[taneq]

Sounds a lot like mining, although you could go a step further and say that (depending on where in the mining boom/bust cycle we are) mining companies are actually finance companies. They find a location (by paying geological survey companies, or by just buying an established claim from someone else), they pay other companies to design and build a mine site, then they pay yet other companies to staff and operate the site. Sometimes the company has very little direct involvement in actually digging ore out of the ground and processing it.

[anthony_barker]

For smallcap you can just consider them an option contract that is heavily marketed.

Most of the materials from the mine are presold.