We believe it’s better to understand the consequences of all price outcomes across all assets specific to your company, factoring in your risk tolerance, than it is to spend time debating the likelihood of specific price trajectories of assets that are outside your control.

The Rubicon in History

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar led his army to the banks of the Rubicon, a small river that marked the boundary between Italy and Gaul. Caesar knew Roman law forbade a general from leading his army out of the province to which he was assigned. By crossing the Rubicon, he would violate that law. “The die is cast,” he said, wading in.That act of defiance sparked a civil war that left Julius Caesar the ruler of the Roman world. It also inspired English speakers to adopt the popular saying –crossing the Rubicon -centuries later.

We recognise that decisions made in risk management often cannot later be changed and will strongly influence future events.

King Code of Corporate Governance

“Risk identification produces the required information for the ensuing risk management processes, so it is therefore critical that the process is accurate, thorough and complete. risk identification should not rely solely on the perceptions of a select group of managers. A thorough approach to risk identification should include the use of data analysis, business indicators, market information, loss data, scenario planning and portfolio analysis”

King III Principle 4.10

 

Reducing Executive’s Risk

Executives are constantly making important decisions in their field of expertise, however they occasionally find themselves being called on to participate in decisions that aren’t within their realm of experience. Since they take their responsibilities seriously and are aware of the growing director’s liabilities, these decisions make them feel uncomfortable.

In many market related decisions, the correct decision only becomes clear in hindsight. Even market “experts” can’t guide you reliably in these matters.

We work with you to formalise your decision making process using a tool which generates thousands of scenarios in real-time and presents the outcomes in easy to understand form. This provides you with an unprecedented view of the multiple future paths your company might take and gives you the comfort, that regardless of market direction after a decision has been taken, you had specific reasons to chose the course of action that you did.

Using this approach, your decisions follow as a direct result of prudent risk-management, and don’t rely on a market view.

“Risk management is inseparable from the company’s strategic and business processes.”

King III Principle 4.1

Credentials

Rubicon Risk builds on the 25+ years’ experience in the banking industry of its founder

Jayson worked for a number of local SA banks as well as international banks earlier in his career. These include:

  • Standard Bank, as one of the founding members of the Gold Desk in 1992
  • Citi in 1996 to set up the local Interest Rate Derivatives business
  • RMB/FirstRand as head of the Commodities business for a number of years.
  • RMB Resources where he was the resident hedging professional for the global junior mining finance business, spanning Sydney, Melbourne, London, Johannesburg, Denver and New York.
  • Standard Chartered Bank as Head of Commodity Sales: Africa.

He has been involved in the design and execution of some of the largest hedges ever executed.

While at RMB and RMB Resources he participated in the execution of many project financing transactions, and the list to the right specifically details those where hedging was included in the debt structure.

Avgold’s Target Project (South Africa)

Crowflight Minerals’ Bucko Lake Project (Canada)

Sutter Gold’s Lincoln mine (USA)

Etruscan Resources’ Youga mine (Burkina Faso)

Apollo Gold’s Black Fox Project (Canada)

Jaguar Mining’s Turmalina Project (Brazil)

Apollo & Elkhorn JV: Montana Tunnels (USA)

Allied Gold’s Simberi Project (PNG)

Luna Gold’s Aurizona Project (Brazil)

Bass Metals’ Hellyer Mine (Australia)

Northern Star’s acquisition of the Paulsen’s mine (Australia)

Saracen’s Carouse Dam operations (Australia)

Navigator Resources’ Cockburn pit (Australia)

Our Offering

Rubicon works with executive teams to give a precise understanding of which combination of risks could threaten the financial health of an organisation. Our approach provides an unparalleled view of the company’s possible future and the effect risk mitigation will have.

By equipping management with the necessary tools, the board/finance committee can have a meaningful discussion about risk management and mitigation that doesn’t hinge on an individual’s views of market factors.

We envisage a relationship with a company with regular feedback sessions. The process would involve a level of customisation to adapt our tools and metrics to better match specific internal processes and standards.

Project financing requires alignment between a large group of interested parties. Rubicon helps with this by removing the subjectivity and opinion that is often present in the analysis of the project.

Specific debt conditions such as cash sweeps, interest holidays and financial hedges can add complexity and their interplay might lead to unintended consequences.

Rubicon’s analysis tools were developed in the Project Finance arena and can identify these consequences. The tools provide unparalleled insight into the performance of a project by detailing its financial performance over tens of thousands of price paths.

Our engagement with you would be an iterative process with multiple feedback sessions over the evolution of the project’s development plan.

Rubicon risk is an attractive consultant, providing an in-depth analysis of projects and their viability over many thousands of scenarios. This analysis is extremely successful at assisting in identifying danger zones in the project’s cashflows.

The methodology excels at comparative analysis, allowing comparison of projects competing for capital. It provides the information necessary to select the asset that best suits your investment criteria and risk appetite.

The analysis tools can also be used to assist in determining which of multiple future development plans has the highest prospect of success or which provides the greatest flexibility in volatile price environments.

Blog and Articles

Marginally lower price hike forecast for February.

Fuel prices will rise marginally less than we expected in last week’s forecast. this is due to a marginally stronger Rand and lower international product prices. We do see early indications of a drop in prices in March, but it is still too early to make a... read more

SA: Fuel prices forecast to rise marginally in Jan 2017

The price drops that came into effect on Wednesday were dampened by regulatory increases to allow for larger dealers’ margins and wage increases in the industry. These changes accounted for nearly 20c in the Petrol price and 6 cents in the diesel price. The reason for... read more

SA: Growing Certainty on the Change in Fuel Prices in December

18 November 2016 Our forecast last week indicated an expected 67c/l drop for petrol and a 50c/l drop for diesel, both with a margin of error of 13c/l. As we noted, Trump’s presidency spooked the markets and weakened the Rand by about 7%. This move has meant that the... read more

SA: December Fuel Price drop now a statistical certainty

11 November 2016 Our forecast last week indicated an expected 53c/l drop for petrol and a 37c/l drop for diesel, both with a margin of error of 20c/l. The favourable oil price and stable rand since then have increased the over recovery for petrol to 44c/l from 12c/l... read more

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