More Than 200 Civil And Mining Assets Financed Over 10 Years.

The first water cart, and the full funding picture

James Allan was introduced to MMS director Ben Broom in 2016. MMS supplied wet and dry hire plant and operators to civil contractors. Turnover was in the teens, below $20 million, with roughly 20 employees and 20 fleet assets. MFG’s first transaction was a water cart for a civil contracting job.

While arranging it, James reviewed finance across banks, non-banks and OEM funders, including Cat and Volvo equipment finance. Those arrangements had supported MMS to that point. A full fleet and commitment schedule showed Ben the repayments, lender exposure and immediate capacity in one place. Good repayment history can sometimes support higher ceilings or simpler repeat approvals after lender milestones, subject to policy.

That visibility mattered before bidding. Ben and James could map likely assets to lenders for the next job instead of treating every purchase as an isolated application.

An annual limit for a program of purchases

As turnover grew through roughly $30 million to $50 million, James reviewed MMS’s results and funding position with Ben regularly, often quarterly. MFG arranged its first annual asset finance master limit with a major bank, plus a secondary non-bank facility. The first master limit was $1.8 million. Today MFG manages $50 million in master limits across MMS.

A master limit is an annual approval for multiple equipment drawdowns, subject to the facility conditions, rather than a fresh full application for every acquisition. Establishing the first limit in this arrangement did not incur a setup cost.

MFG protected bank limit capacity for larger, harder-to-place or urgent purchases. Smaller used assets could go to suitable non-banks; larger transactions, often $500,000 to seven figures and beyond, could draw on competitive major-bank facilities where appropriate. This helped manage funding cost across the fleet and kept room for the next major machine. Rates and approvals remain subject to lender assessment.

Planning a mining fleet before the tender

MMS shifted from civil contracting into mine services and rebranded as Mineral Mining Services. Turnover moved into the $50 million to $100 million range and eventually beyond $250 million. The fleet changed from conventional civil plant to 100 to 200 tonne excavators and mining dump trucks.

With debt then spread across roughly 10 to 15 lenders, MFG reviewed the full schedule again. A proposed mining job could call for one or two new excavators, four to six dump trucks, then loaders, graders, dozers, water carts, work vehicles, site offices, generators and lighting towers. James and Ben costed the likely fleet before MMS won the job, mapping master limits and existing-client approvals to the equipment needed to mobilise.

MFG worked with bankers to increase limits as the business and its equipment program grew. Ben could consider a tender knowing where funding capacity might sit, subject to the approvals and drawdowns.

The purchase has to get to work

Once MMS purchased an asset, it could send the supplier invoice and MFG would seek a drawdown under an established facility. Documents and settlement could often be handled within 24 hours, depending on the transaction, asset and lender requirements.

Mobilising large machines to the Kalgoorlie Goldfields, Pilbara or Northern Territory can take weeks. Equipment may need dismantling and transport; staff and operators need to arrive; wages and finance repayments begin before the customer pays. This can leave a cash flow gap before customer payment. MFG helped arrange overdraft and debtor finance facilities, first outside the major banks and later through corporate banking relationships, to support mobilisation and preserve cash.

From mine services to MMS’s own gold project

After years of mobilising fleets for other mine operators, MMS took another step: developing and operating its own East Sampson Dam gold project near Kalgoorlie. It is a measure of how far the business has grown. MMS can now bring together its mining fleet, operators, geologists and technical people to plan and run a project of its own, alongside the mine services work it continues to deliver for clients.

James and Ben mapped the plant and finance capacity likely to be needed for mobilisation before the equipment was committed. We recently visited the operation to see the fleet and the team at work. Standing at the pit puts the earlier planning in perspective: the machines, people and funding all have to arrive in the right sequence for a mine to run.

MMS has also entered joint ventures with mining partners, bringing its operational capability and fleet to shared projects. East Sampson Dam is MMS’s owner-operated project; those partnerships are separate opportunities. For James, the striking part is seeing a business that once needed a water cart for a civil job now able to plan and execute mining work at this scale.