The listing of Copper 360 on the AltX showcases the opportunity available to emerging critical metal miners to access capital on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

Copper 360 is a clear illustration of the depth and liquidity of capital markets that are available in South Africa, JSE business development manager Patrycja Kula-Verster accentuated in a Zoom interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly. (See below to watch Creamer Media video.)

Moreover, existing miners should also look to the JSE to raise further capital, whether by listing or by private placement, for those companies wanting some form of pre-listing funding.

Currently funders are responding to the efforts of juniors to unlock critical copper, magnesium, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths, which are essential for clean energy technologies.

“Our role is to facilitate access to capital for a lot of these junior miners and miners,” said Kula-Verster.

South Africa has about 6 000 unexplored and abandoned mines, some with existing infrastructure on which to model data and facilitate the raising of some capital.

Mining Weekly: Had Copper 360 not committed itself to listing, would it, in your view, have been able to raise that level of private placement and debt that it did, which totalled R152-million?

Kula-Verster: It's a very interesting hypothesis to try and test. I definitely do think that the JSE played an instrumental role in facilitating that access to capital. Copper 360 was really a coming together of a number of projects, which have given the company long life-of-mine and are continuously giving them an opportunity for ongoing capital raising.

What can be done by companies like Copper 360 to attract more retail investors?

At the exchange, we've got around a dozen retail brokers as well as financial services providers that have made it their job to ensure that they make the trading of stocks on the exchange a user-friendly, enjoyable and accessible experience. The most important thing is to continuously speak to the retail investor and audience base through the facilitation of the JSE.

Copper 360 is outspoken about its ambition to build Africa’s next copper giant “slowly from the ground up”. What can JSE do to enable Copper 360 to achieve this ambition?

For us, it is really to be here as a partner of choice, making sure that we facilitate the capital raises, the liquidity, and ensuring that Copper 360 really do gain the global profile that they're obviously looking to attain.