
affected communities are expressly missing, is
just another expensive junket. It is where those
who already benefit from a flawed system pre-
tend to have a serious discussion but in reality
are just in Cape Town for a paid holiday. The
Indaba has carried on for too long, has achieved
little to nothing and its relevance and format
need serious re-evaluation before it is disrupted
by a protest one day.”
The new owners will also have to wrestle
with the problem of whether the Mining Indaba
is primarily an investment conference or a
trade show. When I first attended the event in
2000 – it was still, at the time, being held at the
Cape Sun Hotel – most of the exhibitors were
junior miners and explorers, showing off their
projects around Africa. Since then, the mix has
changed and today more and more of the exhib-
itors are companies who are essentially selling
goods and services to the mining industry.
The person who can take the credit for
having established the Mining Indaba in the
first place – and who had the brilliant idea
of selecting Cape Town rather than South
Africa’s mining capital, Johannesburg, as the
venue – was Sandy Lawrence of International
Investment Conferences. The inaugural event
was held in 1994 and was highly successful. It
grew by leaps and bounds just about every year
thereafter, eventually testing the Cape Sun’s
facilities to the limit and prompting a move to
the present venue, Cape Town’s International
Convention Centre.
When I attended in 2000, I doubt that there
were more than 2 000 delegates at most but this
figure has now grown to around 8 000. This
is only about one-third of what the PDAC in
Canada attracts but it is nevertheless an impres-
sive figure, the more so given that the quality of
delegates is also very high. In my experience,
just about anyone with any profile in African
mining attends and certainly most of the min-
ing ministers of African countries (and/or their
senior officials) tend to be present.
I’m not sure what will be happening to the
present Mining Indaba team but the current
MD, Jonathan Moore, seems upbeat. “We are
very pleased to be joining the Euromoney team
at a time when the outlook for African mining
is visibly brightening,” he says. “The vision
and long-term commitment of Euromoney to
the metals and mining sector fit perfectly with
the strategy of Mining Indaba. With the strong
financial backing, event management expertise,
media support and prestigious investor reach of
its new parent, Mining Indaba is well placed to
deliver exciting, new learning and networking
opportunities to its loyal customers.”
The next Mining Indaba – the 21st in the
series – will be held from 9-12 February 2015
and it will be interesting to see to what extent
the new owners have reinvigorated the format.
With mining in a deflated state worldwide, it
will be difficult for them to grow the numbers
substantially but my guess is that the 2015
event will nevertheless be a record-breaker,
both in terms of delegates and exhibitors.
Arthur Tassell
Africa’s premier mining
event
gets a new owner
“With the
strong financial
backing, event
management
expertise, media
support and
prestigious
investor reach of
its new parent,
Mining Indaba
is well placed to
deliver exciting,
new learning
and networking
opportunities
to its loyal
customers.”
Jonathan Moore, MD,
Mining Indaba
