We are delighted to announce that David Tait, CEO of the World Gold Council, will be talking to the club to explain the impact of gold’s impending digitisation.
As we have mentioned before, The World Gold Council (WGC) is working to utilise tokenisation to create a digital currency backed by gold. The advent of this has the potential to be one of the most impactful events in the history of both digital currencies and gold markets.
It all boils down to whether this initiative will meaningfully impact global demand for gold and so David’s plans and insights will be absolutely key.
We hope you can join us for an event that we think will be absolutely fascinating.
Increasing global tensions have brought into sharp focus the fragility of many of our supply chains. This has led political and business leaders in Europe and the US to look deeply at onshoring. Securing the technologies and critical materials that drive both the digital and energy transitions is more vital than ever.
Their gaze has been on the ‘sexier’ materials and technologies – lithium and batteries – but a vital yet unglamorous material – tin – is worryingly overlooked.
Tin is 25 times rarer than copper in the Earth’s crust and has been referred to as the “glue in all electronics”. It is used across technologies such as 5g networks, solar panels, touch screens and batteries. As a result, the US, UK and Canada have designated it a “critical metal”.
However, 75% of tin comes from China, Myanmar and Indonesia. There is no primary tin production in Europe or the US.
This is something Cornish Metals is aiming to address. Its South Crofty mine in Cornwall, of which it is 100% owner, is the fourth highest grade tin mine in the world and the highest one not in production.
With its aim of starting production in the next three years, and on the back of the £40m in funding (£25m of this coming from Vision Blue Resources) that it received in 2022, we are excited to learn about the company’s roadmap from here.
We last spoke to Sir Martin Sorrell and Wesley ter Haar in the summer of 2022, and since S4 Capital’s share price has had a difficult time. We are delighted to welcome them back for an update.
Year-to-date, the company has shed 68% of its value, and management stated in their H1 2023 interim results that the sector has faced and will continue to see “more challenging growth” throughout 2023. Mixed with the company’s feeling that the digital transformation of the industry is still in its infancy and difficult macro circumstances, a tough environment surrounds S4.
However, potential tailwinds are building. The rise of AI is touching all industries, and the company sees this as something that could really move the needle for them. S4 also sees itself riding a long-term secular growth trend – they are positioning for it by making the business more cost-efficient, adding vital new senior talent and initiating exciting new partnerships.
We aim to give you a deep-dive look at the company and an outlook for the industry.
Nowhere is the Chinese dominance of the supply and processing of the minerals that are critical to the energy transition more apparent than in the rare earths industry. China controls 87% of the global refining capacity and has the largest reserves of anywhere in the world.
In a global economy that is becoming increasingly protectionist with regards to these vital resources, this stranglehold asks the question – who could break the Chinese wall of dominance in this space?
Lynas Rare Earths considers itself the only significant non-Chinese supplier. The Australian rare earths company operates the Mt Weld mine in Western Australia and the world’s largest single rare earths processing plant in Malaysia. Australia is currently the 4th largest provider of rare earths and has around 10% of the reserves that China does.
Lynas presents an excellent opportunity to fulfil Western needs with Australian resources.
We look forward to digging deep into the rare earths industry and hearing about the vision for the company going forward.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Following the repression of protests in 2014 by Maduro’s government, the US and European countries implemented sanctions on Venezuela. One of the major impacts was the restriction of oil exports. Since 2015, the Venezuelan economy has contracted from $450bn to just $75bn.
President Biden now wants to replenish the US oil reserves, and plenty of US companies, Chevron in particular, and investors would like to get their assets back.
With signs that relations are thawing, allowing oil exports could be the next step.
The US election is set for Nov 2024, and the Venezuelan election for Dec 2024. There is a chance of a deal in 2023 to allow benefits to flow through before both.
One way to act upon this potential unlock is to purchase Venezuelan sovereign debt. To tell us more about the opportunity, we are delighted to welcome Edward Cowen from Winterbrook and Elbek Muslimov from FPP Asset Management, who run a fund that buys Venezuelan bonds and manages investors’ claims. We will also be joined by Nick Lawson, CEO of Ocean Wall for the call.
The risk/reward appears to be powerful for non-US investors. Venezuelan Bonds currently trade at circa 11 cents on the $. If the US lifts sanctions, this could potentially lead to a substantial upward move.
There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of the clean energy industry. Batteries, which are vital in our battle to decarbonise, are themselves responsible for substantial environmental harm. The materials they require and the dirty energy used to fuel them leave a lingering question – at what point does clean energy actually become clean?
Freyr aims to provide a compelling new answer. Utilising the abundant renewal energy resources available in Norway, they are working to develop a lithium-ion battery that is truly green.
The company aims to provide solutions for the markets that require urgent attention if we are to achieve a successful energy transition.
Join us to learn their plan for revolutionising our industries from energy generation to transportation and beyond.
What if we could push the boundaries of human sporting achievement by using performance-enhancing drugs? Could we see a new class of super athletes who could shatter the 100m world record? That is the question that the Enhanced Games has set out to answer.
The company aims to bring science to the centre of sport by creating a format that allows for the safe use of performance-enhancing substances.
Guided by an elite team of athletes and scientists, they’re planning to launch an event that challenges the Olympic Games as the dominant global festival of athletics.
With a focus on both ticket revenues and content rights, they are trying to create an insurgent brand in a world that has seen many new ventures launch and thrive, one only needs to look at the growth of the UFC to see the potential opportunity.
We will talk to the Enhanced Games President, Dr. Aron D’Souza, to learn more about the company’s vision and the opportunity that it sees. We hope you can join us.
When we hear of the London Stock Exchange of late, the stories largely revolve around talk of London as a declining capital market. However, the true story is being grievously overlooked, and understanding it could offer investors an opportunity.
The LSEG is, in fact, the data backbone of the global stock market industry. It recently launched a 10-year strategic partnership with Microsoft, focused on data, analytics and the cloud, to empower “the future of financial markets”, according to Microsoft.
We are delighted to welcome Peregrine Riviere, Group Head of Investor Relations at LSEG, to help us cut away the noise and to hear the company’s true story.
To achieve net-zero by 2050 our society needs to mine more copper than has been mined in the entirety of human history.
Ivanhoe Mines is a leading Canadian metals mining company committed to becoming a global leader in supplying critical resources required to transition our world to a low-carbon, renewable future. They have a particular specialism in copper.
The company is currently focused on advancing its three principal projects in Southern Africa: production from, and expansion of, the Kamoa-Kakula copper joint-venture mine in DRC and the Platreef palladium-rhodium-platinum-nickel-copper-gold discovery in South Africa; and the extensive redevelopment and upgrading of the historic Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-silver mine, also in the DRC.
We believe this call provides a timely opportunity to learn more about the supply-demand dynamics surrounding this vital material and hope you can join us to learn from one of the most exciting producers in this space.
CEO of E-Therapeutics Ali Mortazavi last spoke to the Curation Collective during our preventative healthcare conference in April. He is now back as an expert speaker to share his unique insight on AI and drug discovery platforms.
Ali has extensive experience in the biotechnology sector and financial markets. His most recent roles include CEO of Silence Therapeutics plc from 2012 to 2018 and a founder shareholder of Evolution Group, a UK-based investment bank, from 2001 to 2008. Ali holds a BSc in computer science, an International Master of chess and a former professional chess player. During his chess career, Ali was actively involved in developing chess databases and analysing chess positions using computer engines.
A few weeks ago, fake pictures of an explosion near the Pentagon momentarily sent the stock market tumbling.
In an era of generative AI, fake pictures and stories are going to be a huge headache for the world’s publishers, news organisations and markets.
SmartFrame (of which club member James Rutherford is Chairman) has been working on a solution for several years now that allows original work to not only be authenticated at source but protected from theft, whilst serving highly relevant contextual ads alongside the image generating revenue for the originator, whether it be a person or an organisation.
Having recently signed The All Blacks, the company expects some of the world’s largest sports franchises to follow soon.
The service is now ready to launch and requires a small amount of funding (circa £3m) to begin the rollout.
It’s a deal that comes at a somewhat unique moment in time, so we felt that our members should be given an opportunity to meet and listen to the management.
We will be holding a call so that SmartFrame CEO, Robert Sewell, can explain their offering to club members.
We are delighted to be joined by Dominic Scriven OBE, Founder and Chairman of Dragon Capital. With a number of Vietnam-focused investment funds, Dragon Capital has been one of the leading investors in Vietnam over the last twenty years.
Vietnam is a country that is growing in visibility as an international investment destination. It currently represents 30% of the MSCI Frontier Market Index and will possibly be upgraded to an emerging market in the near future, meaning the country could see an inflow of foreign capital.
We are excited to learn about the investment potential that the country represents, the sectors that offer the best investment opportunities and how UK-based investors can act upon the opportunity Vietnam presents.
Living in Vietnam himself, we expect to hear a uniquely engaging take from Dominic on this opportunity. We hope you can join us.
Semiconductors are the backbone of modern industry. Essential for all electronic products, we are in the midst of an economic cold war as their scarcity has driven protectionism and economic brinkmanship. This year, we’ve seen Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co jump 30%, making it the 10th largest company in the world.
Post-pandemic, there has been much talk of reshoring production to the US and Europe away from China, but we will be hearing from someone who believes the true story is being missed.
We are delighted to have John Klein, Head of Equity Research at Bryan, Garnier & Co and Thibault Morel, their semiconductor specialist, sharing their thesis. We will get a full overview of their ideas and dive deep into how we can act upon this trend.
At our recent Future of Preventative Healthcare Conference, we explored the opportunities residing in gene therapy. We are excited to bring to the Collective a unique gene therapy company, MeiraGTx, which focuses on addressing diseases that have a significant unmet medical need, coupled with a great treatment potential via gene treatments.
Congenital eye disease is one such disease, it affects 1 in 5000 people, and sees most cases primitively treated with glasses. MeiraGTx aims to drastically mitigate the number of people born with this issue.
Parkinson’s is another disease of focus for MeiraGTx, which has a huge impact on sufferers lives and to which there is no cure.
We look forward to bringing your questions to Alexandria Forbes, PhD, CEO and Richard Giroux, COO and CFO and hearing about the company’s future and aspirations.
Agronomics is one of the only public vehicles in the cell-cultured meat sector, listed in London, and with the stated aim of taking exposure to the entire cell-cultivated (and, to a lesser extent, plant-based food) space. The Company has established a portfolio of over 20 companies at the Pre-Seed to Series C stage in this rapidly advancing sector.
The club last spoke to Agronomics in April 2022; we are excited to have them return and shed some insight on their future plans and substantial investments in cell-cultured pet food and Biotech.
We are thrilled to be joined by Simon Edelsten, veteran fund manager and regular FT contributor, for a club call that will span many of the most pressing investment themes of the moment.
Simon has managed Artemis’ global select strategy since 2011, which invests across developed and emerging markets in companies they feel will profit from long-term innovation trends.
Simon has written opinion pieces on how investors should view the opportunities and risks of investing to address the boom in AI, in February he wrote on why investors should look at Japan and has authored many deeply insightful pieces on global equity markets.
We look forward to having a wide-ranging discussion with Simon on his view on all things equity investing and putting your questions to him.
The world has been battling an obesity epidemic for decades and our healthcare systems have struggled to find solutions. In America, around 40% of adults are obese.
Increasingly unhealthy eating habits have also led to 1 in 10 people living with diabetes, 75% of them in the developing world. The prize for finding solutions to these problems has been huge.
Novo Nordisk was first to market with Wegovy, a weight loss drug, and produces 50% of the world’s insulin, so is fighting on both fronts. It’s now capitalised at $350bn.
We will speak to Mark Root, Novo Nordisk’s Director of Investor Relations, to get a comprehensive introduction to the company, its products and the new competition in the field.
Join us for a deep-dive into a business that addresses many of the world’s most difficult healthcare problems in a space where treatments seem to be used by many more than just those unfortunate enough to have diabetes.
Juvenescence is pioneering Anti ageing healthcare to extend the lifespan of healthy humans. Juvenescence is now going to the market to raise capital in an effort to build an ecosystem and pipeline of assets targeting ageing, age-related disease, and regeneration.
Dr Greg Bailey is the co-founder, executive chairman and former CEO of Juvenescence, and he recently gave a remarkable presentation about the transformative drugs his company is bringing to market during our Preventative Healthcare Conference.
From drugs which regenerate the liver to a pill which prevents rheumatoid arthritis (sure to disrupt the current remedy of injection) to a drug in development which adds ten years to your life. A big claim, but not beyond plausible. We wonder what the addressable market would be for such a drug and how much a company could charge for it.
