M5: Financial Modelling for Mining Companies (3-5 days)

Financial Modelling for mining projects including project evaluation and finance.

Expert Facilitator | Customise and run this course In-House | Course Enquiry 

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Pre-requisites

Although not mandatory, attendees will get a lot more out this course if they complete some online training in Excel functions before attending. We have partnered with Excel University to provide high-quality, low-cost online training and recommend their Volume 2 Course as good preparation for this course.  If attendees are a little less familiar with Excel, Volume 1 would also very useful.

What you get from this course

  • To provide participants with a good working knowledge of the most useful functions in Excel for financial modelling in the mining industry.
  • To provide participants with a sound understanding of mining financial modelling and project evaluation concepts.
  • To provide participants with experience in designing solutions to real-world financial modelling challenges.

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Agenda Highlights

Mining projects face many unique challenges: high capital costs, long-term projects, and high variability in commodity prices.

This course focuses on providing delegates with an understanding of both the principles of financial modelling for mining projects and the practical application of these to real-world situations through the use of Excel.

The course then builds upon the principles and practices learned to apply these to build sophisticated analytical models that are robust, flexible and user-friendly.

Part 1: Advanced Excel

Excel is the tool of choice for most financial modellers so before we start building financial models, it’s critical that we have a good understanding of the key functions and tools in Excel that can help us build models that are robust, easy-to-use, and flexible.
Here are just some of the areas we cover in our in-depth, hands-on workshop:
  • Working with large data sets
  • Summarising and aggregating data
  • Extracting data that matches criteria using flexible formulas
  • Error handling
  • Ways of improving the structure
  • Techniques for keeping formulas consistent yet flexible
  • Combining and splitting cells according to the content they contain
  • Advanced techniques for creating automatically expanding charts and ranges
  • Introduction to macros & when to use these

We then apply and practise these functions during the remainder of the course.

Part 2: Financial Modelling and Project Evaluation

Participants will build up a full financial model for a mining project. The example used is an iron ore project however the same financial modelling principles can be applied to any mining project model.

As such, this course is designed to be as close to real life as possible.

Lastly, the course describes how to both detect and prevent errors from occurring.

Financial Modelling Principles & Practices

Introduction to Financial Modelling

Principles of Financial Modelling

  • Steps in model building
  • Best practice guidelines and spreadsheet modelling standards
  • Designing for flexibility and scalability
  • Designing for consistency
  • Designing for usability and functionality
  • Designing checks and balances
  • Optimising your environment for rapid financial modelling

Applications of Financial Modelling

Principles of Risk and Return

  • Volatility
  • Capital Structures
  • Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

Project Evaluation: Theory and Application

  • Recap of mining accounting principles
  • Role of project evaluation: how do you evaluate a project? NPV, IRR, payback, VIR
  • Approaches to project evaluation & feasibility studies: discover different alternatives
  • Why free cash flow is critical for project evaluation and how to calculate this
  • Economic limit & life of mine calculation
  • Discover different techniques for forecasting future performance
  • Learn how to model capital expenditure and include this in the financial model
  • Learn new techniques for modelling uncertainty and including this in your calculations
  • Learn the principles of discounted cash flow modelling and why this is so popular in financial modelling
  • Sensitivity analysis and an introduction to Monte Carlo simulation and stochastic modelling: how and when would these techniques be most useful
  • Introduction to alternative project evaluation methodologies such as real options
  • Interpreting & presenting the results of your analysis to key decision-makers

Case Study:  3-way Financial Models

Design and build a forecast model that includes the balance sheet and cash flow.  Learn how to avoid circular references in interest calculations.

Case Study: Company Valuation

Perform a discounted cash flow valuation of a sample business.

Case Study: Scenarios & Sensitivities

Identify key risk areas and then incorporate sensitivity factors for these. Build a sophisticated scenario manager to run multiple scenarios and highlight the results.

Case Study: Monte Carlo Simulation & Stochastic Modelling

Incorporate Monte Carlo simulation and techniques into the financial models to simulate multiple sources of uncertainty.

Case Study: Model Optimisation

Use Excel’s tools to optimise the model’s results and perform breakeven analysis.

Control of Financial Models

Financial Model Auditing/Review

  • Why audit?
  • Excel’s auditing tools
  • Automated testing tools: role, purpose and limitations, demonstration
  • Model documentation

Financial Modelling Software

  • Overview: purpose, advantages, disadvantages, demonstration

Part 3: Your Financial Model

The last part of the course is a coaching session where we work individually with each person to help them apply what they’ve learned to the models they’re currently working with.

Although this session is optional, we encourage participants to take advantage of this if they can as it’s often when participants get the greatest value from the course because they’re gaining real-world experience by applying this to their own models.

It also reinforces the course by allowing them time to immediately practise what they’ve learned.

Mining clients who have trained with us:

  • BHPBilliton
  • Rio Tinto
  • Fortescue Metals
  • Citic Pacific
  • Glencore
  • Barrick Gold
  • Wesfarmers
  • Moly Mines
  • Gindalbie Metals
  • Tiger’s Realm
  • Focus Minerals
  • BGC Contracting
  • Clough
  • Qatar Aluminium

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Who Should Attend?

  • Business & Finance Analysts
  • Investment & Corporate Bankers
  • Finance staff
  • Mine Accountants
  • Project Managers
  • Business Development Managers
  • Mining Engineers
  • Mine Managers

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Facilitator: Jeff Robson

Masters (Applied Finance), B.Com (Accounting & Information Systems), FAIM, F Fin, MAICD, CISA, MS Excel Expert | LinkedIn |

Jeff Robson is the Principal and Founding Director of Access Analytic, a specialist consultancy that focuses on financial modelling, forecasting, valuation, model auditing, and management reporting for clients throughout the world.

He is skilled in the development and maintenance of analytical tools and financial models for middle-market mining companies to large corporates, at all levels of complexity, in both domestic and international settings.

He has worked extensively with many mining companies (both producers and explorers) over many years.  He has trained mining specialists from a wide variety of companies including BHPBilliton, Rio Tinto, Glencore, Wesfarmers, Gindalbie Metals, Moly Mines etc.

He provides training in financial modelling for mining companies throughout the world and is the author of a number of white papers on financial modelling.

Facilitator: Yury Tokarev

PhD, Chartered Accountant, Bachelor of Business (Finance and Economics), Microsoft Certified Excel Expert (MCEE) | LinkedIn |

Yury is a Director and an International Training Specialist at Access Analytic Solutions. He has over 25 years of experience in corporate finance, chartered accounting, and consulting.

Prior to his current role he worked in Business Services and Advisory at WHK Chartered Accountants and Corporate Finance at one of the top European Investment Banks. Yury has wealth of experience having delivered hundreds of Financial Modelling, Power BI and Excel solutions to clients ranging from start-ups to multi-billion corporations, including Chevron, Woodside, Northern Star Resources, Quadrant Energy, TransAlta and many more.

Yury is also an international trainer on these subjects, and provides training for companies throughout Australia, Asia, the Middle East, South Pacific and South America.

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Feedback from Previous Participants

Feedback Initials & Position
“Well done. Enjoyed it and worth every dollar.” M.D., Financial Analyst, Citic Pacific
“The most fantastic program for me in 2015.” H.H., Treasury Analyst, Citic Pacific
“Enjoyed the course. Good learning experience. Jeff was really very good.” A.V., Financial Analyst, Citic Pacific
“Jeff is a friendly and kind trainer. He is very knowledgeable about the course, definitely recommend to someone that require improvements on financial reportings.” Y.D., Financial Accountant, Citic Pacific

Benefits & Inclusions

Practical: Highly experienced facilitators who actively and regularly consult to clients also.
Applicable: apply what you learn to your job to further your career.
Hands-on: the course is designed to provide maximum hands-on experience.
Passionate: Our facilitators love this subject!
Clear: we specialise in translating complex subjects into concepts that are easy to understand.
On-going help: you can always e-mail the facilitator.
Comprehensive course notes.
Networking: meet industry peers and hear how they approach this subject.
Certificate of completion.
… and much more!

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Clients who have 3-4 or more people interested in this course normally prefer to run this course on an in-house basis in their offices.

We can bring all the equipment for up to 8 people so all you need is a room!

Benefits

  • Flexibility: we can combine content from multiple courses to create a custom course just for you, add-on a workshop or some mentoring sessions then run everything at the times that suit you.
  • Timing options: if you’re in Perth, we can split courses into half or single days and schedule these at times to suit you
  • No hidden extras: our fixed fee includes all materials and equipment costs for up to 10 participants
  • Cost effective: no extra fees for extra participants (maximum of 8 per session)

In-House Details & Pricing

  • Structure: half-day or full-day sessions
  • Location: all courses are available in-house, many are also available in open sessions
  • Class size: strictly limited to 10 to allow maximum interaction with the facilitator
  • Provided: projector, laptops, manual, CD
  • In-house Fees: contact us today to discuss your requirements

In-house Course Fees

Call us on +61 8 6210 8500 to discuss your requirements.

Notes:
– We are happy to customise our courses to suit your requirements
– A 10% discount applies when booking 10+ full days of training in any 30 day period
– Many courses can also be split into half-days (please enquire)
– Fees for locations outside of Perth do not include equipment

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