Practice 01 · Strategic Mandates
Where the capital goes, in what order, and whether to make or buy.
For boards and state holdings deciding what to build, what to buy and which link of the value chain to hold, before the capital is committed.
What we decide with you
Three decisions, each priced before it is taken.
Sequence · scale · timing
Capital allocation
Where the next dollar goes, in what order, and what has to be true for each step to earn its cost of capital.
Build · acquire · contract
Make or buy
Whether to build the capacity, buy it, or contract for it, priced against the base rate of what comparable builds delivered.
Pit / wellhead to market
Position in the value chain
Which link to own, which to rent and which to leave, and who takes the margin at each one.
We deliver
Decision memoMake-or-buy dossierRisk-adjusted modelBoard paper
Principal’s record
The same decisions, taken from the inside.
$20bn
Simandou iron ore project, Guinea
Country strategy, as a member of the Guinea leadership team.
$100m
Regional economic development, Guinea
Governance of Rio Tinto's in-country programme for regional economic development.
$150m
Technip's Asiaflex riser and flowline plant, Malaysia
Supply chain built from scratch: 53 staff, 600 suppliers, $60m of annual spend.
From the principal’s record Case file: A subsea-grade supply base →Case file: Donors and decision-makers →
How it runs
Three steps, built around the board date.
01 · The base rate
What comparable builds, acquisitions and contracts actually delivered, taken from the record.
02 · The options, priced
Build, buy or contract, each with its downside costed and its assumptions named.
03 · The decision memo
One recommendation and the number it turns on, delivered before the board date.
Who commissions it
Operator boards and state holdings.
Miners · Energy producers · Infrastructure operators
Operators
Build, buy or hold: the capital decision, tested against the base rate.
For operators →
Sovereign-wealth funds · National resource companies · Ministries & state holdings
Sovereigns
Which link of the value chain the state can defend, and which it subsidises.
For sovereigns →
The method, applied in public
Field Notes that show this practice at work.
31 Oct 2026 · Africa · Aluminium
Mozal · Guinea · Indonesia · Zimbabwe · Ajaokuta
Mandates Without Megawatts
Governments from Conakry to Lilongwe are ordering miners to process at home. A smelter needs about 500 MW of firm power, and the record shows the decision that matters is who owns that power and the capital behind it.
Make-or-Buy Series · 91 sources →
08 Jul 2026 · West Africa · Steel
Ajaokuta Steel · Nigeria
$8bn spent. Not a tonne of steel made.
Forty-seven years and more than $8bn after construction began, Ajaokuta has never lit its blast furnace. That record is the base rate every West African build case should price.
Make-or-Buy Series · 6 sources →
13 May 2026 · Latin America · Copper
BHP · Wheaton · Antamina
$4.3bn out the door. BHP read the cycle.
BHP sold its silver stream rather than defend it: a capital-allocation tell about a major pre-funding its dividend before a copper-heavy capex peak, a contested Samarco appeal, and a Chinese buyer consolidating its iron-ore book.
Value-Chain Series · 8 sources →