Mason Hills is a Partner and Investment Team Leader at RCF. Mason is originally from Perth, Western Australia, and started his career in law
I studied economics at the University of Western Australia before going on to do a graduate law degree at Murdoch University.
After graduating, I went to work for a commercial law firm focused on practicing in corporate and securities law, and project financing, in the resources sector. While I was there, I spent a year working at the Federal Court of Australia as an associate to a Judge. When I returned from working with the Judge, I continued my career in the project finance section of the law firm until 1999.
In 1999, myself and one of the partners of the law firm at the time, decided to start our own practice with a focus on project finance, and we acted predominantly for borrowers and smaller lenders.
Mason has advised RCF since 1999 and joined in an in-house capacity in 2006
In 1999, a year after RCF’s founding and the launch of its first fund, RCF I, the organization was actively pursuing investments in Australia. I already had a relationship with some of the principals of RCF from my previous firm, so when they required legal work in Australia, it was a natural fit. So from 1999 until 2006, I worked as outside counsel for RCF.
In 2006, I joined RCF as their in-house lawyer in Australia. While my role was primarily legal work, my prior business relationships and established contacts in the Australian mining industry started to approach me about potential investment deals RCF could become involved with, and I found myself actively involved in leading transactions rather than doing pure legal work.
I was fortunate to be made a partner in 2009, and my focus changed dramatically from legal work to managing investments and the investment process.
Mason works on a number of deals and looks at 2-3 new opportunities on a weekly basis for RCF
As an investment team leader, I am generally responsible for 4-5 material transactions and a number of smaller transaction deals in my portfolio that I manage with my team on a day to day basis. They are the core transactions we work on. At present within those core transactions, there are two projects which have required greater team bandwidth just due to the size and complexity of them, and the work load required.
In my team we have four people – two Canadians, a Kiwi (New Zealander) and me, an Australian – all working out of the Denver office.
Regarding new projects, as a team, we look at and evaluate roughly two to three new opportunities on a weekly basis.
Mason has travelled extensively in order to oversee deal projects
There is a large amount of travelling involved with my role. I would estimate I travel around four to five months of the year. I do go back to Perth two to three times a year as RCF has an office there, and this works out well as I still have a lot of family in Perth. I also spend a fair amount of time in London, especially due to the fact that the Alufer Mining Bel Air project, a project I am currently working on, has its management team based there.
In 2012 Mason moved to the RCF office in Denver, Colorado, together with his family
In 2012, RCF thought it would be a good idea if I spent a couple of years in Denver. I moved over with my kids and enrolled them in school over here, and luckily they love it!
The lifestyle and the environment are great, and it is a good place to live. My kids enjoy their school, and my eldest daughter has just started college at Colorado University Boulder. Recently, there has been a large migration of people moving to Denver, and the city has significantly expanded. A lot of people move to Denver for the lifestyle, for the mountains, skiing and the hiking during the summer. The present intention for us is definitely to stay here.
Being involved in mining means I am often involved in a new project in an undeveloped region. New developments touch many aspects of the communities nearby – and often provide better quality infrastructure for them (like roads, education and healthcare) – and sometimes in ways that can’t be measured with economic statistics. I find it very rewarding being part of that process – and I take a deep interest in assisting the local communities that our projects impact.
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