Q&A with Philip Ho, Managing Director, Long State Investments
Global investor Philip Ho from Long State Investments shares his evolving focus from industrial minerals to battery metals, uranium, and precious metals, highlighting undervalued opportunities across the mining sector.
Let’s start with an introduction to yourself and your overall investment focus.
Long State is a multi-family office, having raised our money 15 years ago from families in Asia. We look for growth opportunities within the mining sector and have been investing across commodities worldwide, including North America, Africa, South America, Australia, and other jurisdictions.
So, you’re quite commodity and geographically agnostic?
We do have some commodities that we like at different times. When we first started, we looked quite a bit at industrial minerals. Then, over time, our focus has grown towards battery metals, critical minerals. In recent years, we’ve been investing in precious metals.
It’s been a great time to invest in gold and silver, but other metals, such as battery-focused ones, have been coming back very strongly recently.
We think that there are a lot of opportunities in uranium at the moment, with growing demand from data centres and storage.
A lot of people also talk about electric vehicles (EVs). While North America has been pulling back a bit on these lately, it has never been a big part of the equation on EVs. Instead, you see loads of data centres being built there, requiring a lot more electricity to be generated and used for these systems.
Lithium has recently come back in favour. Why do you think we’re seeing this resurgence in interest now?
Lithium is back in favour for two reasons. First, when prices fell, many investors overlooked the sector. Now, renewed interest is returning as the market direction becomes clearer.
Second, energy storage is creating a new layer of demand that wasn’t factored in five or 10 years ago. That long-term growth driver is reshaping the outlook for lithium.
What are the key criteria you use to evaluate investment opportunities? Where is your current focus?
With metal prices rising so much lately, a lot of projects that were non-viable in the past have now become viable. They’ve become investable, creating lots of new opportunities.
There are many undervalued opportunities out there at the moment.
On the uranium front, interest has been steadily growing, driven by grid storage needs and the broader focus on energy security. It is increasingly seen as a critical part of the future energy mix. Demand will continue to go up as new power plants are built.
Gold has been strong, with prices climbing, and silver is also showing upside. It is these kinds of hikes that create opportunities, making projects economically viable when they wouldn’t have been previously.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au
