Southvest

Private family office

The things the world cannot do without.

Southvest holds and operates assets in mining, energy and food — the staples, in the places where they are still built rather than traded.

Aerial view of a river in full flow beside a concrete run-of-river intake and spillway, dense bush along both banks.

What we hold

Three sectors, one thesis.

We take positions in things that are consumed, not traded on sentiment: metal, power and food. We hold them for a long time and we run them ourselves.

Mining

Gold in Southern Africa, from licence acquisition through to production. We take assets that are technically sound but administratively stalled, and do the unglamorous work of putting them in order.

  • CommodityGold
  • StageProducing and pre-production
  • StructureDirect ownership and joint venture
Mine compound at night: site offices and containers, a lit waste dump behind, plant and equipment to the right.

Energy

Run-of-river hydro and solar generation, developed for the grid and for our own operations. Small schemes, built where the water already falls and the sun is not in question.

  • TechnologiesRun-of-river hydro, solar PV
  • StageIn development
  • OfftakeGrid and captive
Intake structure of a run-of-river hydro scheme: steel trash racks across a concrete headrace, water held behind them, powerhouse above.

Food

Branded food businesses built close to the crop, starting with spice. Our first brand, Kirsia, begins with single-origin Vietnamese cinnamon. The margin in food sits between the field and the shelf, and that is the part we intend to own.

  • BrandKirsia
  • CategorySpice and dry goods
  • StageIn formation
  • RouteOwn brand, direct and retail
Kirsia cinnamon powder in a navy stand-up pouch with gold lettering, 16 oz.

Where we work

Southern Africa, principally.

Our operating assets sit in Southern Africa, with further interests in East Africa and Indonesia, and corporate structures in the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. We work in jurisdictions where mineral title and water rights are administered properly, and where we can be on site.

  • Southern Africa
  • East Africa
  • Indonesia
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

Specific assets and licence detail on request, to counterparties.

Approach

How we work.

Majority held

Southvest is majority held by the family, alongside a small number of minority shareholders. We are not a fund and we do not run to a fund's clock, which means we can take a decade over an asset if a decade is what it needs.

Operators, not allocators

We run what we own. Our people are on site, our own equipment is in the ground, and the person you negotiate with is the person who signs.

Title first

We do not move on an asset until the licence, the survey and the ownership chain are clean. Most of what we decline fails here, and it saves everyone the year that follows.

Contact

Bringing us something.

We look at mineral assets with existing title, small hydro with a measured flow record, agricultural land with water, and food businesses with a product already selling. We do not look at exploration without title, or at anything whose plan depends on money that is not yet committed.

Southvest
david@southvest.co

Please include the jurisdiction, the title or licence reference, and the stage. Proposals without those three take longer to reach an answer.