mick davis

- X2 Resources founder Mick Davis

Miningmx has an exclusive interview with Mick Davis, the dynamic founder of Xstrata, which he built into the world's fourth largest diversified miner through a series of M&A transactions over the past decade.

Since merging his firm with Glencore, and subsequently being forced out of the combined company, Davis has launched X2 Resources, and raised nearly $4 billion for acquisitions in the mining space.

David Mckay, founder of Miningmx, broke the interview down into two stories about Davis.

Here's the first one: X2 boss Davis calls next supply deficit

Davis is of the view that the continued urbanisation in China, India and eventually Africa will continue to underpin the resources market.

“Where I think the criticisms are valid is where companies bought assets at the height of the multiple curves because essentially what they were doing was paying away all the optionality that they were buying,” he said. “Where I think it’s inappropriate to blame the industry is for the decision to invest.”

“This is a wasting-asset industry in which every tonne mined is irreplaceable unless further investment is made. Companies which don’t invest will wither and die. It is true, however, that some projects have experienced cost and timeline overruns and investors are rightly concerned about the impact on returns.”

“My position is actually quite simply that on the demand side of this industry, the secular change that took place in the early 2000s remains in place."

And: What Mick wants

Both believe X2 Resources is driven by the opportunity Davis recognises in a mining market that is in temporary abeyance. It is eerily similar to 2002, the year Davis founded Xstrata: commodity prices are depressed, just as they were 12 years ago, debt is high especially among the corporates, and share prices are low. Pressure is everywhere.

Now 56, Davis is his composed self: older, leaner, but having retained that disconcerting way of responding to questions before his interlocutor has finished forming them. “We all put money in. Every one of the partners has put money in,” he said when asked about the level of personal risk in the founding of X2 Resources.

“I regret the decision of shareholders not to approve these retention arrangements for the members of my senior and operational management deemed crucial to the success of the combined group as, in my view, this introduces unnecessary risks to the merged company’s future value proposition,” he said.

"What I can say to you is I think we could raise more debt from the banks than would be prudent for us to borrow."