Serabi Gold - CEO Profile

About Serabi Gold

Serabi Gold is a gold exploration, development and production company focused on the prolific Tapajos region in Para State, northern Brazil. The Company has a stable production base of 30,000 to 40,000 ounces per year which it is planning to double in the coming years and has recently made a copper-gold porphyry discovery on its extensive exploration licence.

Click here for the full Company Note on Serabi Gold.

Interview with CEO Mike Hodgson

What’s your company, title, and role? For how long?

Serabi Gold Plc, I am the CEO and I have been here since 2009

What have you been charged with doing for the company?

Following the re-opening of our first mine, Palito in 2014, grow the company to a ~100,000 ounce producer, with some exploration success along the way!. 

What characteristics do you think one needs to be a CEO?

Vision - a CEO of a junior I believe has multiple roles, firstly he/she has to market the company, find the funding, balance exploration, operate….and like many a junior, the CEO has to almost double up as being the COO. Regular site presence is a must – which I do.      

What has/have your position as CEO taught you: good and bad.

Before being a CEO – I thought Boards ‘ran’ companies, I now realise quite often it is main shareholders, and finding the right balance of the right type of shareholder is critical. Running a company with main investors with opposing views is ‘challenging’!    

What’s the one thing that a mentor/boss taught you that you still think about/use today?

‘Cash and Flow’ are the two most important words and attributes for a junior. Mining is all about spreading your G&A over more ounces!  

In a sector known for its ups and downs, what’s the hardest decision you had to make?

Being a geologist, having to scale back exploration to conserve free cash flow to service debt that the company should never have taken, but were forced into.    

What are you most proud of?

I think since we re-started Palito in 2013, I do believe we are just about the only single-asset gold miner that has survived without the help of either a refinancing, a re-branding or a roll-up into a bigger entity…we must be doing something right!  

Tell us something that few people know about you.

I love sports – and I am a happy hacker at golf!

What does the future of this sector look like? What needs to change to get there?

Costs are going up dramatically, I fear for juniors with large projects to fund, we have dropped plans to build the full Coringa, and will truck ore to the Palito plant, and live with a higher opex, but it does mean growth without painful dilution for shareholders  

What is driving the need to change?

Inflation and spiralling capital and opex costs.

What type of people are / should be attracted to this sector?

People seeking adventure and want a real job!

Which companies or individuals do you look up to?

I never really look up to majors or aspire to be like them. I always have had an admiration for successful producers/leaders in the junior world, they are brave and exposed.  Sean Harvey, my CEO at TVX, was one such individual and he has been my mentor for years, I have learnt so much from him on how to market myself and the company and how to strike a balance between employee and investor priorities.

What is your educational background?

BSC Geology (London), MSc Mining Geology and Mineral Economics (Leicester).

Did you know what industry you wanted to work in straight away? What did you want to do?

Pretty much so, I did a Mineral Exploration module during my BSc and visited two underground mines at that time, and I was hooked.

What is your professional background?

38 years working in many jurisdictions over the world in many different commodities – starting as many a mining graduate did in the 1980’s in Zambia, followed by Malawi, UK (Cornwall) The Philippines, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, then finally South America in Chile, Bolivia and now Brazil. But one thing has been consistent in all these locations and commodities – I have had a real focus on small underground, high-grade mining. 

When did you move into management? When did you move into a board position?

Probably in 2003, when I took the role of Operations Manager at TVX in Greece, managing a 1,500 tonne per day lead-zinc-silver operation.

What do you think your best attributes are for running a company?

I am a geologist and I think the type of company we are needs vision, and being a Geo brings this. Being technical, I can find my way around a balance sheet but I think for juniors striking the balance and understanding the challenges of a single asset company trying to bring that second asset on stream, funding exploration and growth, understanding the technical challenges and making the right decisions is key, and sometimes boards and investors struggle to understand this.     

What kind of people do you surround yourself with?

Probably because of the answer in 17 we need a very good CFO and we have one in Clive Line, he also has a strong technical understanding, which makes life far simpler.

More recently we have added Ed Bowie as Business Development. Whilst I undertake the operational and organic growth, Ed has taken on a huge amount of work that I simply could not cope with before he arrives appraising many M&A opportunities for Serabi.   

What are the KPIs that you focus on for yourself and for your team?

Well, we operate in a hugely sensitive area in Brazil, so environmental footprint is critical. We focus on small underground mines, we are NOT cutting down great swathes of trees, and what we cut we replace.

We also hire 80% of our workforce from the immediate area. We as Serabi see ourselves as a Tapajos company, not a Brazilian one, with Palito in production for over 10 years and Coringa on the way, we are very committed to the region and the local people know and support that.   

Shareholders are nervous with current market conditions. How do you maintain confidence for current shareholders, and attract new potential investors?

It has been tough getting through the Pandemic and probably more so afterwards. We ran down resources to survive and then have struggled to catch up, but we are getting there.

This is a results-driven business, we are generating positive cashflow, we are now reaching monthly targets and meeting guidance and we have a super exciting exploration story evolving with Matilda and the copper-gold porphyry potential of the Palito tenements. 

What do you think are the challenges currently facing the mining industry?

I fear for non-producers, with positive cashflow we can grow albeit modestly, but I think the growing scarcity of capital will force juniors to take bad money.   

Final question, what do you want investors to think of when they hear your name?‍

I want them to see me as a hands-on, committed CEO who is not ‘holed up in a plush 9-5 office in London or Toronto, but working hard for them and all stakeholders of Serabi.