PROFILE
IF YOU ASKED anyone across the industry what are the chances of an exploration company starting up , controlling operations in Australia , Sweden and Finland , and announcing a market cap of over $ 100 million all without having to get equity funding , they ’ d probably say in this day and age it ’ s either unheard of , or extremely lucky .
Step forward Australian mineral exploration company S2 Resources . But to talk about S2 we need to address Sirius Resources . Sirius Resources is a hugely successful exploration company that discovered the Nova Project , the most substantial nickel discovery in Australia in over 20 years . This attracted the attention of Independence Group ( IGO ) who bought out Sirius Resources for $ 1.8 billion . From this , CEO of Sirius Mark Bennet structured a deal that would see the birth of S2 , a spin-off of Sirius .
“ S2 is taking the exploration assets from Sirius , other than Nova , and putting them into the new vehicle . I could choose who I wanted from Sirius to come with me too , so I ’ ve got people with strong experience working with me here ,” says Mark Bennett , Managing Director & CEO of S2 Resources .
S2 , like its predecessor Sirius , is an explorer with the purpose of making significant discoveries to bring order of magnitude returns to its investors – primarily in precious and base metals gold , copper , nickel and zinc .
“ Exploration is an inherently tricky business and the statistics are against you . But our exploration is in sensible places so the risk is sensible as well ,” he says .
That risk has been rewarded , as S2 listed on the ASX in October 2015 , only the third company to do so that year . The company managed to list without having to go to market to raise money , as part of the deal with IGO saw the company invest $ 22 million in funding to get the company off the ground and running .
“ We started off life with a good team , some good ground and money in the bank . This was just under a year ago . The price was 17 percent when we started with $ 35 million . As of this year we have moved to 46.4 percent with a market cap of over 100 million .”
10 October 2016