[miningmx.com] – THERE’S A MOMENT when X2 Resources founder, Mick Davis, can’t contain a smile. Asked whether there was any mischief in the naming of his new company, he replied: “Maybe just a bit of fun.”
The psychology of naming, however, runs deep. It’s no coincidence, for instance, that a year after completing the ‘merger’ of Glencore Xstrata, the combined company should resolve at its recent annual general meeting to rename the company Glencore plc. The merger of equals was long dead, but the name change sealed it.
Said Hanré Rossouw, who is head of commodities for frontier and emerging markets at Investec Asset Management of the decision to call Davis’s new venture ‘X2’: “I think the name says it. It’s the Xstrata model rebooted”.
Yet is the market similarly positioned for another Xstrata?
“I think Mick has got a good track record,” said Rossouw. “He brought change to the industry by introducing a more financial focus. Before that you still had mining engineers running companies.
“The only disadvantage is that because Mick has had success, so it may become more difficult to get the same kind of deals. In the past, he seemed to come out of nowhere”. Rossouw was a CFO of Xstrata Alloys before joining Investec in Cape Town.