Welcome to AIM Mining Research Ltd

Helping fund managers understand junior mining companies

Growth in the number and spread of junior miners listed on AIM has been considerable over the past three years, driven by the longest commodity upcycle since the Second World War, the cut-back in exploration spend by the major mining groups, and the simultaneous opening up of a number of “new frontier” regions to Western mining groups (including Russia/FSU and Africa outside of the RSA)

This cyclical phenomenon has been typical of junior markets in “resource regions” such as Canada, Australia and South Africa, and hence the analytical coverage and investor knowledge exist in those regions to respond to the upswing.

In contrast, London has seen its mainboard mining sector presence expanded as recently as the past decade - moving from one FTSE mining company in the early nineties to seven at present. There are thus many parts of the investment community who do not have in depth experience of mining investments, but who can no longer resist the pressures to increase their exposure to the sector in the face of some apparent structural changes to resource sectors.

The AIM market has had a much shorter history of junior resource companies, and is currently less heavily regulated in some areas relating to resource and reserve issues (with the focus falling heavily on the responsibility of the nominated advisers (NOMADS) to keep investors fully and responsibly informed).

The nature of the bulk of the junior mining companies listed on AIM  i.e. early exploration or development companies, means their analysis requires even more specialist technical information not typically required in analysing industrial, financial or service-based smaller UK companies. They can perhaps best be compared to IT or bio-tech companies in the sense of needing some specialist knowledge and jargon even to be able to start asking the right questions of the management teams.

AIM Mining Research Ltd has produced a research document entitled "Understanding Junior Miners" to help fund managers understand the specialist geological and mining issues facing early stage junior miners in order to interrogate and analyse them. 

UPDATE April 2011: Ebook coming soon. To register interest Contact us