RE: Orior Capital - KEFI in Pole position at the new frontier23 Oct 2020 13:11
KEFI looks compellingly cheap:KEFI looks cheap, both in comparisonto other African gold companies, and also in terms of its price to NPV. The market is valuing KEFI at an EV of just US$409/oz of planned annual gold production, and ascribing no value to Hawiah, or to the company’s other assets. This valuation represents a59% discount to asample of 5African gold explorers and developersthat trades at an average EV of US$1,001/oz. Valuing Tulu Kapi in line with peers, and Hawiah as a copper exploration asset, suggests a current valuation of 5.4p/share.This is 2.4x the current share price.Bringing Tulu Kapi on stream is expected to drive a substantial re-rating: A sample of 8 African gold producers, with output ranging from 55,000 oz pa to 258,000 ozpa,is currently trading at an average EV of US$3,239/oz of annual production. This is more than 3x the market valuation of the explorer and developer group. Valuing TuluKapi asa production asset, and factoring in modest further development at Hawiah, could underpin a valuation of 12.3p/share.This is 5.5xthe current share price. Tulu Kapi is expected to commence production in 1Q23. If this valuation is achieved in two years, it would represent an annual return of 134%.A ‘blue sky lite’ scenario–‘lite’ because the real blue sky scenario is to discover another Tulu Kapi in the Ethiopian exploration licence area–might include an additional 100,000 oz pa productionat Tulu Kapi, and expansion of the Hawiah resource to say 100mt (5x the current resource). In this scenario,KEFI shares could be worth 20.7p/share, roughly 9x the current share price.KEFI also looks cheap compared to its NPVs.