KEFI Gold and Copper Plc (KEFI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the KEFI Gold and Copper plc post-AGM Investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself, however the company will review all questions which today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to let the following, Paul. And I'd now like to hand you over to Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, Founding Executive Chair. Good morning to you.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the trouble to join us today. Good afternoon here in Cyprus now, but good morning in London. I should commence by just explaining the timing and the circumstances before launching into a presentation and webinar. We ordinarily have a webinar which is open to the public not just shareholders on a quarterly basis. And this time, we thought we'd do it straight after the Annual General Meeting. We're very happy to have another webinar in the not-too-distant future, if it's warranted, but we just thought we'd do that today because we received results from a poll that shareholders overwhelmingly voted for interaction like this rather than being expected to turn up to meetings physically. So we have had the Annual General Meeting, the formal meeting, and there are still a number of people here in the room from that meeting. And that meeting -- the results of that meeting were released to the market reported to the market a little while ago, whereby all the resolutions were passed. So having had the Annual General Meeting, we're now having an open webinar for people who may or may not be shareholders also. And hopefully, that satisfies the whole spectrum of people who are following the company. In doing so, the format we've adopted is that given that the directors of the company are here, we're in multiple day meetings across a range of issues on the company, but we've also targeted around the Annual General Meeting so that everybody is here. So the first thing I may do is actually just introduce you because you don't often get the opportunity to see all the directors. But immediately to my right we've got Mark Tayler, non-Executive Director and an African man of African mining banking expertise and specialty over a lifetime of work for major financial institutions and in the mining industry before that. Then we've got Alistair Clark, social environmental expert who literally joins the Board tomorrow. I've taken the liberty to have Alistair on the table just introducing, but Alistair if, I may say, is quite well known internationally in the social and environmental specialty area, which obviously now and more people's lips than it has been for the mining industry for my life. But now everybody talks about it and Alistair's a prominent person in that very important to Kathy because we're about to start focusing very much on those physical activities interfacing with the community. And further to my variety is Rich Robinson, another African gentleman who spent his lifetime in the mining industry running companies that have developed and operate perhaps more mines that we would admit to today [indiscernible] That's the nonexecutive directors of the Board. Also in the room, you can't see them the executive directors I didn't mean my screen just went dead. Have I got the wrong screen now Alessandro? How do...

Sir let me just move that on for you, sir.

Okay. Can you control the slides so that I don't muck it up?

Yes, of course.

Let's go back on to the cover, please, still Executive Directors in the room are John Leach, Finance Director, who spent a lifetime in mining finance and Hydrocarbons Finance in this industry. Eddy Solbrandt, who is Director of the main holding company of these subsidiaries and the Chief Operating Officer appointed about 2 years ago, adding something like that 8 months and carrying more and more load as we go live on the ground, so to speak. We also have other friends and people in the audience, including from Ethiopia from Cyprus and the head office financial team this year as well. I think I've covered the introductions I should cover today. Now what I might do is just to do a very short presentation so that most of the time can be allocated to questions. In the introduction, it will only take perhaps 15 minutes, but just present an update, as I see it at the main points. That's Tulu Kapi. When I arrived, I love visiting their quite place, beautiful place. Beautiful people, easy to get on with my daughter have worked out there for 4 years in that area, never worried about her safety. And then it changed a few years later. And we all know the consequences of that change as the country have a welmingly move to introduce democracy. It caused an incredible social upheaval, internal conflict and even a civil war that has all abated, but there was a period of years, I'd say between 2017 and 18 months ago, that was unpredictable turbulence and it took a lot of hard work to protect ourselves. Should you turn the slide now Alexandra? Thank you. Now why did we go there? Because of the geological legacy or request mother nature on this part of the world. There's been mining for millennia, but modern man hasn't applied modern techniques and technology and knowledge to open it up. And in the area known as the [indiscernible] from the North Sudan, Saudi Arabia on the other side of the Red Sea. We went there in 2008. And we've made two discoveries. We've made an acquisition, which we then overhauled. So we've assembled three advanced projects. And we have what we call a leadership position. We're amongst the leaders, if not the leader in both the Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. And the crowd has started to arrive. I mean what we try to do in this game, if I can put it that way, is to be ahead of the pack. Being ahead of the pack in you go into areas that are regarded labeled as frontier markets for mining. Otherwise, they will already be there. So you go in first or early. You take a position, you work hard. -- and you're betting on yourself and you're betting on the turning of the type. And you could say now, given the number of names and the quality of the names on that map, that the tide has turned. The world's 2 biggest gold miners, Barrick and Newmont, perhaps the highest profile explorer, developer in the world. Ivan home and a number of other very decent organizations have all pegged and answered the space over the last few years. So you might say the industry is waking up to what we bet on in 2008. And maybe you'll say that they were smart enough not to come in too early and maybe we did go into early. It's your opinion. But at least we're there, and we'll be the first cab off the rank in Ethiopia and the first cab off the ranks in Saudi Arabia opened up. And so the regulatory regimes of both countries and the political atmosphere and support from both countries towards mining has radically changed for the better in the last 18 months. And we're now a beneficiary of that having already been in this region for all these years. I'm sorry Alexandra, can you deter SP-6 I won't dwell on this because I suspect everybody on the webinar would know these things. But just to touch on the fact that the first project to actually start development is the European project. A fairly classic Australian style open pit underground CIL gold project, there are scores of them in Australia. There are many of them in Africa as well, but I know the ones in Australia because that's where I grew up. And nothing unusual about it healthy grade, fairly straightforward technically -- it's all about social and regulatory license. That's what it's about. Community integration so that the community protects and supports government regulation so that we can apply modern mining finance and modern mining practices in a country that hasn't done it for 30 years. And over in Saudi Arabia, less advanced projects that are coming on through their feasibility study phases at various stages along that pathway. We're confident they'll come to fruition, but it's very early days still. And on the map, you can see the 2 sides of the Red Sea and the brown blobs sort of where the geology surfaces that we were chasing. Next slide, please Alexandra,. NPVs, one can spend a whole evening debating the relevance of NPVs and how to calculate it and discard rates, whatever. The bottom line is it's just an indicator. And what happens in this business, in which I've been for some decades. Everybody always calculate NPVs to get some measuring stick about what they're doing is worthwhile. And the stock market capitalization start as a very heavily discounted percentage of NPV like we are today, 10% of NPV or something like that. And as you do risk for the projects as they work through financing and permitting financing, construction and sell on production, they derisk and they get closer and closer to reflecting NPVs. When we put up NPVs, we're not saying the company should be valued at the NPV today. We've never said that and nor should we. But what we're saying is it's 1 measuring step that probably is the most commonly used. That indicates where you're heading, if you completely derisk and you get into production, and that's the bet. That's why we do it to create value and wealth for all the stakeholders. Next slide, please, Alexandra. I dwell on the nuances of this slide. But in essence, all it's saying is that in a sector that has very weak stock markets, which this sector has had for a decade or more. It's particularly important not to take on projects that rely on the stock market to be developed. There are 4,000 preproduction, exploration and development companies in the world that are listed and either they're wasting their time or they have to adopt this approach because the stock markets will not support today hundreds of millions of dollars of development capital for a young company. It's just too weak for this sector for a whole bunch of global reasons, nothing to do with us or our company or our region, just global factors. So what we do is we finance at the project or subsidiary level by using very highly well understood internationally practices, they have never been done before in Ethiopia and are now being applied for the first time in Saudi. And it's -- we say modern mining project finance, but there's a whole bunch of things that, that implies to the industry professional that in Ethiopia, in particular, just hadn't been applied before and regulations and laws have to be changed to accommodate it. That took negotiation. At the same time as our people in the country, we had to renegotiate a whole range of things with the government. -- in order for that to go forward. And as a result of which the capital that we've assembled for the development of SulaCap will deploy subject to documentation and the fine print reflecting what was a greater for government. And otherwise, I would not have deployed. They simply will not deploy capital for the first mover in a country that's just been through several work without the protection of modern project finance conventions and now they will. So as frustrating as it is, -- that's the reality. And as committed and as optimistic as I've always been and the team has always been Otherwise, we've been wasting our time. We've always known it could be workout. We've been confident of that. and we knew we would get there. But we -- the reality is we couldn't start the project until it was safe to do so. And until the regulations committed in the way in which the syndicate demand. And that way, these different entities can come in, in different positions sharing risk, sharing financial commitment and putting up the development capital. Next slide, please Alexandra. Because of Tulu Kapi’s grade in particular, I can see these graphs have maxed out at the top here. That mustn't be a straight line, I got max out on the top. But it's basically showing the cash flow available for debt service at different gold prices compared with the cash flow required for debt service. And as you can see, there's at these gold prices that have been modeled that are shown on the screen, it's a very healthy coverage. So whilst we're lying on development finance at the project level, I suppose what I'm saying is we feel that it's been done at a reasonable level from the point of view of reliance on debt and a reasonable ratio of equity to debt so that there's adequate protection and coverage for debt service. Next slide, please. In terms of milestones ahead this slide, -- here we are in the middle of the middle section, Q2, Q3. We've just clear what we regard as the 3 critical hurdles with the government for the money to flow are reaching negotiations because they weren't just about this project. The first 1 was about the admission of a particular bank country membership with Ethiopia goes way beyond just this transaction required parliament and corporate structure of a major development bank to resolve negotiations between the 2 of them as a backdrop for this project. and other things in the future that was achieved in March. Secondly, we needed to -- we needed to keep our word that we would treat this area as a red zone area from a security point of view, even though it's not a red zone area nearly all of the time. It's usually green or amber. I can put it that way, in terms of security risk. -- to melt it down into sort of a description. But we gave our word that we treated as a Red Zone area to protect people and property and capital in order for the syndicate to deploy its people and its capital -- and the security services of the country were deployed from the Prime Ministry instruction in April and a blanketed the whole district and provided the correct foundation for us to go forward. Not to say that we've done all the jobs, not to say that there isn't a thousand things to do to set up the system and so on, and protocols, but that was the foundation that was needed to get the bill role. The last 1 was capital controls. It's a closed economy by and large, setting about opening itself up, but were we required -- sorry, Alexandra, could you put it back? Just trying to keep my screen alive and it pushes the slides or any what I try to do when it doesn't. But we needed the right to pay our obligations internationally without restriction and so on, and we weren't prepared to -- weren't able to go ahead really until that was resolved. -- major initiatives by the central bank of the country to allow that to proceed. And that was achieved and the fine print is being checked by the lawyers of the Central Bank and our finances as we speak. And that allows us now to trigger submissions for final board approvals and credit approval, so that's now happening. And that leads on to getting on the ground and opening up the hundreds of household discussions, briefings, updates, resolutions of their particular compensation package all of it has been prepared for, but we have not morally been prepared to trigger that and trigger the angst in anticipation of thousands of people in the community through those hundreds of household without ensuring that the 3 principal conditions that were required were satisfied, and we're ensuring that we had board and committee approvals of all the syndicate before we opened our amounts to the individual households. We didn't think it was morally correct to do that until this moment. And I'm still comfortable with that, disposition as being an appropriate disposition morally. And I suspect the man sitting two to my right would have counseled against doing anything earlier than that. But thereon in terms of there's millions of dollars being spent on legal preparations all sorts of meetings taking place, 20 people flying into Abyss for meetings every couple of weeks to make this happen. So -- but it has happened properly, particularly in a country that was in such turmoil recently, but it's a beautiful country. It's still the same people that I treasured visiting when I first arrived in the country. It's still the same people. It's just that the country has been through some turmoil in the interim. And it's put it back behind us, put its efforts behind us, how you describe it, to support us to get going because it's a critically important project. So the milestones are that we're going -- we're now into final board and credit approval processes. And we've got a handsful mobilizing into the field and all sorts of other things, just trigger the funds draw down early in the fourth quarter, if everything goes according to plan. Next slide, please. Over in Saudi Arabia, we've got these two less advanced projects and not ready to put shovels into the ground. They're still sort of jumping around in terms of concept definition on exactly how to set them out. There's a myriad of choices and nuances that one needs to finesse during the feasibility study processes. And we haven't got to the end of it. We haven't settled the definition of either project yet. But it's clear to us that the metal in the ground and the scale of the projects and the expected growth as we expand the resources such that we will be developing them, but we haven't worked it all out and we can dive into the detail as we report mineral resource estimates and studies and so on as we go through the process, this is what we do. It's what we've been doing for decades. We're surrounded by specialist, consultants and experts that we draw on for the different elements, and we're working through it, very important in Saudi Arabia, which is really taking off from an exploration point of view. Next slide, please. Thank you. I didn't -- I hope I didn't take too long, but I didn't want to. I wanted to leave time for questions. I know that there are questions submitted before today, and I know there's probably more being added while I was speaking, but I'll hand now back to Alexandra to just go through them in the order that they've been received, please?

[Operator Instructions] Harry as mentioned, we have received a number of presubmitted questions from investors, and I want to start with the Q&A session with these. The first one reads as follows: I'm obviously wondering what it takes for KEFI share to take off. Metal prices are good, and you seem to have broken the back of financing at the project level instead of stock market sources. I have read your comments that the Junior Gold Miners Index have dropped from 240 in 2011 to less than 0 currently compared with it starting at 0 in 2004. That looks even worse than KEFI's share price pattern. Can you give us your perspective on when the share price should increase?

Yes, obviously, I have no crystal ball like none of you have crystal ball. I would say it is unusual committal prices to be relatively buoyant gold is not too far off, it's all-time high. It is unusual for that to happen and for the mining indexes to be so weak. And I suppose that's because of the liquidity squeeze in the world with interest rates starting to pop up again after a long time and these geopolitical risk amongst the major countries with liquidity being sucked out of the stock market, particularly at the risk year end, I suppose. I'm a contrarian. If I wasn't a contrarian and a natural optimist, I wouldn't do what I do. So we go into a frontier market before -- well, when it's a frontier market before the world wakes up and we've succeeded. After all these years, we can say that it's taking off for the first time really over the last year or so, first time we can say that after 15 years. And the metal prices are running with us. So that's timing is good. We've got them, I think, more or less financed. So we're away. We've got a bucket load of work to do, but we're away. What happens in the stock market, I think the sector, there's a good chance that it will cyclically turn. I don't think sectors are used to being on the net downside for more than a decade. That's not a natural cycle. I do think it will turn. And I think there are some green shoots on the Australian more statistics available in Australia than in England, there's many more companies. And there are some turnarounds in the junior space, so that's a green shoot to my mind, just recently. But share investors have much more to do with the share price and the predictions that I do, I don't tend to be a share market animal in any way. My view is that if you're a pessimist about the world and the pessimist about geopolitics, don't touch it. And if you believe that the world's belongs to the brave who stick it up for 15 years and then create wealth to all stakeholders, you should dive into it, and that's purely your choice. Next question now Alexandra.

Perfect. The next question asks, if you could tell us how the team has changed and how it's changing?

Well, I think at the beginning, I introduced Eddy without moving the camera is just sitting over there. But Eddy is taking, how to put it – Eddy, Mr. Internal, and I'll become Mr. External as the operation comes live. So systems, policies, organizational development, team building. I'm not saying they don't have anything to do with it, but that changed 18 months ago, being added to what Eddy's been doing it all his life for big and small companies in this industry. And underneath 30 , there's been a number of appointments on the ground in both Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. In -- Alexandra, is it still on your screen?

Yes. The slide is still on the screen, sir.

Okay because mine [indiscernible] I won't touch it if it's on your screen Alexandra. And we've been changing the team out from planning and permitting people to hands on drivers of development and operations handful of people -- handful of leaders in both jurisdictions. That's really the essence of the Board table, you can see, Aliances just joining, things will keep changing as the company moves into development and production. That's already happening.

Perfect. And the next question asks, what if KEFI shareholders do not provide the funding to keep up with the takeoff in Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Well, the challenge for KEFI is to keep up with a wonderful takeoff. If KEFI and its shareholders don't have the desire or wherewithal to keep up. We're not going to slow down that venture. It's our duty to not retard the natural scheme of things if it deserves charging ahead, it should charge ahead. And if KEFI, our shareholders don't want to keep up, that's up to KEFI and its shareholders. The consequence of that is if you paint the worst picture is that it would trigger a takeout at fair value, and we'd walk away that paid out for our interest under the arrangements of the joint venture. That's not our plan, but that's, how to put it, the worst case on plan for us not to keep up. I would like to think the KEFI shareholders will support us to keep up, but it's up to us as a company and with our shareholders to elect whether we want to be taken out, we want to keep up that set our decision, and that's what we'll have to do.

And Harry, if I could just ask you just to move the mouse slightly just to make sure we don't lose you. The next question here is, the $20 million mentioned in the previous Q&A included in financial closure. What is the money earmarked for? And what will it buy the investors? Is this an equity component at the subsidiary level? And if so, roughly what percentage would this represent? What role does the $20 million play in financial closure? Is it unrelated to the rest of the process coming after as the final piece of funding? Or can full closure not to compete without it? Will it hold up release of funds if we made a few parts to that one there.

Yes, you're homing in -- the question is homing in on the finishing off jobs we've got now. The most critical jobs we've had have been to, number one, protect our people and our project from attacks, physically, regulatory, whatever, we've done that. We protected the company, the projects for attacks in the past by people wanting to run away with our assets. The next job was to preserve -- the next priority was to preserve the interest and commitment of first tier banks, contractors, investors to support these groundbreaking developments. And we've done that. And the public domain will see that as we move through these milestones of credit approvals and so on that we have in the Chairman statement this morning and in the slide show that I just showed you over the next only few months as we work through these things. So one can see them happen rather than talking or listening about it. And so we're in what I would call the home stretch of signing off and going forward. The hardest stuff has been done, protecting people and property, preserve in a syndicate. We've done the hard stuff. And so now the question is saying, yes, but now you're going to put in the last $20 million out of $400 million. When we get to that point, the question or a question I will say yes, but what about in 4 years' time when [indiscernible] to get finance, he's going to put up that other last $30 million. if you really don't like this game, I'm not trying to be, how to put flipping through arrogance, but if you really don't like this game, don't play. I mean, really, it's a serious point. This is an exploration company that's changing into a development company. It has arranged 95% of the finance for developments, and it's the last piece when we close it. I can't promise you exactly how it will be structured, but we have people at the table who want it, who are not in the public domain and not in the stock market. And we'll raise part of it in the stock market if we need to. I can't promise we won't, but it is less than 5% of the total package. And if you're uncomfortable with that, please do not play, seriously, because you will never be comfortable with a developer at that point if you're not comfortable with that risk. And I say that very seriously. If you're not comfortable with summers withstood all of those things in the last few years and preserved a syndicate for over 95% of the capital then how the hell can I convince you that you shouldn't be worried about the last 5%. Now the last 5% if it comes in from warrants, fine. But if it does come in from warrants and they're not needed because we raised it down in a subsidiary, fine, we'll use it for cheap equipment and [indiscernible]. We cannot guarantee all the outcomes, we can only tell you that we've managed to preserve our optionality to this point so that we can play it one way or another. I have a gentleman in the room here today, one of our strong supporters in Ethiopia, strong [indiscernible] to the company. And the Ethiopian business community is very, very supportive and he's right on to this and the news the other day of the Central Bank granting exemptions for the first time for international banking is hot news in the investment community of Ethiopia, which is much larger than we appreciate [indiscernible] . In fact, I was staggered the other day that the total project finance package for Tulu Kapi we've raised in Ethiopia is bigger than the total fundraising on IM stock market in the last 12 months. I mean I was quite flabbergasted. So I know I'm saying a little bit busy or something, but it's a serious points. I can't change the character of the company. The company is an explorer developer. It is -- it has done what it's done. It's been delayed and it's been disappointed at times because of where it is. And now it is where it is, and it's going into putting together the last 5% of its capital. And I would be deluding you to predict to you exactly how we're going to structure it, but we have a number of choices and we'll optimize them, and it's an easy job to do, easy compared to the first 95% I can guarantee you.

Perfect. And the next question is really around shareholder engagement and asks, as the company will be very busy in the news period over the next few weeks and months, could the company not provide a weekly or fortnightly update on what has been achieved in the previous time frame to keep the shareholders aware of all steps forward?

The problem with weekly or fortnightly updates to the public at large, which is what it becomes is, I'll be reporting to you the ebb and flow of communication with the Boards or banks, governments, investors. And frankly, they don't they have absolutely zero interest in their internal workings being broadcast to the world at large. In fact, quite the opposite. Reputational management disciplines of major corporations and governments prohibits us from broadcasting, what they're up to internally. So that's the restriction we have plus it creates noise and distraction from the main game. The main game is to do the job. But having said that, in all sincerity, I think we're -- if anything, we're over transparent. I think I'm up and criticized for perhaps being over transparent and then having to explain why that didn't happen or this didn't happen per expectation. I accept that criticism. And what you're asking for is not just more transparency on our own business, but more transparency on the business of our partners and bankers and it's very difficult to be honest. But what I can say is that today, in the statement that we published and in the slide show that we, I guess, presented, there are half a dozen or 10 milestones there, all of them for the next 4 months. I mean, that works at the -- one every half month anyway. So material news, we have to report. So it probably works out to roughly what you're looking for, but it's not reasonable to request or to commit to fortnightly report by the date, whereby I'll be telling you what bank X said to their directors or whatever on that day, I can't do that. I can only report as news occurs, so to speak.

Perfect. Now we are nearing the end of TK financing, is it possible that [indiscernible] we produced showing clearly, all steps needed to achieve full financing, giving long suffering shareholders the chance to follow the progress achieved and hopefully build some share price momentum with a comment that follows. I think if we did this and met the time line, it would transform the share price.

I just answered that question. It was the same question really.

No problem at all. There's another question here about the share price and then mentioned, are you aware of this if this is contracted you've recently paid by shares as it seems odd that there is such heavy selling unless someone knows something that private investors are not aware of?

I mean if you're suggesting that there's insiders trading the stock you should report immediately to the authorities, but I can tell you that be staggered if that was true. And if you're saying -- we didn't pay any contractors and shares. It's only senior people, executives who have been paid in shares rather than rolling of cash from the company. So we've been putting money where our mouth is, so to speak, which normally people applaud. We haven't been selling our shares. So I don't think has anything to do with people being paid in shares to be honest. Yes. I don't know. I honestly don't know what's going on in the stock market. I can't follow day to day. No idea.-- there's a lot of liquidity with KEFI, and it looks to me like it is like an ATM machine by people who've got liquidity issues for whatever reason. KEFI has quite good liquidity, which is a good thing, but at the moment, it's certainly not working in the favor of the share price, but I don't know the reasons for it.

The next question, how many employees or what might be termed guardingly waiting on [indiscernible]? Many jobs have been secured that relate to the mine works, et cetera. So obviously, these people are not being utilized well on half wages. Please explain how this all works? And is KEFI still actively recruiting?

I don't know what you're talking about, to be honest. There's nobody in the company who's not working flat out, and there's nobody involved with mining operations here. So I don't really know what you are referring too, sorry.

With each step forward in the financing process, there seems to be other steps that appear needing to be completed that were not highlighted originally. In hindsight, what all previous deadlines of just a few months to complete financing overly optimistic?

We -- how would I put it, with the benefit of hindsight, yes. With the benefit of hindsight, we didn't achieve in 2018 what we thought we'd achieve when it was 2015. So if you're asking whether we had failed to predict the turmoil in the country? Yes. That's all I can say Alexandra.

You are now hopeful that TK development capital requirements can be financed without further funding at PLC level. Does this mean if the warrants get exercised, those funds can be used for general running costs and towards [indiscernible] financing?

Yes.

Perfect. With the numbers involved in resettlement, is it realistic to believe that this will be completed before construction is due to start in October?

The very -- that's an excellent question because all our eyes and are turning to the job list, the task list and the challenges around that. That is the #1 priority of the company apart from the finance and legal team closing documentation. All our focus in preoccupation is now on the social management. So we're not proposing or expecting to do all of it in one go, we are breaking it down into phases. And those phases are around, if you like, clearing the areas that follow the sequencing of the physical works that come down the pipeline. So the first phase will be with the airstrip area and the plant area. And only the households involved with those particular areas. And then we -- whilst they're being dealt with, the next phase will be dealt with and so on and so forth. So we're not -- we're breaking it down. You're alluding to the fact that there's a lot of work to do and how could you possibly do all of that in 4 months, and you're absolutely right. We're breaking it down because of that.

Perfect. And Harry, if I could just ask you to hold your mouse -- just move your mouse again, that would be great. Do we still hold the exploration rights for the areas around Tulu Kapi?

Technically not yet confirmed. Throughly and morally promised to us, but we have to tie it up with what I call procedural CPs of confirmations of tenure before we release [indiscernible]?

Perfect. Just moving to the next question. Can you please tell us the monetary value of the drilling cost that triggered the 3.2% reduction of interest in a Saudi joint venture? And is it the true minimum share KEFI can reduce to is 25% as being kicked out the agreement?

I'll start with the last bit first. We don't get kicked out of anything. We get bought out at fair value. In other words, if KEFI with its shareholders doesn't want to build the business the way it's growing. The other partner has a right to buy you out at fair value so that you can't block the business from developing. So perhaps some shareholders think that's a good thing. Perhaps others think it's a terrible thing. The Board will have to do with it on behalf of the company as a whole. The question was, how much money was spent -- the drilling cost? I think we've spent around GBP 9 million or thereabouts over a 15-year period. That's us. So you could deduce it. I have the number off the top of my head that you've asked for, but if GBP 9 million for someone who holds 27% that means that the 73% is the [indiscernible] equivalent of that. And you could deduce then how much money was not contributed that led to that 3% dilution. Otherwise, we'll write us a note on our info line and reliance you, but I don't know off the top of my head.

Perfect. You've stated the TK project is now flying. How much of the change is due to the replacement of the previous minister of mines?

It's been important because clearly, the previous minister was not as aligned as it should have been with us and the new minister, all I can say is that is an incredibly pushy person, but the government is completely aligned now, and I think the evidence is there, given all the things that have been approved since the change of Minister at the end of January, the three critical conditions precedents that have been hanging over this project. I don't know how long. We're actually traversed -- satisfied in the 3 or 4 months since then. So that tells you the significance of [indiscernible].

Can you explain any more on the GBP 5 million legal claim against the company stated in the annual accounts?

Anywhere in the world, it's not just Ethiopia, but anywhere in the world. When a mining -- when particularly gold is mentioned, and it draws the attention of people and the mining project is about to take off, people come out of the woodwork with claims and objections and demands and all sorts of things. It's not exactly something new and that's happened in Ethiopia from a number of quarters. And one of those quarters has ended up in litigation. In a previous life, I was running a company in Spain, and we had those issues continually. And only a couple of years ago, I was asked to go back for the prosecution and someone's going to jail. So it happens everywhere. And all I can say is that we're dealing with one of those situations through the courts. I have to leave it here.

There was a mention of an EGM to allow shareholders to vote on various parts of the financing in June. When is this expected?

Well to be honest, when we foreshadowed that expecting that we would have to raise a hell of a lot of capital from the stock market. And we just foreshadow what we thought would be necessary but it doesn't look like it will be necessary. If it becomes necessary, we'll call a special meeting. But at the moment, it may not be necessary.

Great. Why have you only accepted discounted shares in the last 5 years in new issues and not bought in the open market to show the faith you have long claimed for KEFI's prospects?

To say that I claim faith KEFI's prospects is a little bit below the belt. I've spent most of the last 10 years in Ethiopia, which I think is saying more than claiming, I believe in KEFI's prospects. The executives, myself included, are not in the business of trading in the shares in the stock market. In fact, we're prohibited from it most of the time. And we have no interest in it. The fact that the 15 -- since 2006, I've been the Chairman of this company that I founded and I think my average cash take-home pay from KEFI is GBP 75,000 over that period of time. So one could say I've ripped off the company in a cash sense. And the fact that I've accepted shares as payment in addition to the GBP 75,000-odd of cash per annum, I think most people would say is showing my faith in the company. That's what my answer would be.

Perfect. Following the Hawaii RNS, it refers to independent PFS level estimates. Please can you tell us who did this work? Also, how are they going to process the oxide and transition? Or it is not made clear and it should be?

Well, you must be a [indiscernible] police person. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm talking about an independent party, honestly don't know what you're referring to there unless you mean the MRE that was published under -- with an independent person involved, which has to be -- which was MSA, the independent experts for the MRE, a mineral resource estimate. But please send to the info line, what you're referring to about an independent EFS because I don't know what you're referring to. And the question about metallurgical testing, I mean, it's early days on metallurgical testing. At this stage of Hawaiah DFS is not expected to be completed until at least I know towards the end of next year, there's going to be a hell of a lot of metallurgical testing between now and then. But the metallurgical testing done today has yielded some results, which have led to what we've reported a fairly standard or conventional sort of concentrate recoveries, but there's a fair bit of comfort taken as a general point, a fair bit of comfort taken from the fact that there's a very similar operation only a couple of hundred kilometers away on very, very, very similar ore body at the Masati mine, it's a public company called [indiscernible] You could look it up and I'm not saying that the same ore body, but they're very similar. And we visited the mine. They're good neighbors in a sense. And so there's experience with that style of ore in the country. And we've -- they've been kind enough to tell us what they've learned through their experience in starting up their plant. And our various specialist consultants are still refining the various concepts, but it doesn't look like it will be anything exotic. It looks like it will be fairly conventional concentrator approach to first the copper and then the zinc. But I'm sorry if it didn't meet your particular standards of what we expected in the PFS, but it is what it is.

And Harry, just nearing the hour now. So what I propose, maybe just to take maybe two more questions, and then what I'll do is I'll ask you for closing comments after those. So are you able to disclose the timeline for the all-weather road construction?

The all-weather road construction is referring to, there's a bitumen highway from [indiscernible] out to the border with [indiscernible] Sudan. And at the moment, you turn off your place called Ginbee, and you drive for 1 hour, 1.5 hour depending on which particular route you take on dirt roads and the wet season [indiscernible], with dirt [indiscernible], particularly in heavy transport goes over. So it all has been the plan that although we don't need a new road just to get to the site and get [indiscernible] to the site, we want a new road for efficiency, convenience, safety. And that takes 6 months to construct within the 24-month build process. So it's not on the critical path. It would be done between wet seasons. And as long as it's done between wet seasons during the 24-month process, it's not a critical path item, as I said.

Perfect. And just one final question here. Is the potential secondary listing being considered potentially in a jurisdiction where KEFI's true value will be reflected in the market?

It's been considered, and we're talking with stock exchanges in different jurisdictions. I think the thing that observers noticed that we noticed was that part of the sort of surge of interest in Saudi Arabia in this sector, is also to do with the capital markets being opened up for this sector. The government has made various broad sweeping statements that they want to do that. So we've been discussing it there about the merits of a dual listing in Saudi Arabia. And it's fair to say that the authorities are still getting their own heads around without in any way, wanting to be critical. They're just coming to grips with it themselves. They know what they want to do, but haven't sort of thought through how to do with stuff. Clearly gold and minerals, the Saudi company that we're shareholders of would be an absolute natural to be one of the first candidates for a Saudi listing of a preproduction company. There are only 2 mining companies listed in Saudi, both of them in production. And clearly, Golden Minerals because of its stature and its position in the country, would be a permanent candidate. But that hasn't been resolved by the joint venture, but it would be an obvious candidate. KEFI is a different matter. KEFI's not a Saudi focused company. It's an Arabian-Nubian Shield focused company. And so we're still working through with the various exchanges to get our best choices, so to speak. So it's fair to say that the concept of looking at other exchanges, to compliments I think is something we do, but we're not preoccupied with it. But it's also fair to say that the Saudi market has sort of exploded with interest in this sector, and we will do something, to be honest, it's partly a joint venture decision and partly our decision. And right here and now, the most important thing is to get the show on the road on these projects, not to spend millions of dollars preparing for another stock exchange listing. But we're working through it and there will be, but it's not today's priority.

We have hit the hour and you've been very generous with your time and answered a lot of the questions that come in. We had significant attendance on today's meeting. So there are some questions that we haven't covered. The company will review all those questions submitted today, and we will publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. But just before redirecting investors, provide you with their feedback, questions particularly important to the company. Harry, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?

Well, first of all, I appreciate -- I don't know whether it was an excellent decision to hold this webinar straight after the AGM or it was a clumsy timing, I don't know. Just trying to find the right channel for communication when we've had annual meetings in England. I can't remember more than 3 or 4 shareholders ever turning up at one of them. We had more than that turn up here in Cyprus. So I think I felt -- we felt an obligation to reach out one way or another, but then there's a lot of people who wanted to catch up with the company who are not shareholders. So we felt better to conduct the formalities of the meeting for shareholders and then open it up to everybody in a separate session. So I hope that is appropriate. I'm sure you'll provide your feedback to the organizers at Investor Meet company because I know they hold you afterwards to see whether you're happy with the format and so on. So please tell us if you thought that was worthwhile or whether you thought you'd rather just get RNSs and not bother by the webinars, you tell us. From our point of view, all I can say is that, I thank my colleagues for sitting quietly and just listening to all this. But also, I do think it's -- I take to heart the criticisms that we've been over optimistic in the past, like the fact that we didn't predict the trials and tribulations would be put through. In either country. But I also highlight that we've never said that they weren't anything other than frontier countries. And if you read every one of our RNSs, their [indiscernible] and preconditions and subject to. And if we take out the subject to and preconditions, that would be inappropriate. But a lot of people don't bother reading those things. And what I can only say is that doing what we do in frontier markets makes subject to and very important to read. And I do mean that sincerely. It is real risk management. It's not just corporate compliance statements. It's real risk management. And I feel less frankly, with the loyalty and support we get internally from teams of people on the ground. I get -- I can't help but be a little bit nift when I hear someone saying they're on guarding leave, you've got to know you hard our people work. And you'd be embarrassed if you saw how they were to ask such a question. I'm very proud of them, and that's what builds a company. And we are building a company, a serious company in a very prospective part of the world that the whole world is waking up to finally. And we're in the -- we're in a leadership position. So finally, we're about to start doing the real work. So we're excited and exhilarate. We've got lots of challenges, lots of hurdles to jump, but there's nothing compared to what we've done in my opinion in the past already. So those of you who lost the distance, I greatly appreciate your patience. Those of you who feel it's, boy, I didn't realize it was so tough or so risky, I respect your opinions also. It's very important to understand that both the upside and the downside of the situations, and I can only say that we live it and we understand it. And perhaps we could do a better job communicating at a time that we do our best and I do thank you for all your support. Thank you.

I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirect to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. It only takes a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of the KEFI Gold and Copper plc we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you.