Dispatch from Zimbabwe 2025

Our Dear Leader often feels the first week of January is a good time to travel as there is very little happening in the City and after Christmas he had no desire to celebrate the New Year. So he left for Zimbabwe on New Year’s Eve. We have various thoughts on why Our Dear Leader was in Zimbabwe:

1: To get a feel of how the UK will be like after 5 years of this Labour Government;

2: Because with his Zim Dollars he thought he was very rich and could have a great time (but actually he isn't as they are worthless as the currency was abandoned);

3: To do a site visit to both Zulu Lithium and RHA Tungsten; two of the major assets of Premier African Minerals Limited (AIM: PREM)^#

Of course we now know it was a site visit with Premier African Minerals as they have announced a Placing this morning together with a Retail Offer through Bookbuild.

Zimbabwe is one of 16 landlocked countries globally and is believed to have been inhabited since the Stone Age, over half a million years ago.  In 1980 it gained independence from the UK as Zimbabwe. It is the home of the Victoria falls, the World's largest waterfall, which spans the entire width of the Zambezi river at more than 1,700m. They were of course named after Queen Victoria by the Scottish explorer David Livingstone, but they are known locally as Mosi - oa - Tunya "the smoke that thunders".  However, in 2019 the falls slowed to a trickle after the worst draught in a century.  Zimbabwe's capital is Harare and derives from the Shona Chief Neharawe , whose name meant "he who does not sleep".  Formerly it was called Salisbury after Lord Salisbury the British Prime Minister in 1890 when the country was founded.

The Zimbabwe flag includes a black stripe representing the heritage, race and ethnicity of the black majority, red for bloodshed during the liberation, green for agriculture, yellow for mineral wealth and white for peace and progress.  There is also a red star for socialism and a depiction of the Zimbabwe bird that appeared on carvings in Great Zimbabwe    

This is the first time our Dear Leader has been to Zimbabwe and his first stop was at Bulawayo in the South West of the Country. Then a drive to the Zulu lithium mine which was about 80km further of which around half was on a pretty tough track through the bush. The mine does feel a little in the middle of nowhere but is an impressive site. Mine operations have halted as there have been some technical issues to get the final product grade high enough which hopefully will be sorted soon and a major reason for the fundraise. The original work to put everything in place was substantial as PREM also built their own dam for water supply and have a major tailings dam which can also recirculate water. Pipes take water from the dam about 2km to the mine and the local farmer whose land the mine was built on also benefits from the reservoir.  The mine is expected to be connected to the grid soon and that could bring production costs down significantly.

He then flew to Victoria Falls which are not far from the RHA Tungsten Mine.  Whilst Andrew was there (and in fairness it was over a weekend) he did also visit the Victoria Falls which are very impressive although water levels are low.

The drive to RHA was nearly 3 hours each way; not because of distance but the main road was so full of potholes that at times it was safer to drive along the edge of the road while the last stretch was just a track through the bush.  Andrew was pleasantly surprised by the process plant at RHA even though it is currently not in use.  But it was a very compact classic Tungsten flow system with crusher, cones, XRT scanner, jig, spirals and screens and it has produced a good quality 65% WO3.

Premier African Minerals also has other assets with manganese in Namibia and a holding in Vortex the Ethiopian potash explorer.  However, with the recent challenges at Zulu these have taken a back seat.

Our Dear Leader also released the VSA interim results just before he departed.  The results were actually very good with an EBITDA of £0.62mn and cash of £0.94mn at the half year.  More important were some of things Andrew said in his CEO statement which demonstrate the ingenuity of VSA 

The first was the success of what Andrew calls the "no frills airline model" for broking.  The VSA Lite service simply gets a corporate client coverage in podcasts and video blogs. This model is working very well as a starting point and in truth we are finding many clients like working with VSA on this basis so much they expand the relationship. 

Another benefit of being “Broker Exempt” is that VSA is able to distribute "insiders’ research" during a fund raise to all potential investors. This can contain the latest forecasts updated for the deal and is cleansed by being published as the deal is announced. The value of this to a corporate client is immense and this capablity is probably not always appreciated. 

Finally we have heard some grumblings form our Dear Leader over the changes to the British Airways Executive Club Membership which is going to change how its different levels of membership are awarded in April.  Until now you had to collect 1,500 Tier points to keep a Gold Card and Our Dear Leader is very fond of his and has had for about 10 years.  But he is very adept at finding cheap flights and still getting full Tier points often by flying a transfer flight with another One World airline.  This is changing and now you will gain points purely by how much you spend and a Gold card will require an annual spend of £20,000.  Andrew thinks this likely to require at least 50% more flying if not more and he is unlikely to achieve it. Somehow we don’t think many people will have a lot of sympathy for him although he tells us he is not too far away from Lifetime membership if they don’t also change that as a way of making their First Class lounge less busy, which would appear to be the British Airways strategy. 

Maybe its time for him to hang up his travelling boots? But we dont think he will!  Of course if British Airways really wanted to keep Andrew happy they could follow Airlink.  Andrew flew with them from Victoria Falls to Jo Burg and was served a miniature bottle of Banhoek Chilli Oil with the meal which enhances the flavour so well [Ed- we have to declare an interest here as we know Andrew is a shareholder in Banhoek Chilli Oil but we do agree with him as he has converted all of VSA].