GEN’s new CEO takes the helm

Published 17-MAR-2025 12:33 P.M.

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Today our green iron ore Investment, Genmin (ASX: GEN) announced that Andrew Taplin has commenced as its new CEO.

Taplin has 30 years of experience, including 25 years at Rio Tinto inside its iron ore and copper divisions - so we think he will be an excellent fit for GEN as the company drives at financing, construction and production over this year and next.

Within Rio Tinto’s iron ore division, Andrew worked at the Pilbara operations, Iron Ore Company of Canada (Labrador City) and spent four years at Simandou as an expatriate residing in Guinea, Conakr

We like that Taplin's background includes significant West African experience and French language skills - notably four years at Simandou as an expatriate residing in Guinea, Conakry.

Simandou is a mammoth iron ore project, so we expect Taplin to bring great experience to the role as GEN seeks to obtain financing for its green iron ore project in Gabon.

We also know of Taplin through his past role at Heavy Minerals.

Heavy Minerals has been one of our best performing Investments of late - Heavy Minerals’ share price is up nearly 465% since mid-last year.

What’s next for GEN?

Taplin’s immediate priorities are market engagement and advancing project financing for Baniaka.

GEN already has 4 x Chinese offtakers - GEN has four offtake MoUs for future production in place, three of which are in the top 15 biggest steelmakers in the world.

These four non-binding offtake MoUs cover ~18mt over GEN’s first three years of production — effectively all of its production during that period.

When it comes to financing GEN’s focus is on leveraging its four Chinese offtake MoU partners to put together a financing solution for its project.

( Source )

Project financing update (US$200M CAPEX financing)

We want to see GEN show a pathway to getting its project financed and into construction.

Milestones

🔲 Confirm funding strategy

🔲 Secure debt financing

🔲 Secure equity financing

🔲 Secure binding offtake agreements

🔲 Secure prepayments for offtake or other strategic capital partners.

Convert offtake MoU’s into binding agreements

In the near term we are looking for GEN to make progress across its offtake MoUs.

With 4 MoUs for offtake already secured, we think GEN will be looking to make these offtakes binding and in doing so, firm up the financing picture.

We expect there would be some competitive tension around GEN’s premium product - and things could move quickly once any of these 4 MoUs are converted into a binding agreement.

Milestones

🔄 Binding offtake #1

🔄 Binding offtake #2

Read more about what we expect next from GEN in our most recent note: