Phase 1 portfolio · 2019 – 2026
Six deals. Six lessons.The Phase 1 record.
Revenue-Based Financing deployed against coal production and rail logistics in the Highveld corridor — Mpumalanga and the Richards Bay export route. Counterparty names, colliery names, and pit codes are pseudonymised under the POPIA Act; all operational figures are accurate.
Deals
06 transactions
Years active
2019 — present
Asset class
Coal · rail logistics
Instrument
Revenue-Based Financing
Deal No. 01
Mpumalanga · Middelburg corridor
CompletedProject Atlas
Phase 1 · Inaugural deployment
Our first transaction. RBF deployed to a junior coal operator running a small opencast pit on a B-grade thermal seam in the Middelburg corridor. Production began on schedule; the deal exited 14 months after entry following operational issues at the mining contractor.
Milestones
- ·Mined 60% of projected reserve before contractor exit.
- ·Established the Transvaal Floor: weekly site presence, monthly data pack, audit rights.
- ·Validated the RBF amortisation profile against a small-scale coal operator.
Challenges
- ·Mining beneath an Eskom transmission corridor required engineered standoffs and limited bench geometry.
- ·Mining contractor equipment failure compounded by contamination of stockpiled coal forced an early exit.
What Phase 1 taught us
Four lessons carried into the Phase 2 mandate.
Lesson 01
RBF is the right Phase 1 instrument for established cash commodities.
Self-liquidating, time-bound, aligned to monthly cash flow. Six of six Phase 1 deals deployed under this structure.
Lesson 02
Mining contractor risk is the dominant operational variable.
Two early exits were driven by contractor failure rather than orebody or commodity-price events. Phase 2 underwriting weighs contractor maturity heavily inside the Oversight Index.
Lesson 03
The Floor works; structured oversight catches issues early.
Weekly site presence, monthly data pack, and audit rights have been retained verbatim in the Phase 2 mandate. The model held under live operational stress.
Lesson 04
Pivot, don't write down.
Project Lyra pivoted from bord-and-pillar underground to open pit mid-financing without renegotiating headline RBF terms. The firm's senior-claimant position made the pivot commercially possible.
Phase 2 — Now deploying
The next deal is already moving.
R5M – R100M per transaction. GRR · NSR · Streaming · RBF · NPI. Mpumalanga, North West, and the broader SADC region. Submit an opportunity or read the Investment Thesis 2026 in full.