From cracking rocks in the bush to doing deals in the boardrooms of St Georges Terrace, Kate Hobbs is a rare find in the male-dominated mining sector.
From cracking rocks in the bush to doing deals in the boardrooms of St Georges Terrace, Kate Hobbs is a rare find in the male-dominated mining sector.
But the Sydney-born geologist-cum-director, and CEO of local exploration company Austminex, says her gender is not something she chooses to dwell on.
“I think if you do a good job it is not an issue,” Ms Hobbs told WA Business News.
However, she does point out that women, no matter what industry, still face an element of bias at high levels of management.
“I think there is still a strong tendency for some people to see things, that would be seen as just normally professional and assertive in a man, as to be aggressive and undesirable in a woman if she does the same thing. There is no doubt about that,” Ms Hobbs said.
And while increasing numbers of women are reaching the upper levels of management in a range of industries, such an achievement is still quite rare in the mining industry.
“It certainly is one of the last bastions,” Ms Hobbs said.
In fact Ms Hobbs’ career path via geology – she has worked in the mining industry throughout Australia and in the Pacific as a geologist for more than 25 years – is even rarer still, as most women who come into the mining industry usually do so from financial backgrounds.
Today, however, in her role as executive director/joint CEO, Ms Hobbs gladly admits to being a non-practising, or as she puts it “defrocked”, geologist rather than a working one.
Ms Hobbs leaves the exploration side of things to the other CEO, Chuck McCormick, who is based in Kalgoorlie, while she focuses more on the company’s corporate management from West Perth.
Ms Hobbs said her technical background as a geologist had greatly assisted her move into the corporate world.
“I claim to be more of a Jack of all trades. I have formed joint ventures that are mining and toll milling joint ventures where you have to have working knowledge of mining processes, as well as the legal and financial that goes with it,” she said.
“So it’s a good broad background to come into corporate life with.”
And it is by utilising this knowledge that Austminex has been slowly consolidating about 200 kilometres of prime Coolgardie mining real estate.
The miner recently secured two deals crucial to its Coolgardie consolidation strategy.
It bought the under-performing Coolgardie Gold project from Herald Resources and Leviathan Resources in a cash and scrip deal worth $5.3 million.
And Austminex also entered into a joint venture with Canadian gold explorer, Matador, which will spend $8 million exploring Austminex’s Coolgardie ground over the next three years.
While the deals have sparked little interest, with the company’s share price continuing to sit around 7 cents, some commentators and analysts have taken notice.
Hogan and Partners Stockbrokers head of research Tony Lofthouse said he was unsure what was holding Austminex’s share price back.
He said its resource base had recently doubled to 1.4 million ounces of gold, and with a market capitalisation of $18 million, which equated to an enterprise value of $13 per resource ounce, Austminex was undervalued compared with its peers.
Ms Hobbs said the low share price was the result of the market’s failure to understand Austminex’s strategy. A series of investor briefings is planned to further explain this.
“We think the company is ideally positioned to go through and become a mid-tier gold producer within a year to two years,” she said.
Despite this positive outlook the lack of domestic interest has forced Austminex to look offshore for funding, with London’s Alternative Investment Market an option.
“I think it is a different investment style [on AIM]; they tend to invest for the longer term … sit it out through the hard times and there does seem to be premium on the value that they attribute to those assets,” Ms Hobbs said.
The deal with Matador also shows the lack of domestic interest. Matador will fund continuing exploration at Coolgardie where Austminex could not afford to.
Ms Hobbs said the deal was necessary to grow the value of the assets despite diluting Austminex’s control.
“There is always dilution in growth. You will either dilute the access of the current shareholders to the underlying asset or you will dilute the shares,” she said. “What we are doing here is a very optimal blend of the above.”
