I agree with what others said in that it's a very different...

I agree with what others said in that it's a very different business from FMG, even though currently the biggest driver of earnings for both is obviously the high iron ore price.

MIN's strategy is to provide mining services and infrastructure (and possibly capital) to smaller miners who would otherwise struggle to develop the asset. They are happy to do farm-in arrangements where they get equity for helping to develop the asset. They are also happy to divest or sell down mine ownership as they did with Wodinga (which was a 100 bagger in terms of capital return).

FMG is just about running the most efficient iron ore operation as possible (or maybe Twiggy's green energy crusade...). The scale and quality of FMG's iron ore assets are in a completely different league from MIN, you're talking about US$12-13 cost/tonne vs US$75-85 for MIN. This does mean MIN's iron ore business has higher sensitivity to the iron ore price, but they've also got the lithium side and the external crushing contracts.

In terms of valuation I would say FMG is much easier. You just take whatever iron ore price projection you want and multiply it by their future tonnes which you have good visibility on. MIN has a few more moving parts and is more dependent on management backing the right projects. Obviously the track record has been pretty good so far...