Dispatch from Indaba 2026

Our Dear Leader and his faithful colleagues, Raks (Andrew Raca) and Ollie (Ollie O’Donnell), are back again for the annual Investing In Mining Indaba in Cape Town. This year though could be quite different thanks to the drought in the mining sector of the last 17 years having ended and the Bull Market starting. So far it is a very well attended event and spirits are high.  The VSA team simply take it all in its stride as they do every year, although Andrew has commented that this year his diary seems to be full of actual real business meetings to conclude deals!

The week always starts off with social events at the weekend and no change for 2026 with the VSA Capital Padel Tournament which has grown to 24 players, the Sunday morning walk up Table Mountain which had 40 climbers of which 15 climbed to the top knowing there was no cable car down due to the wind conditions. The walk down is actually more treacherous, and Our Dear Leader did slip and badly hurt his hand, but

the team were on hand to administer surgery when back at home. This has also meant “no shaking hands” which Andrew reports is quite a good ruse. The Big Sunday Night party which now has almost celebrity status was the final weekend event. Even by VSA standards it was a great party with a huge turnout of about 600 guests attending across the evening. Sponsors for the party have grown this year and also new sponsors for the Padel Tournament and walk and

so a big thank you to them all.

And of course, we never forget that all surplus funds are donate to the Kusasa Project; a charity in Franschhoek, providing primary schooling to township children to break the cycle of poverty, which we have been supporting now for 20 years.

The Bull market for commodities and mining equities probably started at about this time last year although of course no one at the time realised it was starting. Mining’s share of global equities has actually been falling for the last 60 years and are now at levels not seen for over a century.

Admittedly, that is not just the decline of interest in mining but also the rise of other sectors such as technology, but the potential swing is clearly huge and part of the reason why VSA believes we are in a Bull Market for commodities for the next 3- 5 years. 

There is a total structural imbalance in supply and demand of commodities that needs to be resolved and mines can take up to 15 years to build. We also have new geopolitical tensions that mean that every nation wants security of supply. This is not an overnight correction, but one which will last many years. Andrew believes we are actually in a 5-stage Bull Market and have now completed phase 1 in the last 12 months and his advice is to get out in Phase 4. If you want to know more about this then you need to speak directly with Andrew.

It was a busy week for all 3 of the team and between them met probably over 30 companies directly as well as numerous investors. This was at the main conference where Andrew was a judge in the Deal Makers Den, the Mining 121 event, and also numerous private meetings. Perhaps unlike his reputation, Andrew was a kind judge and the winning companies across 2 days were, Red Sea Resources (gold exploration in Egypt) and Midnight Sun (copper exploration in Zambia). His main criteria for choosing the winners was based upon where he would actually put his own money. The other judges often started from a more cautious approach and looked at the bankability criteria, but Andrew convinced them that in junior mining and in a bull market such as the one we are in, it is how the equity might perform that is key. He was also rather taken by Akora Resources which has a Madagascan Iron project with a very small market cap and Andrew sees a lot of potential in Madagascar.

The VSA team this year also had their Non-Executive Chairman, Mark Thompson, at the event and because tin and tungsten were a huge talking point it was very useful as he is very well known in those commodities, and numerous meetings regarding these metals took place as there were 3 tungsten companies that VSA has acted for down at the event. The performance of Tungsten West was also a talking point as they had raised £44.4mn on the Thursday as they flew down at 18p and were trading up around 37p during the Indaba week and of course had come up from 10p at the start of the year. This is a company that VSA has been very supportive of since raising the £40mn at IPO four years ago and it is well known that Andrew is very keen on helping to get the whole Cornish mining industry going again. He does also advise though not to chase prices too far and to look to rotate from expensive stocks to undervalued stocks.  

121 was as busy as ever with over a hundred companies attending and Ollie was there looking for hidden gems and catching up with some already discovered ones. The key trends that have been apparent for a few years were really on show. A significant proportion of the presenting companies have no link to Africa at all while those that do are concentrated in a handful of “investable” jurisdictions; Cote D’Ivoire and Namibia being the two most popular at the moment. As well as the usual crowd of investors, not quite sure whether to believe the last few months have been real, there were plenty of new faces. Commodities are all about supply and demand as everyone knows, but so are equities and that is often forgotten. With the number of African projects having dropped substantially supply has shrunk and therefore there is an amazing opportunity for those companies that are left to attract capital and make the most of the continent’s geological prospectivity and shorter permitting times relative to “Tier 1” jurisdictions.  

Finally, VSA is a great believer in getting out on the road and visiting projects and then helping secure finance especially from strategic players. Our Dear leader is in Washington and New York between 23-25th February should you wish to meet with him, before he and Ollie head to Toronto for the Pre-PDAC and PDAC.

Also, after his very successful Mexican Silver mining trip last summer, Andrew is looking to do another trip to South America and so if you have operations there you may want to be included.