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How a Different Approach To the Mineral Rights Industry Set One Company Apart Using proprietary software and verifying mineral rights ownership, Phoenix Capital Group acquires real assets instead of speculating on the industry's future, and their partners reap the rewards

By Julian Lim

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Phoenix Capital Group team

Investing in the oil and gas industry can be quite challenging. No matter how well versed you are in what makes prices drop and jump—and no matter how good you are at predicting the future in the sector—investing here can be speculative if you are not a pro.

If done well—with the right data resources—investing in the oil and gas industry can be quite profitable, although navigating this space with the ability to understand the emotional ties owners have with their land is one of many challenges. Operating in the mineral rights space is the wild west of real estate, where the stakes are high, and the competition is tenacious.

One company is changing the perception of a volatile market, Phoenix Capital Group. The company has positioned itself as the industry leader in mineral/leaseholder rights for one reason: they have fully integrated expertise in engineering, finance, software development, marketing, and mineral rights which gives them a self-functioning machine. Their streamlined process allows them to create a profitable investing business based on tangible assets and not speculation.

When it comes to the industry, there is no one else in the space like them. Unlike many other investment firms in the mineral/leaseholder rights sector, Phoenix Capital has built the multiple internal divisions needed to provide a seamless stream of services connecting the investment side of the business to the asset acquisition function. This approach has involved developing two 'arms' of their company dedicated to researching who owns mineral rights throughout the country and then acquiring those rights.

The "crucial distinction," as the company's officials explain, is that Phoenix Capital Group owns the assets they are investing in. In other words, the company purchases property that has oil and gas in "predictable volumes in the ground."

People who invest in Phoenix Capital Group, then, are investing in a company that owns the asset. They're not speculating on oil and gas or trading on paper. They are investing in assets they believe in because they actually own them.

Doing this is not a simple task, which is one of the main reasons why Phoenix Capital Group can separate itself from others in the industry.

For one, they have an entire team dedicated to creating custom software to help the company maintain and build new products. This proprietary software allows them to identify solid leads for the sales team and automatically prioritizes the leads based on real-time pricing data. In the mineral rights space, they are ahead of the market as it's changing -- literally in real-time. This offers landowners the ability to get competitive and accurate pricing for their mineral rights since the company mitigates risk and works to provide top-dollar opportunities for landowners.

Phoenix Capital Group's software forecasts nearly every oil and gas well in the United States from the North Dakota-Canada border down to the Texas-Mexico border.

This wouldn't be possible without a team dedicated to the painstaking process of verifying mineral rights ownership. Unlike property ownership, mineral rights are not done in the same way.

Verifying who owns the rights to the minerals is an arduous process that could include scanning documents from the 1880s at a local courthouse and then interpreting what those documents mean. To do this, Phoenix Capital Group has created an entire team, which they call the "title factory," dedicated to loading ownership data into their proprietary database.

This aspect of Phoenix Capital Group requires a significant amount of time and cost, but it's well worth it in the end because it allows them to see potential opportunities that others may not. It enables the company to be a real asset-based investment business rather than a speculative one. Their team and software are what helped them weather the storm when the industry took an unfavorable turn at the beginning of the pandemic. Phoenix Capital Group not only survived but they were fortunate enough to remain profitable.

Investing in a company that can control its assets paves the way for growth regardless of how the market reacts to uncertainty. By retaining control over all the steps between investors and assets and by using technology to gain unique insights and perspectives, Phoenix Capital Group is confidently on the road to future growth.

As Phoenix Capital Group's Vice President of Capital Markets, Matt Willer, explains, "The company has de-risked about everything in our control, which leaves things 'out of our control' as the main risks. We cannot control pandemics, supply-demand economics, interest rates, or government/political initiatives. However, the good news is no one else can either. I am a believer that you focus on what you CAN control. Therefore, you are much more likely to overcome the most significant risks that you're potentially unprepared for because you've built a sound organization by focusing on what is within your power."

This aspect of Phoenix Capital Group is what serves their clients well, too. Those who invested in the sector during the pandemic likely suffered as the industry suffered. But those who partnered with Phoenix Capital Group could weather the storm and benefit from their innovative solutions for researching, predicting, and acquiring real assets in the oil and gas industry.

End-to-end integrated services and custom software are not the only things necessary to support success, and the leadership at Phoenix Capital Group knows this. It takes genuine relationships of trust growing from consistently doing what's best for your clients and investors.

When asked how she builds relationships with clients, Lindsey Wilson, Chief Operating Officer at Phoenix Capital Group explained, "The golden rule always applies, and we consider it a partnership. I am also rooted in this industry, with my family owning minerals and I understand that the minerals have sentimental value to some people and that process can be very emotional." She emphasizes that "having experienced this from a landowner's lens allows me to understand the process outside of a company mindset."

Phoenix Capital Group's commitment to delivering complete transparency, accuracy, and speed within relationships built on trust creates value that will undoubtedly fuel consistent growth for many years to come.

Julian Lim

Tech entrepreneur, researcher and editor at Startup Fortune

Julian Lim is a technology entrepreneur and researcher. Julian has graduated from NUS in intelligent systems and started his career pursuing data analytics and research. He’s also an editor and senior writer at Startup Fortune, covering technology, startups, AI, blockchain and entrepreneurship.
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