1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,240 And then they went and killed this pole and they just hit this 2 00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:06,440 extraordinary grade. I, I remember just sitting there 3 00:00:06,440 --> 00:00:09,880 looking at in the morning again, like, Oh my God, I think I just 4 00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:13,520 watched $5 billion get created in a company that's trading for 5 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:26,050 hundreds of 1,000,000 and. I think we've got to keep this 6 00:00:26,090 --> 00:00:28,610 intro very short because the conversation is worthy of every 7 00:00:28,610 --> 00:00:30,090 minute that the money miners listen to here. 8 00:00:30,090 --> 00:00:33,530 But we're speaking Darren McLean of Buddy Waters. 9 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:36,560 People might think of Muddy Waters as this activist kind of 10 00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:38,240 short seller. Got a reputation? 11 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,200 Got a reputation, Darren. He runs a long fund these days. 12 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,600 He came from K2 Asset Management, a hedge fund, where 13 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:48,600 he had tremendous success. Yeah, spent nine years there, 14 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:51,000 right, cutting his teeth, ran the sort of mining sleeve. 15 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,520 And I think for anyone that is interested, which I'm sure 16 00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:56,440 there's a lot of people out there in just investing in the 17 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:58,720 mining sector, in particular, those companies at the early 18 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:01,840 stage all the way through to seeing these projects get built, 19 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:03,360 they're going to love this conversation. 20 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:05,800 There are so many Nuggets of of wisdom. 21 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:07,680 There's so much sort of experience that he's built up 22 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:09,960 over his career. I'm thrilled to share this 23 00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:13,120 conversation with Darren. Darren McLean from Muddy Waters, 24 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:16,080 we're hoping that the the waters clear up and we can have a 25 00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:19,040 pretty enlightening conversation about investing in the mining 26 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:21,960 sector today with you. Thank you so much for joining 27 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:24,440 us. Thanks for having me guys, 28 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:26,880 appreciate it. Dan, I'm, I'm super excited to, 29 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:29,680 to have this conversation. We, Trevor and I both listened 30 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,240 to a conversation of yours a few months back and yeah, it was, it 31 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:34,920 was pretty gripping. We were messaging each other 32 00:01:34,920 --> 00:01:37,040 afterwards saying got to get this guy on the show. 33 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,240 It was just sort of fascinating the way you spoke about the 34 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:42,800 sector, the way you found yourself investing in, in the 35 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:44,680 natural resources world. So I, I want to start the 36 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:47,400 conversation there. You're not from a technical 37 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:50,640 background, but you spoke in that conversation we heard and 38 00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:53,440 and when we spoke on the phone a little while ago with real sort 39 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:56,480 of technical capability and and thrusting yourself into that 40 00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,200 junior end of the market. So how did it all kind of come 41 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:03,840 about? How'd it all come about? 42 00:02:08,039 --> 00:02:11,360 I worked, I got the chance to work for some extraordinary 43 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:15,320 people. I would say not really from a 44 00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:19,440 direct teaching perspective, like an elements of that, but 45 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:24,240 but honestly, just the people that let me just kind of chart 46 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,520 my own path and do and follow my my nose and kind of like, Hey, I 47 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:30,360 think you're onto something. Go go chase that down. 48 00:02:30,920 --> 00:02:34,040 And I just happened to work and I've only ever, prior to Muddy 49 00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:37,440 Waters, worked for two different groups ever. 50 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:42,120 And both my previous bosses were, I think, pretty special 51 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:47,360 people who gave me a lot of re reign and latitude and let me 52 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:52,520 chase down and kind of bury myself and things that I thought 53 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,960 were compelling. And even if I couldn't really 54 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:57,680 explain them, Yeah, I work for some great people who just kind 55 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:02,600 of enabled me to work in an unstructured environment and 56 00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:05,160 emphasize that. So I mean, that was fantastic. 57 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:08,360 They're also both contrarians, which helped. 58 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:09,960 And I think I'm worried that way by nature. 59 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:15,480 And in doing so, you know, you never know where to begin when 60 00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:17,880 you start working in any sector. And I'm a big believer that the 61 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:21,640 vast majority of, of what you do is, is learned on the job. 62 00:03:21,640 --> 00:03:23,800 Like if you want to be an engineer or doctor, sure, your, 63 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:25,640 your education is, is pretty important. 64 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:30,600 But in finance and business and anything like that, I mean, 65 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,000 learned experience ends up dominating. 66 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:38,320 And, and certainly mining it I think is no exception to that. 67 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,040 There's like, I think when people think about technical 68 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:43,120 aspects of mining, they think, well, you need to have a 69 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:45,840 technical background to reach technical conclusions. 70 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:49,360 But the reality is, I mean, any given technical background in 71 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:53,600 mining only covers a small area of the components that make a 72 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:56,120 project work, and certainly they have almost nothing to do with 73 00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,360 capital markets. So at the end of the day, you 74 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:01,840 need to pull together a range of skill sets and you need to just 75 00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:06,960 have a general good set of instincts of what is and isn't 76 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:09,440 relevant, what needs to be dug into, what you can take as a 77 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:13,240 given, what you can't, where the, you know, mines. 78 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:15,680 So many things need to come together for a mind to succeed 79 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:17,200 and work. It only takes one thing to fail 80 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:18,600 for a whole project to fall apart. 81 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:23,040 And there's so many risk factors and they're not necessarily 82 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,640 readily obvious when you first look at a project and you say, 83 00:04:27,640 --> 00:04:30,160 oh, it looks it's got millions of Oz. 84 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:31,720 I saw this other thing. They look the same. 85 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:33,040 It's great that one's trading in here. 86 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:34,800 This one's cheaper. I should buy this is cheap. 87 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,840 And then you find out there's a weird species of something or 88 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:41,000 you have to divert a, some a certain number of cubic meters 89 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,320 of water flow a year. And that that's just screws you 90 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:48,080 for permitting timelines and pushes you into, into acts. 91 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,480 And I think knowing where the risk factors lie, having a good 92 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:57,880 nose for the instincts of that. And, and yeah, just the ability 93 00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:00,120 to dig into that and bring together a bunch of disciplines 94 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:02,480 from understanding how to get confidence in metallurgy, how to 95 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:05,600 get confidence and a resource how to get confidence in, in the 96 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:08,600 engineering aspects, how to get confidence in the the earthworks 97 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:11,560 and whether you can take that as a given and just having a good 98 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:13,520 nose for risk and joint probability. 99 00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:17,640 These are kind of, I don't feel like I'm doing a great job of 100 00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:19,920 answering the question, but I would say that I don't think 101 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:23,120 there's any one technical skill set that really necessarily 102 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:24,840 endows you with the foundation to go and do it. 103 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,280 Yeah, I think there's probably like 10 things you need to pull 104 00:05:28,280 --> 00:05:31,600 together and you can only really get an academic education in one 105 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:34,520 of them, so. Yeah, it it sounds like 106 00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:37,200 curiosity is the the thing you just sort of follow and it was 107 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,480 something that sort of gripped you and interested you from 108 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:42,680 pretty early on. Curiosity is the word. 109 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:45,840 Yeah, curiosity is the word. And tinkering. 110 00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:50,240 You know, you got to love to tinker, but it's a contrarians 111 00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:52,080 industry too. You have to be a creature of 112 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:53,600 your own convictions. Can you? 113 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:56,240 Can you peel into that bit? I mean, I'm just kind of keen to 114 00:05:56,240 --> 00:06:00,160 hear you like your synopsis or your, your opinion of how, how 115 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:02,280 do you make money investing in the sector? 116 00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:09,200 How do I make money? How do you make like? 117 00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:10,920 How do you make money in a general sense? 118 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:13,960 Like how should you make money If Like how do I specifically 119 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:16,880 make money? Like how you as as maybe like a 120 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:19,720 non-technical outsider who's become a a very like a skilled 121 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:22,920 investor with success. Like what's your synopsis of now 122 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:25,520 you like you'll learn method if you were like writing a book? 123 00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:26,880 How do you make money in the sector? 124 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:28,760 Well, when I started out, I worked for this fellow Glenn 125 00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:31,800 Brown, who had this shop called Boswell Capital. 126 00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:39,280 And he's, Glenn's a genius. He's brilliant and he's into 127 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:43,000 deposits and discoveries and exploration and he's a geologist 128 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,720 and loves having complex theories of how a project will 129 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:51,360 come together or how expiration will come together or so on and 130 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:55,240 so forth. And I, I, I sat in his basement 131 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:57,000 of his office and just plotted drill holes. 132 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,200 I read every single drill hole news release that came out in 133 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:02,680 the market every single day and tried to figure out if they're 134 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:06,480 interesting or not. And that I did that, you know, I 135 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:09,280 spent the first hour or two of my morning every single day 136 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:10,680 doing that. I did that for years. 137 00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:13,720 And in doing so, you plot things out and a lot of it leads to 138 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,280 nothing. And then every so often 139 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:20,560 something will come by and it will just knock you off your 140 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:22,520 chair and you'll be like, Oh my God, this is different. 141 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:26,080 So just doing that over and over and over. 142 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:32,240 And how to take a drill hole and make sense of what it's worth 143 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,200 isn't, there's no book on that. It's something you have to just 144 00:07:35,200 --> 00:07:36,720 kind of do and immerse yourself in. 145 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:40,160 And, and I did that and, and I thought there were probably 146 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:41,680 people all over who just did that. 147 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:45,600 And then I kind of quickly realized that that wasn't the 148 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:47,560 case. I, I had a hard time finding 149 00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,000 anybody who, who did that. And, you know, we talked about 150 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:52,360 exploration projects and people would ask me about them and I'd 151 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:54,440 go and tell this minutia in detail because I was obsessed 152 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:56,960 with this stuff. And then I realized everyone's 153 00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:58,160 eyes were glazing back in their head. 154 00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:03,440 And I was like, oh, you know, they don't really, this isn't 155 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:05,160 what they do. But at the same time, in doing 156 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:08,560 so, I found like incredible pieces of value and you know, 157 00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:13,560 Alpha, where you start spotting some things and uncovering some 158 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:16,560 things that you think are worth extraordinary amounts of money. 159 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:18,520 And the thing about drilling is drilling is the ultimate 160 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:21,240 catalyst. Like a drill hole comes in and 161 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:23,800 walks into a company that might be 10s of millions of dollars 162 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:24,920 and hundreds of millions of dollars. 163 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:28,920 And sometimes it changes the value proposition by hundreds of 164 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:30,400 millions of billions of dollars in a moment. 165 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:35,159 And, and when you watch that happen and sometimes the stock 166 00:08:35,159 --> 00:08:39,960 barely responds and you're like, no, that has to be worth half a 167 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:41,640 billion dollars or something like that. 168 00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:45,760 And, and it doesn't respond. And then you, you then you see 169 00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:47,640 it play out and you're right from beginning and you say, Oh 170 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:49,360 my God, that was just sitting there hanging out. 171 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:51,840 Like that was an extremely compelling thing for me is 172 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:54,200 watching those pieces of information come in, realizing 173 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:58,600 not everyone was very few people were doing that, and then 174 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:02,360 watching them come to fruition to the positive, to the negative 175 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:05,360 and realizing, Oh my God, there was an incredible opportunity to 176 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:07,360 make money there. So I watched the number of those 177 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:10,240 instances go by early in my career way understood the the 178 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:11,920 scenarios intimately and I understood the value 179 00:09:11,920 --> 00:09:14,720 propositions early and I realized, no, there's a real 180 00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:16,720 edge here and there's a real transaction opportunity. 181 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:21,920 And I, I always say to people, you know, when we're starting 182 00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:25,680 out that I've worked with, like the the first time you see 183 00:09:25,680 --> 00:09:28,720 something you extraordinary, you probably won't believe it and 184 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:30,720 you won't trust yourself and you won't have the confidence to 185 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:34,120 make enough money on it. And if you do, you're probably, 186 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:36,240 you know, maybe you got a case of Dunning Kruger where you're 187 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:40,480 emboldened by your own naivety, but you're kind of you're timid 188 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:42,360 at first. You're like, no, we can't, it 189 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:45,160 can't be this obvious. And you watch it play out in the 190 00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:47,440 second time. You need to swing. 191 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,480 If you see it, you need to move. And so I had a lot of reps of 192 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:51,840 first times and that kind of job. 193 00:09:53,480 --> 00:09:55,960 And then I got the opportunity when I went to K2 to transact on 194 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:59,200 a number of those. And yeah. 195 00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:03,400 Do do you think the the opportunity out there has gotten 196 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:07,080 bigger over the sort of 15 ish years of of your career? 197 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:10,440 As in less funds doing and competing in that arena. 198 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:15,320 Well that's a. I'd say that's it's a simple 199 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:16,920 question. It's a very multi faceted 200 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:23,040 answer. Has it gotten easier from a 201 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,760 competition standpoint? Yes, I think mutual funds have 202 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:30,280 been, but they they were a very traditional source of capital 203 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:31,480 and walked in. They were big players. 204 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:34,800 You had these big funds with very large capital sleeves and 205 00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:38,800 the people directing them had a lot more rain and flexibility 206 00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:39,960 and how they could pursue things. 207 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:44,160 And then I think they've been regulated and restricted more 208 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:45,440 and more. They've been forced up calf, 209 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:48,000 they've been forced to minimum minimum liquidity requirements, 210 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,280 minimum deployment requirements. They're kind of forced into pro 211 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:55,480 cyclical vehicles. It it'd be a tough place to to 212 00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:57,640 operate, at least for how I like to invest. 213 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:00,360 I think it'd be extremely difficult from where the 214 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:04,400 managers of those funds sit and what their restrictions are. 215 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:08,200 So that's really removed a lot of that capital out of the 216 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:11,360 sector and and the word exists has been largely pooled up cap 217 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:17,160 into, you know, quasi index funds and then active capital. 218 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:21,080 Yeah, honestly, I, I remember reading something not that long 219 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:25,040 ago outlining that mining was one of the least allocated 220 00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:28,760 sectors in finance for active capital and sitting there and 221 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:32,440 just being like, Oh my God, it's one of the most attractive as 222 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:35,680 far as I can tell in terms of value creation and and catalysts 223 00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:39,640 and ability to get an edge. So, yeah, yeah, your, your 224 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,040 competition. I I think it's certainly reduced 225 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:47,520 a lot of the brilliant activity and driving deposits forward, 226 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:51,400 which is what I focus on was has always been driven by special 227 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:55,080 characters, ultra high net worth people, you know, these dogged, 228 00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,760 talented individuals who take extreme risk with their own 229 00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:04,080 Personal Capital. Those individuals are aging and 230 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,880 they haven't been, there's been some rising new stars to kind of 231 00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:12,000 take their their place or who are showing nascent see could 232 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:14,240 turn into them. But there's, there hasn't been a 233 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,400 proper replacement mechanism like they're aging far faster 234 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,920 than they're getting replaced. So their capital is is 235 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:24,080 inherently on its way out from the previous generation. 236 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:29,200 Yeah, which leaves a big vacuum in terms of that. 237 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:33,120 But at the same time, the industry has attracted less 238 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:34,520 capital. It's drilled a lot less. 239 00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:38,880 It's been the driest decade, I think no in in for discoveries. 240 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:43,120 And so the opportunity set has inherently been smaller. 241 00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:46,040 So it's been a smaller opportunity set. 242 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:48,720 It's been, but there's been less competition. 243 00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:51,760 When there's less competition, the opportunity for yourself, 244 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:54,480 yeah, it's great. It's more, it's, it's more 245 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:55,880 compelling. At the same time, when there's 246 00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:59,320 less capital getting allocated, the difficulty of driving that 247 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:02,880 opportunity to fruition can be higher, like it can take longer. 248 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,640 Maybe the money doesn't come in, you know, you, you can be right 249 00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:08,560 about something and it might, you may not show up a week, it 250 00:13:08,560 --> 00:13:10,520 might be years. You're driving it forward before 251 00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:15,320 it crosses a threshold of the market wakes up to with the 252 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,280 value that's there through some forcing mechanism. 253 00:13:17,680 --> 00:13:20,000 So I think the forcing mechanism would have came faster if there 254 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:26,280 was more active capital, which is a long way of saying, yeah, 255 00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:28,720 the opportunities I think are greater. 256 00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:30,920 You have more time or is more intestinal fortitude. 257 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:33,440 Tell me about follower Capital in. 258 00:13:35,560 --> 00:13:38,640 What sense? It's it's a phrase you mentioned 259 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:40,960 in your last interview, but I was just keen to tease what it 260 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:42,960 means to you. Like your observation of 261 00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:48,560 follower capital sector. Yeah. 262 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:51,440 I can't remember the context which I would have said it in. 263 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:57,960 I can only guess. I mean, the reality is I think 264 00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:04,640 most of the money in this sector right now, I don't think there's 265 00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:08,520 a huge market and there never really has been of people 266 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:11,880 independently going out and qualifying assets and trying to 267 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,160 RIP them down to the nuts and bolts and figuring out which 268 00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:17,760 ones work, which ones won't work. 269 00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:22,280 Assets that have failed, really understanding and a detailed 270 00:14:23,160 --> 00:14:25,440 post mortem as to why they failed, what really happened 271 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:27,040 versus what the narrative was in the market. 272 00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:34,040 And I've generally found if you do that, there's some very, very 273 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:39,080 powerful relationships in terms of things that have worked, 274 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:42,360 things that haven't worked, outcomes for assets and certain 275 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:46,840 tiers versus other tiers. And I just don't think there's a 276 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:51,760 big breath of, of capital out there approaching the market 277 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:53,200 that way. I think predominantly what they 278 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:58,160 do is they look for, they look for plays, they look for a stock 279 00:14:58,160 --> 00:15:00,320 plays, they look for capital marketplace, they look for 280 00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:02,520 things that are working. It's like, you know, you get a 281 00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:06,120 hot deal, market deals are working, people start playing 282 00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:08,440 deals, you'll start going forex oversubscribed. 283 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:11,680 They start padding their orders because they tend to, you know, 284 00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,720 they're everyone's structuring deals is free trade. 285 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:16,920 They're free trading in seven days and every, you know, for 286 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,360 the last eight that have gone off, Oh my God, they've all, 287 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,840 they've all had liquidity 10 percent, 20% higher like you. 288 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,240 And so money says deals are working. 289 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:29,560 They plow into deals. I think a lot of it's market 290 00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:31,080 activity is just oriented around that. 291 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:33,320 I don't think people are going in funding companies on who's 292 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:36,960 deserving of capital. I think they're just, it's a lot 293 00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:41,880 of FOMO and event driven. And but and then on, on 294 00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:46,720 companies, what I've kind of witnessed in my time, and this 295 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:50,000 is just my perception is that people have become a lot more 296 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:53,480 gun shy in financing small companies, venture companies, 297 00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:55,320 exploration companies, and rightfully so. 298 00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:58,280 I mean, it's extremely risky, but there used to be a sense 299 00:15:58,280 --> 00:15:59,800 that there was money coming behind you. 300 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:02,600 And I think people generally when they invest in the sector, 301 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:04,560 they want to feel like money's coming behind them. 302 00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:08,840 And when they feel that, that's when they feel the most 303 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:11,080 emboldened to invest. And honestly, that's prominent. 304 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,320 That's predominantly the most important factors why people 305 00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:18,560 invest. But when the check slowed down 306 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:23,600 in the market, activity slowed down, that feeling went away. 307 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,760 I think that enough there'd been enough kind of false starts and 308 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:33,840 pulses of excitement that then washed out that left people kind 309 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,800 of gun shy and worried about getting into these things, 310 00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:40,840 getting trapped in moments of the liquidity and not being able 311 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:42,520 to get out. I think people are inherently 312 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:44,640 terrified when they write a check to a company. 313 00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:48,800 They don't want to be one of the bigger checks. 314 00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:55,080 Usually they want to be in the book in a mid medium size. 315 00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:57,280 You know, it's not on them. Like they don't want to end up 316 00:16:57,280 --> 00:17:00,360 in a situation where they get a phone call and they say, hey, 317 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:04,880 listen, we got 3,000,000 until we need to keep drilling. 318 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:07,160 Yeah, this year wasn't a success really. 319 00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:12,720 We had some good prospects, but like, we need to raise 10 and we 320 00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:16,560 need you to be the lead, by the way, if you're not the lead, 321 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,599 it's going to be tough. And that could really be bad for 322 00:17:20,599 --> 00:17:22,319 your investment. So, you know, that's the 323 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:25,720 situation they're scared of or it could fall on them and 324 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:30,800 they're in too deep to get out. And so I think we generally what 325 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,560 you've seen in what I've seen over the last like three to five 326 00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:36,320 years is money wants to tuck in between individuals they 327 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:38,720 perceive is very strong. They want individuals they view 328 00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:40,600 as strong to anoint assets for them. 329 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:46,880 Deep pocketed individuals like you've seen enormous amount of 330 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:50,480 capital pile in behind like the Lundin family and Pierre 331 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:54,800 Lassand, individuals like that. I mean, Eric Sprott is. 332 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:58,920 Just. You know, he, I'd say he's the 333 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,400 ultimate gunslinger in the sector still. 334 00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:03,880 He still writes big checks, but a lot of retail money and 335 00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:06,120 institutional money wants to slot him behind him because they 336 00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:09,560 know all those individuals have deep pockets of deep convictions 337 00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:14,120 and they follow their money. And so there's no question that 338 00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:16,200 the companies will run out of gas before they can reach the 339 00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:24,080 next gas station. And, and so I, I just think that 340 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:25,480 honestly drives most market activity. 341 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:27,360 And those are the companies that had been able to attract 342 00:18:27,360 --> 00:18:28,760 capital. No, things have picked up a bit 343 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:30,280 recently. Money's been flowing again. 344 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:35,120 But I think I found that generally speaking, you want 345 00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:38,320 guys and they want to say, well, they're behind it, they believe 346 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:40,000 in it. So the project must be good. 347 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:41,040 They're going to push it forward. 348 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:42,360 They're going to keep financing it. 349 00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:46,480 They're not keen on down rounds and they've got the money to try 350 00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:49,200 to, you know, keep financing these companies, these projects 351 00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:51,360 higher. We feel safe somewhere we can 352 00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:53,520 park, we can slot in, it's not going to fall on us. 353 00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:56,520 And I'm pretty confident that this big strong, you know, 354 00:18:56,520 --> 00:18:58,920 leader is going to carry me to the promised land. 355 00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:01,960 And I think that's driven most of the market activity and 356 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:04,600 capital allocation in the sector, so. 357 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,240 Yeah, it's expected. Like the whole concept of 358 00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:14,880 funding certainty is being like a massive de risking like thing 359 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:18,160 for just earning, earning the equity because the junior mining 360 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,200 companies definitely fighting dilution their entire wayfunding 361 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:24,200 certainty, you know, reduces that that race to a degree. 362 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,160 If you've got a big backer who who you know well, we'll kind of 363 00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:30,120 underwrite a check when things get tough. 364 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:37,400 Yeah, Yeah, you got, I mean cost of capital is kind of 365 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:39,680 everything. Certainty of cost of capital is 366 00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:41,000 kind of everything. Well, it's not kind of 367 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,880 everything, but it's it's, it sure is important. 368 00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:47,640 And I don't think a lot of people feel like they have the 369 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:49,520 strength and the wherewithal to drive these things for 370 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,120 themselves. And so they're looking to to 371 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:54,640 talk in behind people who do feel that way. 372 00:19:56,400 --> 00:20:01,560 Dan, I want to really sort of hone in on on the part of the 373 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,880 Lausanne curve that that you find that the sweet spot if you 374 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,400 like. So I think one of the the things 375 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:12,600 that really stuck out from that conversation was that the the 376 00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:18,440 rewrite potential. From execution is underrated in 377 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,040 a sense. And I think you might have said 378 00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:24,760 that you know you can you can see a decent sort of a 3X there. 379 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:27,760 And it's kind of interesting because we speak with a lot of 380 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,400 people here and that is really the part where they might run 381 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:34,560 away from the stock that construction hell where things 382 00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:38,720 can only go wrong. But am I right in thinking about 383 00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:42,440 the the area of the market you like to play as the project 384 00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:46,040 under appreciated whatever stage it might be you you come in 385 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,720 there and then you like to see it all the way through until the 386 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:53,040 project is built or how else would you sort of describe that 387 00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:57,200 that phase you love to play in? Yeah. 388 00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,920 In a general sense, I like single asset companies, usually. 389 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:05,480 I like because there's more exposure to the, the area of 390 00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,920 alpha that I, that I see. I like things that are under 391 00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:14,000 appreciated. I like things that people view 392 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,920 as a bit of maybe a, a haunted house, Like there's something 393 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:19,520 wrong with the company and people have been burned once 394 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:21,640 there and they don't want to go back to something's changed. 395 00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:24,480 And that's the, that's the perfect scenario. 396 00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,480 And you're like, well, I know why people don't want to look at 397 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:28,800 this. And I didn't even want to look 398 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:32,240 at this, but now that I've looked at it, Oh my God. 399 00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:34,320 And this isn't the same thing as before. 400 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:36,480 And, and I know why people are writing it off. 401 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,360 It makes complete sense. But like, like something's 402 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:45,800 changed here. And it's also, hey, in a perfect 403 00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:50,040 world too. It's of the size and nature that 404 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:54,680 I, me, I can walk in the door and I can change it. 405 00:21:54,960 --> 00:22:00,320 I can change the situation so I can, I can materially improve 406 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,600 some of the things that are that are holding the company back. 407 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:06,280 That's the ultimate situation. It's not always like that. 408 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,080 Sometimes there's not a single thing I can do about it. 409 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:11,360 But my God is, is it just, you know, something special is going 410 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:12,600 on here? And, and I think when I look 411 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:17,200 back actually at all my, it's funny, I worked at my previous 412 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:21,560 firm for 9 years. I spent probably six of those 413 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,160 just driving the mining side of things. 414 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,280 But now maybe 7 years. But when I think back to it, 415 00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:33,160 like, and then in my time at Muddy Waters now in these years, 416 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:37,080 like it's really been dominated by like maybe 5 to 8 files. 417 00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,760 I've just hazard a guess. And pretty much every single one 418 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,840 of those was something that met that criteria. 419 00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:45,280 It was kind of a haunted house to people. 420 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:50,160 Like, I remember, I remember Michael O'Keefe, one of the most 421 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:54,480 brilliant individuals I ever met, He's an Australian, came 422 00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,680 into my office at K2 and I took a meeting with him. 423 00:22:57,680 --> 00:22:58,880 I didn't want to take the meeting. 424 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,440 I didn't care. He had this Bloom Lake Asset 425 00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:05,720 Company champion iron ore and I didn't know who this guy was. 426 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,360 I remember him and David Cattifer walking in my office 427 00:23:08,360 --> 00:23:13,880 with this fellow John Rothwell at TD, taking them around 3. 428 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:18,520 Just absolute wonderful individuals who I think the 429 00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:20,880 world of now didn't know any of them at the time. 430 00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:25,440 And I just took the meeting because I wanted information on 431 00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:27,120 what was going on in the Labrador trial. 432 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,600 It's a globally significant export region in Canada. 433 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:33,080 There's almost no capital markets opportunities. 434 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:34,680 So there's not a lot of competing people trying to 435 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:36,480 figure it out. So hey, should probably keep a 436 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:38,040 close eye. Maybe something will come out of 437 00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:40,920 that. And he starts talking to me 438 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,280 about the project and I'm like ask a few questions. 439 00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:49,440 I'm thinking this is a, this is a $90.00 project and a $65, you 440 00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:54,080 know, $90.00 cost project in a 60 to $65 price environment. 441 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,800 Who cares? And I'm just like, yeah, what 442 00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,680 about, yeah, the rail contract though, what you're paying 443 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:02,080 there? And he's like, oh, renegotiated 444 00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,440 that got a 10 bucks lower. I'm like, OK, well, if you said 445 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:07,960 so, he probably did do that. OK, fine. 446 00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,280 It's not a $90.00 assets, It's an $80 asset now. 447 00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,360 Cool, great. You know, good luck for paying 448 00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:16,320 your capital and that and then, you know, the port, the ports 449 00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,120 undersize that you can't take supermax vessels together, bury 450 00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:21,920 the material back and forth to fill the ship. 451 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:23,520 Like it's a big problem that kills you. 452 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,520 It's like, Oh no, fix that. Like how do you fix that? 453 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:29,760 Well, I built a Newport got a Newport built. 454 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,360 How did you buy? How did you build a Newport like 455 00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:34,120 this? Hundreds of millions of dollars. 456 00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:38,160 So I got the government to build it or it was something to that 457 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:39,200 effect. I'm like, what are you? 458 00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:40,680 Who else is using it? Just me. 459 00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,000 What are you paying to use it? The answer is basically nothing. 460 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,840 And I was like, I'm like, well, what's your relationship with 461 00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:47,320 the government here? Well, they're one of the big 462 00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:48,600 shareholders. And we structured it and he 463 00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,120 starts going up and how we structured it. 464 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,640 And I'm like, well, that probably knocks off 10 to 15 465 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:55,520 bucks a ton. Oh, OK, now we're getting close. 466 00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,680 And then you're like, yeah, the recoveries though, they couldn't 467 00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:58,760 get that. I'll fix that. 468 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:02,040 How'd you fix that? Like, oh, they're using the 469 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:03,720 wrong, they're using mineral sand spirals. 470 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:05,880 We just use the right ones. They actually had them sitting 471 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:07,240 in the mill. We just moved them over. 472 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:08,880 And I'm like, OK, and that really works. 473 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:10,600 How do I know that? And he's like, cuz I'm getting 474 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:14,280 those recoveries right now. And I'm like, and then he 475 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:16,600 started to talk more. I just kind of I shut my mouth 476 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:18,560 because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 477 00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,720 And I I was just thinking there. I'm like, Oh my God, what have 478 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,560 you pulled off here? Like this is a very complicated 479 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:27,880 like, like this would have taken. 480 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,680 You must be this guy must I realized I was sitting across 481 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:36,000 from a very impressive individual and a very determined 482 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,520 like guy who you just kind of you can't keep down. 483 00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:41,760 He just gets back up. No matter when he hits, he takes 484 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,920 kind of guy. And I was like, and I just 485 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,360 didn't say like much of A word for the rest of the meeting. 486 00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:49,640 We're just sitting there absolutely floored. 487 00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:50,640 And I walked out of that meeting. 488 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,840 And then Michael told me after that he, he mentioned to John, 489 00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,520 it's like, like, I didn't care about anything I had to say. 490 00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:58,440 And I walked out of that meeting. 491 00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,920 I went to my, my business part partner at the time. 492 00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:03,600 And I'm like, that was either the greatest lawyer that ever 493 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,760 walked into my office or that was the best meeting I ever had 494 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:11,400 got on a plane, flew right up the site, went there and I get 495 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,560 there and there's a like one other person in the site visit. 496 00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,240 No one cares. And I'm standing there on the on 497 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,360 the port watching this vessel get loaded. 498 00:26:20,360 --> 00:26:23,400 I'm just sitting there. I'm like, I think this guy's 499 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,440 making like thirty, $40 million a quarter right now. 500 00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:31,240 Like, Oh my God. And but no one wanted to look at 501 00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,760 it for the same reason I didn't want to look at it. 502 00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,960 Who cares about Bloom? Like, you know, the thing had 503 00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:40,360 blown up consolidated Thompson and like wrecked Cleveland 504 00:26:40,360 --> 00:26:42,640 cliffs. Like this thing was a, everyone 505 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:44,560 knew that asset couldn't work in this price environment. 506 00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,800 And yeah, I just, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 507 00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:53,440 So I mean, that's one example. It was very obvious when no one 508 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,240 wanted to look. I I feels like a bit of a fluke 509 00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,120 that I actually ended up taking that meeting because I didn't 510 00:26:57,120 --> 00:26:59,040 want it really or any interest in the company. 511 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,920 And it was one of the greatest feats I ever saw anyone pull off 512 00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:04,920 in the sector, to be honest. So. 513 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,680 That's incredible, Yeah. I mean, I O'Keefe had had run 514 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:13,480 Glencore Australia and then sold Riversdale to to to Rio. 515 00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,200 But credit to you as well because that would have been 516 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,600 like 16 or 2017 in the, in the depths of the iron ore bear 517 00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,640 market where everyone was scared to to go. 518 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,400 So even even taking the meeting and thinking about investing in 519 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,920 iron ore was a bit of a contrarian sort of play on your 520 00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:31,920 part there as well, I'm assuming? 521 00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,120 A bit, I think I just, it was more of a thing that the 522 00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:41,320 Labrador through is something you should watch if you can, if 523 00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,160 you can have relationships with people and garner information on 524 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,640 what's going on in the Labrador, which is largely held inside 525 00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,600 companies that it's not primary assets. 526 00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:50,720 It's not a lot of reporting on. You should know it because 527 00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,280 something special could come out of there and it made sense. 528 00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:54,760 There could be a lot of value at some point. 529 00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,400 There's so much infrastructure, so many projects and deposits. 530 00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,520 You should watch it and and try to gather as much as you can 531 00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:03,440 because you never know if something did happen, it could 532 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:07,160 be special. And that was really it. 533 00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,680 I just didn't think for a minute this meeting would be that, but 534 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,240 it was. So it was just I I think I'd 535 00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:16,800 probably credit myself for the instinct that I should continue 536 00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,520 to care and watch that. And I've also just been of the 537 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,200 mindset that iron ore is was always one of the most 538 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,920 fascinating medals to me because I, I walked into my career and I 539 00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,360 think it was like, it just been in like the hundreds and then it 540 00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:31,520 collapsed down to 35 for a moment, being like 50. 541 00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,440 And I'm, you know, reading all these reports coming out from 542 00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,400 like, I think it was Goldman's and other groups talking about 543 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,840 iron ores never coming back and never see like 50 above 50 bucks 544 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:42,960 a ton again. It was dead. 545 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:47,240 And I've just as long as I've been in mining iron ores, been 546 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,840 pricing backwardation, like the forward curve goes down always. 547 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:57,280 And here's, listen, I'm not like the Super macro guy, but I'm 548 00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,560 like, I don't know, man. It feels like in a growing 549 00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,160 world, like the whole economy is predicated on the world growing 550 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,040 and expanding really. I mean, if it starts shrinking 551 00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:09,560 and you got big problems, hope you got some really fancy 552 00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:14,360 insurance policies. But steel seems like something 553 00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:16,160 that probably shouldn't go down forever. 554 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,640 I don't know, seems like a good thing to buy when others are 555 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,360 pessimistic and you're kind of up against the cost curve. 556 00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,760 But you know, people thought that Bo and HP were just going 557 00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,880 to print the metal into oblivion and forever. 558 00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:37,040 Now it's funny because that predictions being dead wrong. 559 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,200 Iron ore has just continued to rise pretty much my whole 560 00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,840 career. And yet the backwardation had 561 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:46,800 always persisted. The pessimism had always been 562 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:50,000 like maintained. And for some reason, all these 563 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,440 banks had maintained their confidence that you should be 564 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:57,920 pessimistic on iron ore and you should price it cynically. 565 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,480 It didn't seem to matter how many times in a row they were 566 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:02,880 wrong. And I'm like, well, that's easy 567 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:04,840 Alpha. I'll have to. 568 00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:07,880 All I have to believe is that like, they don't know what the 569 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:09,560 heck they're talking about. That's it. 570 00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,760 And the world's more complicated and and they're probably a bit 571 00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,400 emboldened. I never listen. 572 00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:20,120 I never, I never care for what anyone has to say on macro in 573 00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:21,520 their convicted beliefs on the world. 574 00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,040 If they can't prove to me they can solve individual companies 575 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,480 to a great degree of alpha man, if you can't find alpha and 576 00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,320 individual companies to an exceptional degree, good luck 577 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,120 solving the world. Like the number of pairwise 578 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:33,840 combinations there is are insane. 579 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,520 So whatever, you know, I always think that's an opportunity in 580 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,120 in commodities and I always think iron ore is fascinating 581 00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,080 for that. So that's why I wanted to watch 582 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:43,440 it and that's why I wanted to watch the through. 583 00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:46,640 So I'm glad to. Something thankfully, I'm 584 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,280 guessing Champion Iron was one of the five files that has 585 00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,080 mattered a lot in in your history. 586 00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,120 I I can't let you go without telling me about another one. 587 00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,960 Yeah, I think it is absolutely. It is one of them. 588 00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:02,000 It was one of the most impactful. 589 00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,080 I thought it was brilliant. I think it's one of the most 590 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:05,120 brilliant things I saw pulled off. 591 00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:08,040 In terms of an individual achievement. 592 00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,520 Not to put it all in, Michael. I mean, I think David 593 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,840 Catterford's an exceptional individual there as well. 594 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:15,440 I think the two of them are a great team. 595 00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,760 But I think the world of both those guys and yeah, that had a 596 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,600 big impact on me. And it's also just turned into 597 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:27,200 important relationships. So, but there's been lots. 598 00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,000 There's been, yeah, that's one of the five to 10, let's call 599 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,920 it. And and and another one would 600 00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:41,360 be. GT Gold was a was a big one. 601 00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:45,800 Philo was a very big one. Actually, those two are those 602 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,760 two kind of like were went end to end in this kind of 603 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:55,640 fortuitous fashion because I sold GT Gold, signed the voting 604 00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,600 support agreement and sailed to Newmont. 605 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:04,840 I think the transaction closed and then we were sitting flush 606 00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:09,520 with a lot of money and I was probably in close to a 50% cash 607 00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,880 position at that point and thinking, my God, what am I 608 00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:14,360 going to do with this? What am I going to find to 609 00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,720 deploy this into? And then I watched Vilo drill 610 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,520 this exceptional hole up in the community district. 611 00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,920 And both of those were situations that they thought 612 00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:26,960 were heavily misunderstood. And they're similar to champion, 613 00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,000 I guess, in their own respects. And that sense that people 614 00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,560 didn't want to look at them for a reason. 615 00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,880 And actually they're they, they, they combine and they connect. 616 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:42,920 So GT was a, a discovery up in BC in the Golden Triangle. 617 00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,000 This geologist, Charlie Greg had gone and, and done some 618 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,640 brilliant work. He found this EPI thermal gold 619 00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,480 system very high grade, extremely discontinuous. 620 00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,920 You couldn't, there's no structure to it, but the grades 621 00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,440 had built a market cap and people have gotten excited. 622 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,120 But it's kind of a veins form. You just had to mine the whole 623 00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,120 cloud and take the average of the whole distribution. 624 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,640 So even there though there was all this 5G hits, really you 625 00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,640 just had to mine the whole thing and probably it's going to be 626 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:13,360 like a gram and a half. And I think when the market 627 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,480 realized that it collapsed. So I had this big run up and 628 00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,640 then this big collapse and people felt like, I think they'd 629 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,360 been, I don't know. The reality is when a stock 630 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,720 falls, people like to blame a lot of things or complain. 631 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,880 But I wasn't there for that part. 632 00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:31,440 Instead, I, I watched this drill hole. 633 00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:37,360 It was like TTD 085 get drilled. And I believe it was 2018, like 634 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:42,880 September of 2018. And they had like 500 meters and 635 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:48,200 it was a wall of copper gold, like just completely continuous 636 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,280 for half a kilometer. I was like .8 or something like 637 00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:52,720 that. But then it had some like higher 638 00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,680 grade zones in the middle. And I was like, Oh my God. 639 00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:58,920 And and then immediately started mapping out the topography and 640 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,760 looking at it and being like, yeah, OK, you know, there's you 641 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,240 got Red Chris across the street, which looks like an analog in 642 00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,560 the same system, like the ratios of gold to copper. 643 00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:09,679 It's the 1st hole in and you're like, so Charlie had gone and 644 00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:11,840 found the EPI thermal system. Then people are always like, 645 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,440 wow, this must there has to be a porphy nearby and they usually 646 00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:16,080 don't find it or it's not there. It sucks. 647 00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:17,960 And Charlie when then immediately next program found 648 00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,960 the porphyry like first try. It was incredible. 649 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,199 And so he deserves all the credit in the world for that. 650 00:34:25,159 --> 00:34:27,600 And it was one of the best discoveries I felt like I'd seen 651 00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,760 and the stock didn't move. Thank you. 652 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,840 Like they were still holding some residual market cap from 653 00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,400 the previous discovery. Just kind of too bad because 654 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,120 they, it would have been a lot more extraordinary explosive if 655 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,280 it had just been sitting as like a $10 million company, but it 656 00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,639 was like a 5060 and then maybe added like $10 million in market 657 00:34:44,639 --> 00:34:47,280 cap on that. And they did financing after 658 00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:48,800 that hole came out. And I think I was the biggest 659 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:49,800 order in it. I was like, Oh my God, 660 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:51,199 everyone's going to be clamoring to get in. 661 00:34:51,199 --> 00:34:53,920 And it was kind of like, you can have whatever you want. 662 00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,760 And I'm like, left it. And then after I'm like looking 663 00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:03,160 at this and I'm just like buying every share I can. 664 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:05,240 I'm trying to buy as much as I can without running the price up 665 00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:08,160 like a month or so straight. It's just me on the board. 666 00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,600 I'm just buying, buying, buying, buying, buying. 667 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,800 And I'm like, what is going on? And I, you know, talk, start 668 00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:16,520 calling around. It's like, hey, what do you guys 669 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,560 think of GT? And you get the feedback. 670 00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,040 Oh yeah, yeah, I know we've seen splashy holes like this before 671 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,720 from GT. I'm like, I realized that they 672 00:35:24,720 --> 00:35:27,040 just, it was kind of a haunted house to people. 673 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:28,640 They've been burned by the EPI thermal system. 674 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,640 I don't even think they realized what this they'd really hit 675 00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:37,120 here. And and so I've just kept buying 676 00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,080 it up and then offered to finance it. 677 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,440 I said, listen, I think what you should do is the market doesn't 678 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:48,240 recognize the value of this. Well, sorry, actually, I'll 679 00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:50,920 compress the story. They had a second hole. 680 00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,520 The 2nd hole was even better than the first and it was 681 00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:56,520 extraordinary. The stock finally Rep people got 682 00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:00,000 excited, but then the company started arm waving that there 683 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,080 was a third step out and the alteration looked just like the 684 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:09,280 first two and the market was like, oh, they hit, Oh my God, 685 00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,960 this thing's going to be like this big and that means like 686 00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,800 this is gone. And so the whole market had 687 00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:16,200 gotten that in their head. They're buying with the 688 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,720 excitement of that. Then the holes came and the 689 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:20,480 whole actually did hit. It just didn't hit anything 690 00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:21,840 close to what the previous two did. 691 00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,880 And so I think people felt like they'd been misled or lied to 692 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:29,560 and they just the stock which had gone from like $0.60 after 693 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,400 post, you know, it'd been like 50 to 60 before the big 694 00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:37,160 discovery hole went up like 6570, maybe 80 after screamed up 695 00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:39,080 to like 2:20. And then when the whole came 696 00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,560 out, like collapsed down to below where I've been buying up 697 00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,080 the stock or around same level as if nothing had been. 698 00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:47,760 No value had been added by this point. 699 00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:50,160 Like no market cap had been added to the company from this 700 00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,240 discovery. Except the thing about that was 701 00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:54,560 the market cap. The market wasn't looking at 702 00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,480 this thing and modeling the deposit, trying to figure out 703 00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:58,920 what it would take for this to be a mine and actually be 704 00:36:59,240 --> 00:37:02,520 meaningful. They were just saying, I've been 705 00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,400 told the next one's the next hole's good, next hole bad. 706 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,600 Oh no, that bad. I sell and they sold it all out 707 00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,200 and that we looked at it and we're like, I wasn't looking 708 00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:12,920 for. I thought the threshold it 709 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,640 needed for that to become like clearly a mine was it just 710 00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:18,920 needed to show the mineralization extended a 711 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,320 certain distance. And so it showed continuity. 712 00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,920 Even if it's bleeding out, there's some strength of the 713 00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,480 system, a certain distance. I could, you know what that 714 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,360 meant for the shape that I could assume existed would be enough 715 00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,960 and that would be critical mass. And I got what I was looking for 716 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:34,640 in the market. Thought it was the worst news 717 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,040 ever. And they dumped it and they 718 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,200 started drilling the surface holes and it looked like it 719 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,360 might come to surface. And I remember they put it 720 00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:46,120 further holes and going, I remember telling one really 721 00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,720 influential person in the industry sitting there walking 722 00:37:48,720 --> 00:37:51,640 him through it, he's like, you really think this is a mind, 723 00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:53,720 Aaron? I'm like, I think this is 2 724 00:37:53,720 --> 00:37:56,120 drill holes away from being a mind and I think they're 725 00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,040 probably going to hit. I can't be sure, but I think 726 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,200 this is 2 drill holes from a mine and I'm paying 0 for that 727 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,960 in the market like. And so the drill holes came and 728 00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:06,640 they were way better than what I was hoping for showing this 729 00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:11,520 thing was tracking the surface and and the stock continued to 730 00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,160 go down. Can you sell down? 731 00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,320 No one cared and I was sitting there and I went out. 732 00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,280 This is actually funny because I had met Muddy Waters through an 733 00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,760 activist short selling campaign. I ran on a company called a 734 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,720 Sanko Gold and they had joined in on that. 735 00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,200 And this is shortly after we had closed out and completed that 736 00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,560 trade, which had been a really big success. 737 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:33,160 They had, you know, kept asking what else is here? 738 00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,760 What else you and I'm like, well, you know, like I don't run 739 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:37,520 around looking for short selling ideas in mining. 740 00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,640 I I look for, you know, the alpha and the opportunities on 741 00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:42,640 the asymmetric to the upside, like that's what you're looking 742 00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:44,920 for. And I look at this company GT 743 00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:48,040 gold. So, you know, I start walking 744 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:49,120 through it. They ask questions. 745 00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:50,640 I'm like, sure. I mean, I'll show you why it's I 746 00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,840 think it's amazing and map it out to show the volumes. 747 00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,360 I show like the topography, I show the different ways you can 748 00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:58,080 mine it. I show like the infrastructure, 749 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,000 what I think the capital costs will be what you can reasonably 750 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,440 infer the meddler you will be from the district kind of your 751 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:09,000 range and and costs with so on so forth and what I think will 752 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,200 be the economics of the project. And I'm like, yeah, I think this 753 00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,320 is the first thing I've seen in greenfields. 754 00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:17,960 It's going to sell to a major in copper in a long time, like five 755 00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,080 years or so. I just going to this is going to 756 00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,960 go to big boy and and then, you know, I talked to them after and 757 00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,560 they've been buying. It's like you guys are buying 758 00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:29,400 long and you're fun like junior mining. 759 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,600 Are you sure that's like, are your LP's OK with this kind of 760 00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,520 thing? But you know, for them it was 761 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,880 like a small little position. And but then as it as it grew 762 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,080 and as the drilling came in and the deposit got proven out, the 763 00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,240 metallurgy came in, the conviction came in. 764 00:39:45,240 --> 00:39:50,080 Like, yeah, they ended up really partnering in the sense that 765 00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,120 they came in and bought a lot and, and shared a similar 766 00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,080 mindset. And we're convicted on the same 767 00:39:54,080 --> 00:40:01,520 belief that that I held over AK-2 and, and ended up selling 768 00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,920 to Newmont for most 1/2 a billion. 769 00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,480 And it was the first sale of a copper project to a major in in 770 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:08,920 a long time. It ended up being exactly what 771 00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,600 we thought. I remember getting a call after 772 00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,120 from someone. Saying, hey, Darren, like I got 773 00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:18,880 to ask you, I got a call from some very fairly well known 774 00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,520 person, a talking head in the industry. 775 00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,080 It would be really negative on the project saying all the 776 00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:29,720 reasons why it sucked, which I I didn't understand, but we're 777 00:40:29,720 --> 00:40:33,000 just all you need to do is use a protractor and you could see 778 00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:39,200 they were wrong. And I heard a rumor that you had 779 00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,600 basically extorted Newmont into blackmailed them into by the 780 00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,520 company and threatened to short their stock or something or 781 00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:47,200 publish on them if they didn't. But see you. 782 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:52,200 I'm like, I mean, listen, man, that guy that is like, I'm not 783 00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,320 that cool. If you want to tell people that 784 00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,360 story, I'm OK with that being my the myth of me. 785 00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,120 But no, that's not it. Yeah. 786 00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,440 It was just a good project. But yeah, GT was like that. 787 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,360 And then we sold. It's at one point we'd gone to, 788 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,280 you know, if Lucas Lundeen or my brother had reached out to him 789 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,320 to see if he wanted to invest in the company and, and he'd come 790 00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,200 back with some pretty strong interest as he'd walked through 791 00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,400 the technical aspects in our work on the, on the project. 792 00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,120 It didn't didn't end up coming to fruition, which ended up 793 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,520 leading to a lot of the tension, I believe, I think between 794 00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,840 ourselves and the chairman, which obviously came to head in 795 00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,520 the proxy matter. But you know, not to dig that 796 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,800 stuff back up. It was a big success for us. 797 00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,760 And I guess it was a big success for him in the end too, but the 798 00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:43,520 investment didn't come to fruition. 799 00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:47,760 But you know, I took a meeting with him at a conference and 800 00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:52,520 this company, Filo, he had. And I remember going through it 801 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,600 and just kind of like sitting in the meeting learning about it 802 00:41:55,600 --> 00:42:00,080 for the first time and kind of been like, Jesus, this is one of 803 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,560 the best projects in the world. Like it's it's obvious. 804 00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,600 I just laughing. I'm like, what I can say is 805 00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:07,920 you're not being priced. What's obvious is like this is 806 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,880 clearly one of the best copper deposits in the world. 807 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,600 And what's also obvious is you're not being priced by the 808 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,000 market. This is not really a, you're 809 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,320 trading on, you know, relative levels of apathy. 810 00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,800 You're just floating at neutral buoyancy effectively on the 811 00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,240 markets apathy because it's like it's an Argentine, it's on the 812 00:42:24,240 --> 00:42:28,120 Andes, it's right up against the border between Argentina and 813 00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:29,840 Chile. You know, trying to get to 814 00:42:30,240 --> 00:42:32,760 something where you can develop a project there and trying to 815 00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,320 get the Argentinian and the Chilean government at a point 816 00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,560 where they're both willing to work together and transact and 817 00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,760 agree to unlock something. It's kind of like waiting for 818 00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,280 the solar eclipse, so or lunar eclipse. 819 00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,960 And they're like, what a really difficult capital markets 820 00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:47,760 proposition. What an incredible discovery. 821 00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,040 I didn't really buy it for that reason, but I thought it was 822 00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:56,520 brilliant project. And then they went and shortly 823 00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:59,440 after I'd sold GT, they drilled this hole and they just hit this 824 00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:05,120 extraordinary grade. And I, I remember just sitting 825 00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,840 there looking at in the morning and being like, Oh my God. 826 00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:13,040 And then thinking about it and being like, I think that I think 827 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:18,040 I just watched like $5 billion get created in a company that's 828 00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:19,240 trading for hundreds of millions. 829 00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,080 And being like, this is the greatest discovery I've seen in 830 00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:25,480 my life. The frequency with which you'll 831 00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,800 see a discovery of this magnitude like this is different 832 00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:30,840 now. This isn't like the world needs 833 00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,720 this project now. And when the world needs the 834 00:43:33,720 --> 00:43:36,480 project, you get these monster things that, you know, they can 835 00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,880 be at the like Grasberg, like these things come forward 836 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:42,200 because they're just too powerful. 837 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,240 And I thought I'd watch an asset cross that threshold. 838 00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,280 And I was watching BHP in Rio Tinto cash flow like the market 839 00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,200 capitalist company, like every week and being like, you know, 840 00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:52,840 this is a crown. Like these companies are built 841 00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,080 off a couple copper projects that they were, they have a 842 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,800 fractional ownership of something that looks like this. 843 00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,440 And that makes up BH PS like copper division, like 50% 844 00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,720 ownerships in like a couple of these, you know, like this is a, 845 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,600 this can they have, they're, you know, the largest copper mining 846 00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,920 companies on earth have like 3 crown jewels, fractional pieces 847 00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:13,600 of them. And this can this can be one of 848 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,680 their penultimate crown jewels in their crown and can re cement 849 00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,640 it for like 200 years like you. That's how long this thing will 850 00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,720 chug for. You know, can you afford to take 851 00:44:21,720 --> 00:44:25,400 the risk of a week's cash flow if your BHP or Rio like what you 852 00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:28,000 can't afford not to you get one of these like once every 20 853 00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:29,880 years. Like you have to move. 854 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,360 You have to, it cost you nothing to plant your flag. 855 00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,600 And I thought that some one of them would move. 856 00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,560 And so, and it's such a freak that you get a discovery like 857 00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,520 that in the strongest hands in the sector. 858 00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:45,440 What always happens is like the because there's so much 859 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,360 randomness in discovery, the frequency with which you get a 860 00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,000 brilliant discovery and hands commensurate to handle it 861 00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:55,960 without conflict, without stealing, without corruption and 862 00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,000 things like that. That happens once this object of 863 00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,680 immense value forms in the middle of nothing and a ragtag 864 00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:04,200 group of individuals to see that happen in the hands of like the 865 00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:09,080 Lundin family. And it was like, Oh my God, I'm 866 00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,640 going to see this once in my career maybe. 867 00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:16,720 And if I can't move on this, then like I don't deserve a job. 868 00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:22,240 And so I just said like, screw it, like you got no choice. 869 00:45:22,240 --> 00:45:24,640 You just got to go. And so we we plowed in, just 870 00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:29,960 plowed in and ended up making about as much money as we made 871 00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:33,080 in multiple years of dragging GT for it in a matter of moments, 872 00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,440 which is the funniest thing in a matter of months and not needing 873 00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:38,440 to do anything or have much of an active role. 874 00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:45,200 But you know, BHP soon came in and invested, you know, probably 875 00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,720 like a, a double from where we, we bought in that day. 876 00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:50,760 But the reality is the stock went $5 billion or $3 billion, 877 00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:52,000 whatever it is you think it's worth. 878 00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,080 This was a discovery that was worth the MPV was so high. 879 00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,960 The outcome of the IT was the outcome of the company was going 880 00:45:59,960 --> 00:46:01,200 to have nothing to do with the MPV. 881 00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,080 It was just a function of leverage because like you can't 882 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:05,800 get someone to pay now for something that's probably got 883 00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,200 like a $20 billion MPV doesn't happen, right? 884 00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:13,240 So, but you watch that much value get created, a small 885 00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:15,600 company, it can't cover the gap instantly. 886 00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:17,760 It just can't go from like hundreds, millions to three 887 00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:19,640 billion, 4 billion in a in a moment. 888 00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,200 It's a very slow grind. That was the first thing I 889 00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:25,000 always dreamed of, like a Boise's Bay moment. 890 00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,760 Like these, these things that we haven't had in the market since 891 00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,280 then, these things are just worth so much. 892 00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:33,640 And everyone comes in and it takes so long because they can't 893 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:35,680 get there because it takes so much capital to take them to 894 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,240 their ultimate valuation. Everyone makes so much money and 895 00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:40,560 everyone's in on it. You know, like one of those 896 00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,200 things concede a bull market on its own for how much capital it 897 00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,080 gets redeployed on its tail. And there hasn't been those. 898 00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:48,880 There haven't been those like Supernova tier ones. 899 00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,440 And I thought Vila was kind of potentially in that caliber, 900 00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,040 except it's funnily enough, almost it was so tightly held 901 00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:57,600 that not many people made money on it. 902 00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,920 But other than the Lundin family and BHP and their largest 903 00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,640 shareholder and one other fund who was in there very early 904 00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:09,320 before the discovery. But yeah, it was incredible to 905 00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:13,760 watch. But it was in Argentina. 906 00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:15,400 And there was a perception that it was hard. 907 00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,240 And and so a there's two things. One, people just thought 908 00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:21,880 Argentina's too hard. I just didn't think that 909 00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:23,680 mattered when you had a deposit of that caliber. 910 00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:25,720 And I didn't almost didn't matter where it was. 911 00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,120 I mean, like, it's like when Kumo Kukula got discovered in 912 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,360 the middle of the DRC. Yeah, the middle of DRC is 913 00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:35,280 brutal, but not when you've got Robert and Kumo Kukula. 914 00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,000 You know, there's a guy who can handle and there's a deposit 915 00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:40,520 that like needs to come forward. So it's it's just different when 916 00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:47,040 you see things like this. And yeah, it was, yeah. 917 00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,920 That ended up being probably the biggest one of all. 918 00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,480 Obviously ended up getting sold to, you know, the joint take out 919 00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:58,560 between BHP and and Lundin. And in the end it ended the way 920 00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:03,520 we thought or about or about what we thought it would sell 921 00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:07,800 for and just a brilliant, brilliant discovery. 922 00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:13,080 So I think when I look at investing in the sector and 923 00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:17,480 things like that, I play a lot of poker growing up, my brother 924 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:19,720 and I did. And what we discussed is like in 925 00:48:19,720 --> 00:48:22,360 this sector, the way we invest, the type of things you invest 926 00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,560 in, you don't play ACE 10 off suit. 927 00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,240 You just don't like, it's a violent sector. 928 00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:30,800 The consequence of losing the hand is, is immense. 929 00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,600 And you play pocket aces and pocket kings only. 930 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:40,720 And you watch a lot of Ace 10's and Ace jacks go by and you fold 931 00:48:40,720 --> 00:48:43,360 and fold and fold and it hurts because you think it's a good 932 00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:44,640 opportunity. Sometimes they work out. 933 00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:46,800 You're like, I should have played it, but you don't. 934 00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,280 You play pocket aces and pocket kings. 935 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,520 You play hands that almost no matter what happens preflop, you 936 00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:56,120 have to enter the hand. You just have to enter the hand. 937 00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,400 Filo was one of those. GT was one of those champions, 938 00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,480 one of those there's, you know, obviously being a certain number 939 00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,360 of others. You could can you lose the hand? 940 00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:07,680 Yeah, of course you can lose the hand. 941 00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:09,680 There's lots of ways you can get hurt. 942 00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,120 And you know, my my brother's boss made the comment once. 943 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:15,720 I've never forgotten it. And he's like, you can be the 944 00:49:15,720 --> 00:49:18,880 best gunfighter on Earth. You're getting enough gunfights. 945 00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,160 You're getting tagged. That's just it and that's the 946 00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,960 reality of of investing and especially in the sectors we 947 00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:26,840 invest in. But but when you got Paz Kadesis 948 00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:28,840 or Pocket Kings, it almost doesn't matter what happens. 949 00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,440 You still have to enter the hand and play and see the flop. 950 00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:37,640 So that's, that's kind of, yeah, I'm rambling a bit, but. 951 00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:43,880 That's a wicked synopsis. Yeah, a wicked synopsis. 952 00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:48,800 And it's, it's like the what you describe is these moments where 953 00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,280 you can see it, you're certain and the market doesn't see it 954 00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:53,760 yet. And those are the circumstances 955 00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:57,400 that, like lead to tremendous opportunity and tremendous like, 956 00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:58,920 yeah, monetary gain from investing. 957 00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,560 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you ever see that the other 958 00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:07,560 way around where the market is really excited? 959 00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:10,400 I think something is spectacular, but you don't. 960 00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,720 Oh yeah. Oh yeah, all the time. 961 00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:24,960 I think you know what thing I like to talk about is like it's 962 00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,440 and I have a tendency to answer questions in roundabout ways, so 963 00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:30,320 I apologize. So I'm going to try to be more 964 00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:31,960 direct. Yes, I see it all the time. 965 00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,400 Do I short those things? Yes. 966 00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:37,920 Do I always short those things? No. 967 00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:40,960 Are when I see those things are those things. 968 00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,880 What percentage of the time are they a good short candidate? 969 00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:49,720 Less than 50, maybe 50, just a lot of things that need to come 970 00:50:49,720 --> 00:50:51,520 together for it makes sense to short something. 971 00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,920 I see a lot of things that I think are completely overblown 972 00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:03,160 or I don't want to use the F word, but let's just say not 973 00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:07,560 truthful and, and I think you can't short it. 974 00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:09,320 It doesn't matter. People are never going to figure 975 00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:11,320 it out. And the guys running it are just 976 00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,880 too talented at, at talking and, and going and marketing and 977 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:20,080 attracting like retail capital from whatever sector there is. 978 00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:21,480 And you guys are forces in nature. 979 00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:25,720 And you got to respect, you have to respect people's talents. 980 00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:28,440 You have to respect their toughness. 981 00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:33,240 You know, you don't, you don't get in fights that you're not 982 00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,520 extremely confident you're going to win it just don't get in 983 00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:38,120 fights at all. It's probably a good strategy 984 00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:43,000 too. But you know, I found, I think 985 00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:49,680 I'm at the start of my career, I was a bit more immature at the 986 00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:50,880 stuff. I thought I'm right, you're 987 00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:55,400 wrong. This is a scam and therefore it 988 00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:57,640 should go down and it would work that way. 989 00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:02,560 I didn't start to be a short seller, but you just live in the 990 00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:04,040 sector and you RIP things to pieces. 991 00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,560 You'll find there's a lot of scams and then you'll watch them 992 00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:09,800 play out and sometimes they blow up for the reasons you thought. 993 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,520 And never do I see that happen and the market actually 994 00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:15,480 understand what happened. That was actually, that's been 995 00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:17,280 one of the most fascinating things because watching all the 996 00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,120 post mortems of the market, it's been like, you know, it was 997 00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:22,200 tough. Yeah, it was just a challenging 998 00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:23,920 whatever. Or they just they just got this 999 00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:25,480 thing wrong. And I heard this. 1000 00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,320 And it becomes the narrative that goes around and everyone 1001 00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,200 repeats the group think or the statement they heard. 1002 00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:31,720 Because most people do their gather their information on 1003 00:52:31,720 --> 00:52:35,160 deposits just by talking to people and and gather and being 1004 00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:38,360 information gatherers from conversations rather than going 1005 00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,000 and reading tech reports and trying to break them down. 1006 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,040 And solve the gaps in them and things like that. 1007 00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:52,480 So, but who's in my train of thought a bit, I suppose. 1008 00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:57,320 I see them all the time. Have a For something to be 1009 00:52:57,320 --> 00:53:00,400 short, it's tough. You need liquidity for one. 1010 00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:07,240 I don't think people understand how hard short something is if 1011 00:53:07,240 --> 00:53:12,360 you haven't done it. It's terrifying, like I get 1012 00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:16,120 scared in long positions, but every long position I enter has 1013 00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:20,560 to has to meet one criteria. It has to be like in what world 1014 00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:24,840 can I not make this bet or but more importantly, in what world 1015 00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:29,240 can I not get off this for more where I'm buying it at the level 1016 00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:33,840 I am buying it at, you know, like versus what I think it's 1017 00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:36,040 worth and the number of different ways and outcomes and 1018 00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:39,120 pass to fruition. This can take or to points where 1019 00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:43,880 I can gain liquidity like like, how the heck do I lose money on 1020 00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,000 this? And I, I really need to feel 1021 00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:47,880 like that to ever go big in anything. 1022 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:54,320 And on the short side, you can always get hurt and hurt 1023 00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,560 extremely badly, no matter how right you are. 1024 00:53:57,240 --> 00:53:59,880 And the one thing that's interesting about money is you 1025 00:53:59,880 --> 00:54:03,640 can time it sometimes. And that's what made a Sanko 1026 00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:07,000 different. So I published a, I published a 1027 00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,240 short selling report on a Sanko gold in 2016. 1028 00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:17,000 Took a big risk in doing so, but I was positive. 1029 00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:25,360 But we made Senko different was it was liquid and I thought I 1030 00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:30,840 could time it so I, I could track it with satellites, would 1031 00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:33,720 give me elevation scans. I could rebuild their block 1032 00:54:33,720 --> 00:54:35,800 model. So they had said that they had 1033 00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:37,920 their previously, you know, the previous guys hadn't drilled 1034 00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,440 under the pit. There's no drilling data. 1035 00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,920 But I, we had actually found the drilling data on the way back 1036 00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,600 machine by Internet archives from like 10 years ago. 1037 00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:49,120 It's like, so I took it and I replotted out, built, rebuilt 1038 00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:51,160 the block model from and that was all the drilling they had 1039 00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:52,400 that they'd used to build the block model. 1040 00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:56,360 So I had the same data and then I remodeled it and I'm like, oh, 1041 00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,440 this is ridiculous. It's like half the gold there. 1042 00:54:58,440 --> 00:54:59,440 Actually, I thought it was less than half. 1043 00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,760 I think I published half, but I thought there's maybe 40% and, 1044 00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,880 and there's clearly going to. Yeah. 1045 00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:09,840 Anyways, but I could build my own block model. 1046 00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:12,680 I could map out where they were mining, I could track the pit 1047 00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:15,120 limits, I could fly satellites, I could scan it to 30 1048 00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:19,360 centimeters accuracy. And I could, I knew every level 1049 00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:21,240 of the mine. And I had my own block model. 1050 00:55:21,240 --> 00:55:24,560 And I was seeing what was coming out of it versus what I thought 1051 00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:26,600 would come out, which is a fraction of what they had. 1052 00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:31,120 And I knew I was right and I could predict the future on it. 1053 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:36,080 So I knew when the pit was going to close and that was different. 1054 00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:38,960 I could time it. And actually I think that was 1055 00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:43,680 one of the more impactful things that ended up getting Muddy 1056 00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:49,280 Waters interested. So initially I, they came in 1057 00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:53,880 after I published on that and, and they had questions about 1058 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,360 another company and I'd done a ton of work in the other 1059 00:55:56,360 --> 00:55:57,720 company. I said, yeah, it's a scam. 1060 00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:01,400 Not a good short though. And explain why. 1061 00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:07,720 And it's like, you know, we talked about a sanko a bit and 1062 00:56:07,720 --> 00:56:10,040 they're like, yeah, we don't really do mining though, and 1063 00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:11,080 we're not really interested in it. 1064 00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,480 Like interesting report, like the work. 1065 00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,320 But it's like debating the existence of God mining. 1066 00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,520 You know, it's, it's my line geologist versus your lying 1067 00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,320 geologist. Great. 1068 00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,520 And I'm like, yeah, The thing is, man, it's like when you 1069 00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,600 short things, you know, you're right, but maybe it's being 1070 00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:28,640 propped up by a guy and you don't know when he's running out 1071 00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:30,920 of liquidity. You know, you can't tell. 1072 00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:32,960 You know, you'll be right eventually, or you believe that 1073 00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:37,280 the timing is tough. I was like, this is down by the 1074 00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:40,000 laws of physics, man. I can time this for you. 1075 00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:42,120 I can show you what's going to happen every stage of this. 1076 00:56:42,720 --> 00:56:45,680 And you know, when we're going back down and walking through 1077 00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:49,400 it. And I think that had a pretty 1078 00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,960 profound impact on him. And so we did that and it was, 1079 00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:55,360 it was remarkable accuracy. I think what we predicted. 1080 00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:58,280 It was like, I was even shocked by how accurate it all ended up 1081 00:56:58,280 --> 00:56:59,840 playing out towards our expectations. 1082 00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,960 Not so many that one doable and it obviously just become the 1083 00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:07,880 market darling at the time it was. 1084 00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,320 So it's pretty liquid and you could you could get a lot of 1085 00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:14,480 borrowing. Oftentimes you just literally 1086 00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:15,640 there's another borrow available. 1087 00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:18,240 You can't short things naked and people always talk about naked 1088 00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:20,080 shorts. That's not a thing. 1089 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,080 You know, you need to get borrow and there's just often not there 1090 00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:26,720 for a lot of things. And so it's pretty rare you get 1091 00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:32,000 things that are overvalued and have liquidity and have borrow 1092 00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,240 available. And even when they do for it to 1093 00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:39,320 be a good idea. Like, man, you know, when you're 1094 00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:44,280 down 50% on a long, it hurts. It really hurts when you're down 1095 00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:46,800 50% on a short. Oh my God, is a terrifying, you 1096 00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:49,880 know, so you, you said that you shorted, you shorted 5,000,000 1097 00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:51,480 bucks or something. You're trying to make 20%. 1098 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:55,160 You know, you're trying to make $1,000,000 fucking rips on you. 1099 00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:59,960 All right, it goes up 50. Now you're down 2 1/2, you're 1100 00:57:59,960 --> 00:58:01,640 trying to make a million, you're down 2 1/2. 1101 00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:07,640 OK, you know, and you're like, like, oh, that's a tough one. 1102 00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:11,600 And what do you do? Are you walk away or you're 1103 00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:13,840 like, no, I'm still right. Or do you, you press it? 1104 00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,800 Do you increase it? That's like, well, if you hold 1105 00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:20,480 on, I mean, you got to, you got to make 3 1/2 just to get to 1106 00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:24,200 where you you wanted to get now, like that's a long way from 1107 00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,320 where you are. And that's a big percentage 1108 00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:28,880 drop. And then or you can just 1109 00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:30,760 increase it. You can short more. 1110 00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:33,840 OK, so you short another two and a half million. 1111 00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:36,720 You short of five before now you short, you down 50%. 1112 00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:38,160 You short two and a half million more. 1113 00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:42,560 You're now short $10 million and it goes another 50%. 1114 00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,880 You just lose another $5,000,000 and suddenly you're like, I'm 1115 00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:48,800 down seven and a half million dollars. 1116 00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:51,240 I set out trying to make $1,000,000. 1117 00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:53,200 Oh my God, like what is happening here? 1118 00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:58,840 Like it is as a I've been there. It is terrifying. 1119 00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:02,200 It is like the most stomach churning feeling on Earth. 1120 00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:04,160 So short selling is extremely difficult. 1121 00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,760 Being rights isn't enough on your thesis. 1122 00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:12,920 You can you can. It's Yeah, I can't. 1123 00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:16,320 I can't explain to you the pain. If you're like if that 1124 00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,080 situation, you start with five trying to make a chameleon goes 1125 00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:22,000 50%. You had 2 1/2 goes another 50%. 1126 00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:25,000 Usually when I'll short something is when I feel like, 1127 00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:26,640 in what world can this double again? 1128 00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,200 It has to satisfy that criteria. So you see something you're 1129 00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:32,360 like, I think that's worth 100 million bucks, man. 1130 00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:33,800 And it goes to like half a billion. 1131 00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:36,200 You're like, that's insane. I don't short it. 1132 00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:37,920 I'm not going to put a big short on that. 1133 00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:39,600 Like can that go to a billion, dude? 1134 00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:44,200 I've seen guys promote like, like, like complete moose 1135 00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,200 pasture up to a billion. Like of course it can go to a 1136 00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:47,520 billion. And they've got actually there's 1137 00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:50,040 something, something real there. It goes to 2 billion. 1138 00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:52,560 You're like, Oh my God, like, but can it go to four? 1139 00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:54,600 I'm like, well, I've seen a lot of crazy pumps and critical 1140 00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:56,880 minerals and things like that, and these assets that are never 1141 00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:59,320 going to see the light of the day go to 4 billion before. 1142 00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:01,520 So I guess in theory it can. Then it goes to 4 billion and 1143 01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,840 you're like, wow, can it go to 8? 1144 01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:07,000 You're like, probably not. Then it goes up even more and 1145 01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:10,560 you're like goes to like 6 and you're like OK, 12's different. 1146 01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,600 You know, getting our company to $12 billion in mining is a 1147 01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:16,560 different thing. Like you're talking like being a 1148 01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:19,880 major now, like that's not going to happen on this, on this piece 1149 01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:21,400 of junk. And at that point it's like, OK, 1150 01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:23,760 now I'll short it. But like you can't short it 1151 01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:25,440 because you think it's overvalued or it's extremely 1152 01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:26,960 overvalued. You got to feel like, in what 1153 01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:31,120 world could this ever possibly double again, like ever like it 1154 01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:33,680 like that double S again, it's going to compete with, you know, 1155 01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:38,680 Ken Ross or something like that. And you get those opportunities, 1156 01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:39,720 you just don't get them that often. 1157 01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:42,400 Short selling novices. They they, they don't realize 1158 01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:45,480 that their returns are path dependent, that you know, if you 1159 01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:48,440 short something at 10 bucks and it does eventually go to 0 but 1160 01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:52,240 it goes via 100, your losses are incredible. 1161 01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,120 Yeah, again, it's just one of those. 1162 01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:00,480 It's one of those pains you can't experience, you can't 1163 01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:02,120 describe unless you've experienced it. 1164 01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:04,240 So I never want to be back there ever again. 1165 01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,320 And luckily in that situation, I'm talking about where I'd been 1166 01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:14,120 there, I came out ahead. But what a white knock 1167 01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:17,880 overnight. So yeah, I feel like maybe that 1168 01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:22,240 was, yeah, I definitely walked away saying never again, that's 1169 01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:25,720 for sure. No, I mean, short selling is not 1170 01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:27,520 my my focus. I mean again, mining is 1171 01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:29,880 asymmetric to the upside. You walk around looking for 1172 01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:31,480 longest occasion. You stumble across shorts. 1173 01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:37,600 You, you said one other thing that I want to ask you about in 1174 01:01:37,600 --> 01:01:40,920 in this conversation, and that was that you've got this real 1175 01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:43,240 ambition to, to actually run a mining company. 1176 01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:48,040 And yeah, I, I want to hear you expand upon that. 1177 01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:51,600 I know you've got involvement in a in a gold business already, 1178 01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:59,280 but where does that stem from? Yeah, I would love to. 1179 01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:03,280 I'd love to. Where does it stem from? 1180 01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:08,040 Listen, you use the word ambition. 1181 01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:10,840 Does it stem from ambition? Yeah, to some extent it does. 1182 01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:17,600 Is that the primary driver? No, I think it stems from belief 1183 01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:20,400 more than anything. I'll address the ambition 1184 01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:22,440 aspect. I want to build a mind. 1185 01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:24,560 Yeah. I mean, I, I found something 1186 01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:29,440 early come the, you know, predominant force in the market 1187 01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:32,840 for the primary financiers and things sold them, had them come 1188 01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:37,200 to fruition that way. It's great shorted things 1189 01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:39,520 publicly, obviously had those come to fruition. 1190 01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:48,720 Have I But you know, building something feels like feels like 1191 01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:50,200 that's something obviously I haven't done. 1192 01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:55,920 And when I look at assets, usually it's very rare you get 1193 01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,600 something you're like, you need a lot of exits. 1194 01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,760 You need to look at any, any time you go, OK, let me step it 1195 01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:04,720 back one minute. When you invest in mining things 1196 01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:08,560 and you either need to be in small enough that you can get 1197 01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:11,560 out in a hurry, or you can just get out relatively unscathed if 1198 01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:15,040 you don't like what you see. Or you need to be in a large 1199 01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:19,440 enough that you can take control of the situation and change it 1200 01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:23,880 if you don't like what you see. And the worst place to be in no 1201 01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:30,560 man's land in the shooting zone or you know, is, is when you're 1202 01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:34,280 in too big to have any influence over the company or so too small 1203 01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,760 to have any influence over the company, but too big to get out. 1204 01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:42,720 And I see a lot of guys end up in that situation and stuck 1205 01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,320 behind bad management and corrupt individuals and things 1206 01:03:45,320 --> 01:03:49,920 like this and complicit boards and and just frustrated, banging 1207 01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:52,200 their hands against the wall. But in a relatively liquid 1208 01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:55,400 situation and with no power, you can't be there. 1209 01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:04,440 So anytime you go into an investment, you need a lot of 1210 01:04:04,440 --> 01:04:07,200 different outs. You need to say, OK, you know, 1211 01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:09,840 you need a bunch of if then sequences that lead to success. 1212 01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:13,520 And your worst case scenario is not that bad. 1213 01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:17,360 Like y'all get hurt, but it's not going to be a mortal wound. 1214 01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:23,880 So what I haven't really ever had before in a project was 1215 01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:26,920 where I thought one of the outs was you just build your way, you 1216 01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:31,760 can build your way forward. I couldn't build GT No way I can 1217 01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:37,600 handle that like FILO. Like come on, I can't take on 1218 01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:40,360 Filo. I mean, you're kidding me. 1219 01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:44,280 Like it's you need BHP to drive forward Filo. 1220 01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:48,960 But what I found is that when people execute on simple 1221 01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:51,080 projects, it's most amazing rewrite. 1222 01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:53,920 I've never seen anyone execute on a fairly. 1223 01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,720 It's funny, I've watched, I think I said earlier, if you 1224 01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:59,200 really study things and you pull them apart, you start to see 1225 01:04:59,200 --> 01:05:01,840 some very obvious relationships. And what ends up happening is 1226 01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:04,560 the market doesn't ever do that. And some people do, but the 1227 01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:08,960 market on mass holistically on average does not do that. 1228 01:05:09,480 --> 01:05:12,520 And so they don't really understand what assets sold, why 1229 01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:15,200 they sold. You know, sometimes they think 1230 01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,000 someone just extorted the world's largest gold mining 1231 01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:19,800 company from his small desk and divine them. 1232 01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:26,160 They think things like that. But and but when you when you 1233 01:05:26,160 --> 01:05:28,240 really write them apart and you understand the nuances and 1234 01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:30,640 differences, you see things where it's like they occur with 1235 01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:33,480 such extreme frequencies. I remember in GT looking at that 1236 01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:37,760 and explaining to the company, it's like, listen, I don't 1237 01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:41,720 really want to say what the criteria is, but you know, give 1238 01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:43,160 it away too much. But I was like. 1239 01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:47,800 Sorry to butt in here, but JD, I have to. 1240 01:05:47,840 --> 01:05:51,400 I have to reveal something. We we managed to squeeze this 1241 01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:53,680 out of Darren post conversation. He wasn't he wasn't willing to 1242 01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:56,680 say it when we're talking, of course, but we had to pry him on 1243 01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:59,840 what are these criteria that actually leads to take out 1244 01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:02,080 within two years and he told us one of them. 1245 01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:03,040 What was that mate? That. 1246 01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:06,880 One that one thing was in this study that they do put out are 1247 01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:10,080 they pricing things based on using Sandvik ground support. 1248 01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:14,800 It's so true mate, you check the criteria to make sure you are a 1249 01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:17,680 guaranteed takeover. Sam, you've got to use Sam the 1250 01:06:17,680 --> 01:06:20,400 ground support mate. Gotta use the company that is at 1251 01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:24,000 the forefront of R&D, the forefront of technology when it 1252 01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:25,880 comes to ground support. Don't believe it, look at their 1253 01:06:25,960 --> 01:06:29,000 there's a mixed bolt mate. This is a dynamic resin bolt. 1254 01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:31,920 I'll let the man Derek heard explain it himself. 1255 01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:36,280 How has ground support changed over like the the last 20 years 1256 01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:39,480 for example? Some people might say not much 1257 01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:42,920 at the end of the day because it looks like a, a steel bolt or a, 1258 01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:46,440 a splitty or a friction bolt. Depends, you know what you call 1259 01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:48,680 it sort of thing. But they've been around forever 1260 01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,760 and a day because they're a good product at the end of the day 1261 01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:53,880 and they they do their job. But there's been a lot of 1262 01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:58,760 evolution on sort of the that are dynamic capability of 1263 01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:03,080 products, you know, that can hold more capacity, more energy. 1264 01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:06,360 Again, as these conditions become more challenging, you 1265 01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:09,280 know, there's more requirements for, you know, higher capacity 1266 01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:12,200 products at the end of the day. The other thing that's that's 1267 01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:15,560 probably changed over the years is the, the frequency of use 1268 01:07:15,760 --> 01:07:19,080 probably ground support probably was a almost an afterthought, 1269 01:07:19,120 --> 01:07:22,560 you know, 20-30 years ago. Now it's critical as part of the 1270 01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:25,160 development cycle, you know, to provide again, provide that safe 1271 01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:26,840 working environment. How good is that mate? 1272 01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:29,920 The company at the forefront the cutting edge of underground 1273 01:07:29,960 --> 01:07:32,080 mining technology. Go sand at ground support. 1274 01:07:32,360 --> 01:07:35,320 Back to Darren. If you look at every project 1275 01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:38,080 I've ever seen in my career that satisfied this basic criteria 1276 01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:41,880 set here and actually satisfied it wasn't like just a fake phony 1277 01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:44,480 resource scam pretending to be that it was a real project. 1278 01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:50,720 Because people talk about the Lassong Curve a lot, which I 1279 01:07:50,720 --> 01:07:52,040 think is a heavily misunderstood thing. 1280 01:07:52,040 --> 01:07:57,240 But like, do you know what the average life expectancy of one 1281 01:07:57,240 --> 01:08:01,440 of those companies post their first economic study and the 1282 01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:07,520 answer was a year before they got taken out. 1283 01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:12,280 Whatever, whether it's PA or PFS, do you know what the 1284 01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:14,520 longest survivor was of those companies? 1285 01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:18,720 There was about 10-2 years. None of them had made it longer 1286 01:08:18,720 --> 01:08:20,760 than two years without being bought out, Not single ones. 1287 01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:22,840 People are like, oh, you get stuck in the doldrums of this. 1288 01:08:22,840 --> 01:08:25,040 You're like, no, you don't. Not if you're in a certain tier. 1289 01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:27,720 And you know, I broke down all the tiers of assets to the 1290 01:08:27,720 --> 01:08:30,439 company and why? And I was like, like, you fit. 1291 01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:32,479 You're not in a, you're not a Tier 1 project, but you fit in 1292 01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:35,200 this tier. And that tier is an interesting 1293 01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:36,520 tier. And nothing in that tier has 1294 01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:38,439 ever survived or in two years post study. 1295 01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:45,040 GT didn't either. And, and that was a 100% hit 1296 01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:48,040 rate and across things. And every single one of those 1297 01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:51,960 projects outlined just had something about it that made 1298 01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:54,120 your skin crawl, that every night you went to bed just 1299 01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:56,800 terrified of that risk factor and you couldn't think about it 1300 01:08:56,800 --> 01:09:00,240 and stop thinking about it for, you know, in the case of GT, it 1301 01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:04,640 had a very obvious 1. And I was terrified of it every 1302 01:09:04,640 --> 01:09:08,840 single night. It had it not been for that risk 1303 01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:10,600 factor, I would never have sold it for half a billion. 1304 01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:13,240 I mean, you would have played for billions on that project, 1305 01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:16,560 but it had that. I don't want to say what it was, 1306 01:09:16,560 --> 01:09:20,439 but and that didn't mean it wasn't going to get taken out. 1307 01:09:20,439 --> 01:09:23,960 And when I ranked like the risk factors in the, you know, soil 1308 01:09:23,960 --> 01:09:27,640 your underpants factor scale of all those different assets all 1309 01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:30,160 been taken out, I'm like, this is basically like second 1310 01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:34,080 quartile risk. Like we're not talking like 1311 01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:36,200 active coup going on in the country. 1312 01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:41,760 You know, we're not, you're not talking about subordinated 1313 01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:45,760 minority interest to a private Turkish conglomerate type of 1314 01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:55,680 risk. So I, I, when you look at 1315 01:09:56,080 --> 01:10:00,240 projects, I guess where I'm going and in development 1316 01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:03,400 projects, I watched a perception form in my career that building 1317 01:10:03,400 --> 01:10:07,000 minds was a really bad idea. And I've heard that from a lot 1318 01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:12,120 of people, a lot of people I respect and you know, but I 1319 01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:15,400 thought that that that opinion was falsely formed. 1320 01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:18,680 I'm like, well, you know, they, you think that because you 1321 01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:20,880 watched all these companies try to build mines and blow up, but 1322 01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:22,680 you don't understand what they all blew up because they're all 1323 01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:24,640 resource scams, real gold projects. 1324 01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:29,600 And you don't understand that because I'd studied those 1325 01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:33,000 projects and it shorted a lot of them because I thought they're 1326 01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:37,600 resource scams. And it's just, we just went 1327 01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:39,400 through a world where the gold price collapsed. 1328 01:10:39,480 --> 01:10:42,120 No new discoveries were made with the driest like decade. 1329 01:10:43,080 --> 01:10:46,240 And it does. I mean, the only projects 1330 01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:51,920 getting pushed forward we're we're not projects that were 1331 01:10:51,920 --> 01:10:53,400 real. They were the projects where you 1332 01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:56,040 could turn the knobs on like the Krieging or the Interpolant and 1333 01:10:56,040 --> 01:10:58,600 blow out the resource or fuck with the wireframes and just, 1334 01:10:59,160 --> 01:11:01,440 you know, 2X3X the actual resource. 1335 01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:05,280 And then get, you know, like the chain of custody of information 1336 01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:07,080 is some guy. You just need one guy to go do a 1337 01:11:07,080 --> 01:11:09,520 block model. The wireframe could be Joe Blow, 1338 01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:11,960 it can be your buddy. OK, just needs to sign off. 1339 01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:14,520 You do that, you get your resource, you pass it off to 1340 01:11:14,520 --> 01:11:17,200 another group who does, who then says, OK, well, I take that as a 1341 01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:19,040 given now. And now I build you your mind 1342 01:11:19,040 --> 01:11:21,760 plant and here's your feasibility study and your MPV 1343 01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:24,080 is $2 billion. Amazing. 1344 01:11:24,560 --> 01:11:26,480 It's not like there's like multiple audits along the way. 1345 01:11:26,480 --> 01:11:28,240 You just need to get Joe Blow to sign off. 1346 01:11:28,440 --> 01:11:30,880 That's the most important thing. You do that, boom, you're good. 1347 01:11:31,880 --> 01:11:37,720 And but the only things that went forward that looked like 1348 01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:39,720 they were good enough to go forward, only it looked like 1349 01:11:39,720 --> 01:11:41,560 they were good enough to go forward because I want to crank 1350 01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:43,200 the knobs on them. There weren't any real projects. 1351 01:11:44,200 --> 01:11:46,440 And so you watch resource Cam after resource Cam get built and 1352 01:11:46,440 --> 01:11:51,080 blow up for various reasons. And people are like destructive 1353 01:11:51,120 --> 01:11:52,360 building minds. Terrible idea. 1354 01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:54,560 And then they also came off a decade of access where people 1355 01:11:54,560 --> 01:12:00,040 were just blowing their brains out, you know, with pro cyclical 1356 01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:03,520 mentality buying, you know, paying the same insane prices. 1357 01:12:03,520 --> 01:12:07,120 And so, you know, the the industry is ending this period 1358 01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:09,040 of austerity. And then the only thing they got 1359 01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:12,160 for the sins of they just incurred in the bull market of 1360 01:12:12,160 --> 01:12:16,280 the early 2000s and culminating up to about, you know, the 2010 1361 01:12:16,280 --> 01:12:19,240 ish time. And then then you watch a bunch 1362 01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:23,080 of scams get built only and there's no price environment for 1363 01:12:23,080 --> 01:12:25,640 real projects to go forward. And then so that's what 1364 01:12:25,640 --> 01:12:26,920 happened. That's where that mentality came 1365 01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:28,440 from in my understanding and my belief. 1366 01:12:29,120 --> 01:12:32,960 And then I watched some guys try for some other projects. 1367 01:12:33,120 --> 01:12:37,560 I did work on them and I thought, I think that one's 1368 01:12:37,560 --> 01:12:41,440 going to work, you know, and not that I can make that full 1369 01:12:41,440 --> 01:12:43,160 determination myself, but you get a sense for it. 1370 01:12:43,160 --> 01:12:44,640 You're like, I don't see any problems with this. 1371 01:12:44,640 --> 01:12:47,560 I don't see any obvious things where I see with it make my skin 1372 01:12:47,560 --> 01:12:48,920 crawl and and tend to hurt people. 1373 01:12:48,920 --> 01:12:51,720 I don't see all the earthworks. I don't see all the redirecting 1374 01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:55,560 water dealing with mocky earth, you know, saying you can move it 1375 01:12:55,560 --> 01:13:00,640 for X dollars when you you know, it's straightforward projects 1376 01:13:00,640 --> 01:13:03,920 building straightforward like while your CapEx is assembling a 1377 01:13:03,920 --> 01:13:06,480 mill assembly doesn't go wrong. It's like you know, they just 1378 01:13:07,440 --> 01:13:10,320 you can price it exactly and then just put it together and 1379 01:13:10,320 --> 01:13:12,960 bolt it together on site. Things like that. 1380 01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:15,760 You're like, these are simple builds, simple projects, simple 1381 01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:19,160 regions, good location for the tailings, good location for the 1382 01:13:19,160 --> 01:13:22,440 mill, good infrastructure, good access to mining services, good 1383 01:13:22,440 --> 01:13:25,320 workers, all the likes. And you're like, and they're 1384 01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:27,920 doing it prudently. They're passing off the parts of 1385 01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:30,000 the project that they shouldn't be taking on themselves or doing 1386 01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:32,200 it to good counterparties. I have friends who are technical 1387 01:13:32,200 --> 01:13:34,880 experts in various regions, call them, but for verification, get 1388 01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:36,520 it? You're like, huh, I think that 1389 01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:38,680 one's going to work. Yeah, watch them build. 1390 01:13:38,680 --> 01:13:39,760 You're like, yeah, it's not that. 1391 01:13:39,760 --> 01:13:41,160 It's not that interesting of a project, though. 1392 01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:43,040 It doesn't have a big MPV, but they're going to build it. 1393 01:13:43,040 --> 01:13:47,160 It'll make money and they do it. And the thing just turns into 1394 01:13:47,160 --> 01:13:52,560 this like, like ends up selling or trading for like 2-3 X what 1395 01:13:52,560 --> 01:13:53,960 it's worth. And you're like, Oh my God, 1396 01:13:54,360 --> 01:13:56,080 people plow in. They think it's like the 1397 01:13:56,080 --> 01:13:57,120 greatest thing they've ever seen. 1398 01:13:57,120 --> 01:13:59,120 You're like, my God, these guys are rock stars. 1399 01:13:59,120 --> 01:14:00,320 The greatest technical team ever. 1400 01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:01,880 Because they built a mind. It didn't screw it up when 1401 01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:04,200 everyone else did. And I'm not saying they don't 1402 01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:05,880 deserve their reputation. A lot of these people I think 1403 01:14:06,360 --> 01:14:08,280 are amazing. But they stayed within 1404 01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:10,840 themselves. They bought a real project. 1405 01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:13,600 It was simple, it was elegant. They executed it in a simple 1406 01:14:13,600 --> 01:14:16,560 fashion. And every time I've seen someone 1407 01:14:16,560 --> 01:14:18,640 do that, it's been an extraordinary success. 1408 01:14:19,520 --> 01:14:24,120 So there's that. And you know, we, you know, our 1409 01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:26,440 largest investment right now is a company called Mayfair Gold. 1410 01:14:27,480 --> 01:14:32,960 And Mayfair is to us that and we watched, I watched Atlantic Gold 1411 01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:38,120 in this fellow Steven Dean build Atlantic Gold and he built a 1412 01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:41,800 5000 ton a day project in Nova Scotia. 1413 01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:45,200 I believe it was like on a highway on power and you're 1414 01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:48,080 building on bedrock flat, no real pre strip sitting right 1415 01:14:48,080 --> 01:14:50,440 there. Bit of a nugget swarm. 1416 01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:53,320 You know, I thought the resource was sketchy at first. 1417 01:14:53,320 --> 01:14:56,320 Did more work and I'm like it's it's I think it's kind of there. 1418 01:14:56,320 --> 01:14:59,120 It probably works. I'm like, I can't poke any holes 1419 01:14:59,120 --> 01:15:00,640 in this. I think this actually works, but 1420 01:15:00,640 --> 01:15:03,960 it's small. It was like 450,000 oz 1.2g. 1421 01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:06,200 This is built with goals like 1400. 1422 01:15:06,200 --> 01:15:11,480 OK guys, guys won't even look at 400,000 oz at 1.2g today at 1423 01:15:11,480 --> 01:15:14,360 3:30, three $100 goals. I mean he was building was 1400. 1424 01:15:14,680 --> 01:15:16,680 You know, like, how the heck do you do that? 1425 01:15:17,360 --> 01:15:19,520 I haven't seen someone build this or something that look like 1426 01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:20,520 that. And he builds it and he builds 1427 01:15:20,600 --> 01:15:22,920 like 120 million, a 140 million CAD. 1428 01:15:22,920 --> 01:15:29,520 And I remember calling a friend of mine, you know, who is kind 1429 01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:33,520 of responsible for that mind build and asking him like, hey, 1430 01:15:33,520 --> 01:15:35,520 dude, can you just connect me with the guys that built that 1431 01:15:35,520 --> 01:15:36,480 mind? Like I, I just want to 1432 01:15:36,480 --> 01:15:38,680 understand how that happened, how you do that. 1433 01:15:39,720 --> 01:15:41,680 And he's just like, oh, he's not Australian. 1434 01:15:41,680 --> 01:15:47,000 He's like, as you guys would say, too easy and walks through 1435 01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:50,080 and you know, it's just like it's all there, man. 1436 01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:52,920 Power's there, the road's there. The workforce is there. 1437 01:15:52,920 --> 01:15:54,720 It's drive and drive out. You don't need to deal with the 1438 01:15:54,720 --> 01:15:57,440 camp. It's, you know, the it's a 1439 01:15:57,440 --> 01:16:01,200 creature of just your elegance, simplicity gets it up and 1440 01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:03,280 running, gets a trading and evaluation. 1441 01:16:03,280 --> 01:16:05,520 I couldn't believe it reach. And then he sells it to Saint 1442 01:16:05,520 --> 01:16:07,720 Barbara for like 800 million bucks or something. 1443 01:16:07,720 --> 01:16:09,600 And I was just flabbergasting like, whoa. 1444 01:16:10,560 --> 01:16:12,960 And then he had this backer, this guy named Ryan BD and 1445 01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:16,720 Steven and Ryan had just absolutely hit a home run there. 1446 01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:20,960 And then I watched him go buy this other project off New Gold 1447 01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:25,280 Blackwater. And it looked like a good 1448 01:16:25,280 --> 01:16:27,680 project. You're like, I mean, Gold was 1449 01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:30,160 like almost 2000 at the time, I want to say when they bought it. 1450 01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:34,600 And you're like, that's a good looking project. 1451 01:16:34,600 --> 01:16:38,080 I think that probably works. And you're like, it's pretty 1452 01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:41,240 much really permitted. You look at it and it kind of 1453 01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:43,080 looked like a bigger Atlantic Gold. 1454 01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:46,200 You're like, it's like the same flow sheet, very similar thing. 1455 01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:47,720 It's a very similar build actually. 1456 01:16:48,680 --> 01:16:51,120 It's a power line, but it's not complicated getting power there. 1457 01:16:51,120 --> 01:16:54,280 You know, like the First Nation situation was very complex, but 1458 01:16:54,280 --> 01:16:58,880 they navigated it and and it was also like had been well advanced 1459 01:16:58,880 --> 01:17:00,280 by the time I got it down that path. 1460 01:17:03,000 --> 01:17:05,600 And you're like, that doesn't look like a scary build, just 1461 01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:08,480 looks like a bigger version of Atlantic Gold almost. 1462 01:17:09,880 --> 01:17:15,600 I think that's going to work. And I think Steven and Ryan LED 1463 01:17:15,600 --> 01:17:18,240 from the front. They believed in their bones and 1464 01:17:18,240 --> 01:17:20,560 they wrote the checks from the front every single time. 1465 01:17:20,560 --> 01:17:24,440 It was epic. Love that and all the respect in 1466 01:17:24,440 --> 01:17:27,680 the world for guys that do that. They say like, no, this is 1467 01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:28,920 awesome. I believe in it. 1468 01:17:29,600 --> 01:17:31,720 You can get behind me or you can miss out. 1469 01:17:31,840 --> 01:17:35,680 We're driving this forward. We're just taking immense risk. 1470 01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:38,680 And now there you have made an extraordinary amount of money 1471 01:17:39,680 --> 01:17:41,640 for doing so. And look, with that three rated 1472 01:17:41,640 --> 01:17:45,040 suit, getting that thing into into production, it's 1473 01:17:45,040 --> 01:17:47,240 remarkable. And then I watch G mining go and 1474 01:17:47,240 --> 01:17:50,680 buy this like thing for like it was like 100 million USI can't 1475 01:17:50,680 --> 01:17:56,120 remember in Brazil. And it's a simple project and 1476 01:17:56,120 --> 01:17:59,880 they built it and they they're like, yeah, that's going to 1477 01:17:59,880 --> 01:18:01,240 work. I mean, it's not very sexy. 1478 01:18:01,240 --> 01:18:03,400 The MPV is not huge. The resource isn't huge. 1479 01:18:03,400 --> 01:18:05,720 It's, it's a good little project though. 1480 01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:09,360 And they built that good little project and look what they're, 1481 01:18:09,520 --> 01:18:13,440 look what they've become. And I just watched that. 1482 01:18:13,440 --> 01:18:15,360 I watched the rewrite. I watched The Power of Just 1483 01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:20,320 prudence and the what it does for your cost of capital and 1484 01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:22,200 your credibility in the market is people staying within 1485 01:18:22,200 --> 01:18:25,760 themselves and executing on simple projects smartly. 1486 01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:28,280 But understanding that people don't understand elegance and 1487 01:18:28,280 --> 01:18:31,120 projects and how that that what people suck at is understanding 1488 01:18:31,120 --> 01:18:33,880 joint probability. Human beings by nature really 1489 01:18:33,880 --> 01:18:35,680 are poor at understanding two things. 1490 01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:37,800 Compounding exponential rates of increase. 1491 01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:43,080 They don't really understand inherently and they don't 1492 01:18:43,080 --> 01:18:45,720 understand joint probability. And they look at projects and 1493 01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:49,240 they're like, yeah, that's like, yeah, it's like, I think it's 1494 01:18:49,240 --> 01:18:51,720 like an 8% chance that that's good, 8% chance, that's good. 1495 01:18:51,720 --> 01:18:53,320 That's probably an 8% chance that's good. 1496 01:18:54,040 --> 01:18:56,320 You know, like, oh man, yeah, this is awesome. 1497 01:18:56,640 --> 01:18:58,640 You're like, well, cool, what's pointing to the power of 3? 1498 01:18:58,640 --> 01:19:02,400 It's like less than a coin flip, you know, and now add in a .9 1499 01:19:02,400 --> 01:19:05,000 over there and a pointed over there on those two factors, on 1500 01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:07,960 those risk factors and suddenly you've got to like a, you know, 1501 01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:10,400 a one in four or one in three chance of success. 1502 01:19:10,400 --> 01:19:12,600 And one of them is their head. And people are like, you know, 1503 01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:14,680 if it just hadn't been for that, they're like, no dude, that's, 1504 01:19:15,000 --> 01:19:19,200 that's not how probability. And so it would would you know, 1505 01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:22,520 when you get these elegant objects where the risk factors 1506 01:19:22,520 --> 01:19:25,520 are so low because like mines are just victims of joint 1507 01:19:25,520 --> 01:19:27,560 probability. There's so many risk factors. 1508 01:19:28,280 --> 01:19:30,280 If every risk factors got a probability of 10, you got a 1509 01:19:30,280 --> 01:19:33,040 problem. So you need really, really high 1510 01:19:33,040 --> 01:19:36,880 probabilities on it across the board on all various factors or 1511 01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:40,040 you need huge margins of error and safety or you can withstand 1512 01:19:40,040 --> 01:19:46,400 a lot of bad luck And, and I find might succeed on elegance. 1513 01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:48,800 And I find any time people execute on those and stay within 1514 01:19:48,800 --> 01:19:50,600 themselves, the it's extraordinary. 1515 01:19:50,600 --> 01:19:52,440 And then there's there's ancillary factors. 1516 01:19:52,440 --> 01:19:56,600 I'm talking for a long time on this, but do you ever need me to 1517 01:19:56,600 --> 01:19:58,720 speed it up? You can just kind of go like 1518 01:19:58,760 --> 01:20:06,280 that and I'll take the hint. But but you know, building, 1519 01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:10,520 bringing technical teams under your umbrella, like from a fun 1520 01:20:10,520 --> 01:20:12,880 perspective. Yeah, I love the building. 1521 01:20:12,880 --> 01:20:17,360 Entire technical team. Expensive, you know, you got to 1522 01:20:17,360 --> 01:20:20,440 keep them fed, but you know, having networks with technical 1523 01:20:20,440 --> 01:20:24,040 people and working with people and succeeding together and 1524 01:20:24,040 --> 01:20:26,520 working as a team, there's a lot of value in that. 1525 01:20:27,320 --> 01:20:30,160 The learning opportunity is extraordinary. 1526 01:20:31,200 --> 01:20:32,960 You know, learning, going through permitting, being 1527 01:20:32,960 --> 01:20:36,600 involved in that, learning it, dealing with First Nations, 1528 01:20:36,600 --> 01:20:40,040 trying to figure out how to work for mutually beneficial 1529 01:20:40,040 --> 01:20:42,520 outcomes. You know, navigating that, 1530 01:20:42,520 --> 01:20:45,800 navigating the difficulties, the, the, you know, how do you 1531 01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:48,160 maintain positive relationships and dealing with the intensity 1532 01:20:48,160 --> 01:20:50,800 of negotiations and making sure you, you get through that with 1533 01:20:50,800 --> 01:20:52,560 mutual respect and all those types of things. 1534 01:20:52,560 --> 01:20:55,880 Like those are things you kind of need to go through. 1535 01:20:55,880 --> 01:20:58,200 So it's incredible learning opportunities from it as well. 1536 01:20:58,880 --> 01:21:04,240 There's incredible opportunities to build to pull certain skill 1537 01:21:04,240 --> 01:21:06,720 sets into your your network, which you can then leverage for 1538 01:21:06,720 --> 01:21:14,880 other opportunities potentially. Sharpen your pencil and you can 1539 01:21:14,880 --> 01:21:17,280 then apply the lessons learned from those groups elsewhere. 1540 01:21:17,280 --> 01:21:23,240 And then, but most importantly of all, you know, I think I 1541 01:21:23,240 --> 01:21:26,400 explained this in the other interview I did that you guys 1542 01:21:26,400 --> 01:21:28,400 were referencing or probably touched on this. 1543 01:21:29,480 --> 01:21:33,160 You know, I always use companies like I definitely talked about 1544 01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:36,200 this, but for me, like my, my focus on companies is on like a 1545 01:21:36,200 --> 01:21:38,200 decision making matrix. I think that's the powerful 1546 01:21:38,200 --> 01:21:40,120 thing. I think that's the most powerful 1547 01:21:40,120 --> 01:21:41,440 thing. You just say, OK, cool. 1548 01:21:42,360 --> 01:21:47,720 You try to figure out, OK, when you look at companies, people 1549 01:21:47,720 --> 01:21:51,560 are generally bad or it's difficult or have a hard time 1550 01:21:51,560 --> 01:21:54,200 figuring out what's a more talented team or a better 1551 01:21:54,200 --> 01:21:57,680 structured entity than another. And so they're looking for like 1552 01:21:57,680 --> 01:22:00,040 financial things and EPS multiples and things like this 1553 01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:03,040 and try to, they think if I can, you know, do smart accounting, I 1554 01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:04,880 can figure it out. Maybe you can, but it is it's 1555 01:22:04,880 --> 01:22:08,000 all worthless unless you can see through see through the numbers 1556 01:22:08,000 --> 01:22:11,080 and see talent or see brilliance. 1557 01:22:11,440 --> 01:22:17,560 And, and because at the end of the day, it's like you take it 1558 01:22:17,560 --> 01:22:21,680 to something where people obviously understand sports. 1559 01:22:22,240 --> 01:22:24,880 You know, I remember reading this watching this reading or 1560 01:22:24,880 --> 01:22:26,560 watching this quote from Roger Federer. 1561 01:22:27,360 --> 01:22:30,400 And these things are obviously kind of cliche and lame, but 1562 01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:31,560 this one actually kind of got me. 1563 01:22:31,560 --> 01:22:34,640 He was talking about like the percentage of points he'd won in 1564 01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:38,120 his career. He was like just about 50 and 1565 01:22:38,120 --> 01:22:42,280 you're like, that is incredible, but everyone. 52 I think. 1566 01:22:43,480 --> 01:22:48,360 Yeah, but you put Roger Federer, you got to realize he's playing 1567 01:22:48,360 --> 01:22:50,840 most of his points against like, competition that he's never 1568 01:22:50,840 --> 01:22:52,400 going to lose to, right? He only really faces the 1569 01:22:52,400 --> 01:22:53,600 challenge when he gets the finals. 1570 01:22:55,560 --> 01:22:59,760 And through these dominant runs, you understand the other 1571 01:22:59,760 --> 01:23:03,760 opponent has a 0% chance basically against this guy, even 1572 01:23:03,760 --> 01:23:08,200 though that's because that teeny margin and that's the power. 1573 01:23:09,560 --> 01:23:11,960 But The thing is, there's so many shots and so many points 1574 01:23:12,200 --> 01:23:15,440 they such as robust and deep sample size that the power of a 1575 01:23:15,440 --> 01:23:21,360 slight edge inefficiency over a relevant sample size is 1576 01:23:21,360 --> 01:23:24,400 extraordinary. And you know, look at the best 1577 01:23:24,400 --> 01:23:26,440 golfers in the world. We're in awe of Scotty Shuffler 1578 01:23:26,440 --> 01:23:31,840 right now for what he's doing. Like it's amazed. 1579 01:23:31,840 --> 01:23:35,600 It's but like it's a it's one shot around, you know, it's one 1580 01:23:35,600 --> 01:23:39,400 ship that he doesn't hit a little huff around. 1581 01:23:39,400 --> 01:23:42,080 It's it, that's, it's that's the that's the edge they're grinding 1582 01:23:42,080 --> 01:23:43,400 for. You know, it's amazing that he's 1583 01:23:43,640 --> 01:23:45,200 he wins by three strokes in a major. 1584 01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:47,360 Like, why is that amazing? Because it's that hard. 1585 01:23:47,360 --> 01:23:50,200 The margins aren't that thin. And we understand that when we 1586 01:23:50,200 --> 01:23:52,520 look at sports, we understand the inevitability of these 1587 01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:54,560 marginal advantages with relevant sample sizes. 1588 01:23:54,560 --> 01:23:57,120 We don't understand it with companies typically and 1589 01:23:57,120 --> 01:24:00,600 investing and people have a hard time saying, well, how do I get 1590 01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:01,880 to that? How do I see that? 1591 01:24:02,560 --> 01:24:05,560 And it's tough and things play out over many years and 1592 01:24:06,200 --> 01:24:07,280 management's changing and all that. 1593 01:24:07,280 --> 01:24:09,920 So culture understand the spot, a culture that's dominant 1594 01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:11,920 decision making matrix is dominant. 1595 01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:15,400 And so you know, it's like everyone understands it's like 1596 01:24:15,400 --> 01:24:17,640 Formula One cars. OK, this is be a good example. 1597 01:24:17,640 --> 01:24:24,720 I think if I think you watch F1 and you and you say if you gave 1598 01:24:24,720 --> 01:24:28,040 investors and they were their job was to go analyze F1 cars 1599 01:24:28,080 --> 01:24:31,280 and put them on a comp sheet and predict winners and losers, 1600 01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:33,320 they'd have a really hard time knowing nothing. 1601 01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:35,400 They'd say these are identical objects. 1602 01:24:36,800 --> 01:24:38,840 You watch F1, you say that car has no chance. 1603 01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:40,320 That is no chance. That is no chance because that 1604 01:24:40,320 --> 01:24:41,640 one corners better over here in this. 1605 01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:44,800 And like over the course of, you know, just give them a hundred 1606 01:24:44,800 --> 01:24:46,520 turns, like it's going to be like 1000 turns in the race. 1607 01:24:46,520 --> 01:24:48,840 Give them a hundred like they're going to be, you know, long 1608 01:24:48,840 --> 01:24:53,560 gone. And companies are like that. 1609 01:24:54,280 --> 01:24:56,960 If you pull away a little bit with every decision, it doesn't 1610 01:24:56,960 --> 01:24:58,760 matter if you have a better asset. 1611 01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:02,760 You're starting, you know, we understand you can put like the 1612 01:25:02,960 --> 01:25:06,960 the McLaren car of yesteryear, you can give it a one lap lead 1613 01:25:07,400 --> 01:25:09,400 over the Red Bull and you think, Oh my God, that's cheap. 1614 01:25:09,840 --> 01:25:11,920 Well, no, I mean, we all understand that the Red Bull is 1615 01:25:11,920 --> 01:25:13,960 going to dominate them and pass them by lap 10. 1616 01:25:14,960 --> 01:25:16,320 The same thing happens in companies. 1617 01:25:16,320 --> 01:25:23,240 So anyways, that's a very long winded way of saying I think 1618 01:25:23,360 --> 01:25:26,840 mining is a very fertile place for good decision making. 1619 01:25:27,960 --> 01:25:31,040 And I think it's inherently structure. 1620 01:25:31,040 --> 01:25:34,640 It's the people and companies have a hard time employing good 1621 01:25:34,640 --> 01:25:38,520 decision making. I was just talking like my 1622 01:25:38,520 --> 01:25:41,920 neighbor about it and he works for some large companies. 1623 01:25:41,920 --> 01:25:43,800 Like how big is like your team? And I remember you told me the 1624 01:25:43,800 --> 01:25:45,960 number. I was like, Oh my God, that's a 1625 01:25:45,960 --> 01:25:47,320 lot of people. You're like, God, that's a big 1626 01:25:47,320 --> 01:25:48,800 bureaucratic entity. I was shocked. 1627 01:25:48,800 --> 01:25:51,400 It was like 5 times bigger than what I thought it would be. 1628 01:25:52,160 --> 01:25:54,520 Holy grow. That's a lot of people, a lot of 1629 01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:56,520 committees, a lot of things. He's telling me the size of like 1630 01:25:56,520 --> 01:25:59,400 their ESG department and, and like the power of it. 1631 01:25:59,400 --> 01:26:05,600 I'm like, whoa. But I, I think there's a huge 1632 01:26:05,600 --> 01:26:09,640 opportunity in mining and in gold actually, especially in 1633 01:26:09,640 --> 01:26:15,840 gold for a nimble entity that makes good decisions and 1634 01:26:15,840 --> 01:26:19,160 aggressive decisions to take the strategy. 1635 01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:24,240 You know, we generally employed and investing in the sector and 1636 01:26:24,240 --> 01:26:29,320 apply it to a company or find individuals that share the 1637 01:26:29,320 --> 01:26:32,640 philosophy and, and have them apply to the company and support 1638 01:26:32,640 --> 01:26:36,960 them. And, and I think that can yield 1639 01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:39,120 extraordinary success for a number of reasons. 1640 01:26:39,120 --> 01:26:41,320 I think that the industry is perfectly set up for, I think 1641 01:26:41,320 --> 01:26:45,800 gold special in that regard. You know, there was my brother, 1642 01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:48,400 my brother told me this one time and again, this is one of these 1643 01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:51,480 things that always stuck with me and I thought was really simple 1644 01:26:51,480 --> 01:26:57,560 but very profound, which was he's just like, it's like, like 1645 01:26:57,560 --> 01:27:00,360 everyone's been on the copper thesis forever, my entire 1646 01:27:00,360 --> 01:27:01,920 career, the supply demand thesis. 1647 01:27:02,800 --> 01:27:05,160 And he's like, he was kind of like, who cares, man? 1648 01:27:06,400 --> 01:27:08,560 And it's a really good thesis and I was interested in it. 1649 01:27:08,560 --> 01:27:11,800 I couldn't ever get confidence. I don't really make macro bets 1650 01:27:15,360 --> 01:27:17,240 again, solving the world's hard. It's a lot easier to solve 1651 01:27:17,240 --> 01:27:22,960 companies and drill holes. But it's just like how many 1652 01:27:22,960 --> 01:27:27,040 copper bull markets you seen during, I'm like, well, zero. 1653 01:27:27,040 --> 01:27:30,000 I've heard of 1 though, you know, try a super cycle. 1654 01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:34,320 And he's like, you know, how many bull markets in gold have 1655 01:27:34,320 --> 01:27:37,960 you seen moments of like exuberance, euphoria and capital 1656 01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:40,600 flowing in and all this? And that's just like, I've seen 1657 01:27:40,600 --> 01:27:44,000 a bunch of them even though not much had happened in gold or for 1658 01:27:44,000 --> 01:27:45,520 a lot of those periods of times where they formed. 1659 01:27:45,960 --> 01:27:50,200 But you got these pulses and it's just like gold makes bull 1660 01:27:50,200 --> 01:27:54,360 markets more frequently and more violently than anything else. 1661 01:27:55,240 --> 01:27:58,600 And it's because it's it's not driven by these big industrial 1662 01:27:58,840 --> 01:28:00,120 things. It's driven by like central 1663 01:28:00,120 --> 01:28:01,680 banks. It's driven by global conflict. 1664 01:28:01,680 --> 01:28:06,440 It's driven by, you know, people trying to run away from the US 1665 01:28:06,440 --> 01:28:09,880 reserve currency, you know, shift assets out of the SWIFT 1666 01:28:09,880 --> 01:28:11,120 banking system. Who knows what. 1667 01:28:11,120 --> 01:28:14,720 You know, it's just, and the world is such a violent, 1668 01:28:14,720 --> 01:28:16,640 volatile place. There's always some major 1669 01:28:16,640 --> 01:28:19,080 conflict, major strife, major. Like how many things have you 1670 01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:21,400 seen in the last 10 years, like major global events? 1671 01:28:21,880 --> 01:28:27,080 They're just being jarring and and it just, that's when it's 1672 01:28:27,080 --> 01:28:30,040 driven by that the frequency of those markets and the capital 1673 01:28:30,040 --> 01:28:32,560 flows come faster. The ground is shaking more 1674 01:28:32,560 --> 01:28:36,680 frequently. And I always thought that was a 1675 01:28:36,680 --> 01:28:40,360 brilliant thought. And I was like, kind of just was 1676 01:28:40,360 --> 01:28:43,880 like, yeah, holy crow, how would I focus on anything else? 1677 01:28:44,680 --> 01:28:47,160 And so I think the playing and on top of that, it just, you 1678 01:28:47,160 --> 01:28:48,760 look at copper, you're fascinated. 1679 01:28:48,760 --> 01:28:50,240 Copper, it's just not that many ways to play it. 1680 01:28:51,400 --> 01:28:54,600 There's so many gold companies and there's gold companies from 1681 01:28:54,600 --> 01:28:57,480 like very small scale, micro scale, teeny heat bleaches, 1682 01:28:57,480 --> 01:29:03,120 small projects, medium size, bigger, medium size, small unit 1683 01:29:03,120 --> 01:29:06,520 size, large size, super size jurisdictions, the range of 1684 01:29:06,520 --> 01:29:08,520 jurisdictions, the breadth of jurisdictions, the breadth of 1685 01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:10,880 scale, the breadth of market caps, you name it. 1686 01:29:11,280 --> 01:29:15,280 The playing field is diverse. The ground is shaking, the money 1687 01:29:15,280 --> 01:29:17,520 is coming and and going and faster. 1688 01:29:19,600 --> 01:29:22,880 That's where opportunity is. That's where opera if you're, 1689 01:29:22,960 --> 01:29:27,360 and I've always believed that when you have that type of a 1690 01:29:27,360 --> 01:29:32,160 landscape, it kind of hit me. I'm like, man, in that 1691 01:29:32,160 --> 01:29:34,520 landscape, how much value is there just being an object of 1692 01:29:34,520 --> 01:29:37,840 stability? If you know that other people 1693 01:29:37,840 --> 01:29:40,720 are going to get washed out frequently and so much the money 1694 01:29:40,720 --> 01:29:43,240 is procyclical and is forced to be largely deployed all the 1695 01:29:43,240 --> 01:29:47,280 time, That's like the washouts are going to be brutal and 1696 01:29:47,280 --> 01:29:48,920 you're going to be able to buy things on fire sale. 1697 01:29:48,960 --> 01:29:50,720 So you should always send a decent position of cash. 1698 01:29:50,720 --> 01:29:54,080 And like how much value is there in being in in a position of 1699 01:29:54,080 --> 01:29:56,160 strength and other people are in a position of weakness, knowing 1700 01:29:56,160 --> 01:29:58,560 those positions of weakness and strength come and oscillate back 1701 01:29:58,560 --> 01:30:00,760 and forth so fast. And it seemed immense. 1702 01:30:00,760 --> 01:30:04,160 And so, you know, that was my my dominant philosophies in 1703 01:30:04,160 --> 01:30:07,040 investing in the sector was to do that always structure 1704 01:30:07,040 --> 01:30:10,280 yourself the so you will always be in a position of strength to 1705 01:30:10,880 --> 01:30:13,240 the best of your ability. I mean, there's no always in 1706 01:30:13,240 --> 01:30:17,040 anything, but when others are in a position of weakness and have 1707 01:30:17,040 --> 01:30:19,800 the confidence to move in those moments and it's never the 1708 01:30:19,800 --> 01:30:22,080 bottom is not usually obvious. There's only one time in my 1709 01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:24,240 entire career I've seen a moment where I couldn't believe I was 1710 01:30:24,240 --> 01:30:25,720 like, there's no way you don't make money buying this. 1711 01:30:25,720 --> 01:30:28,040 Like remembering COVID, seeing some things are like royalties 1712 01:30:28,040 --> 01:30:31,040 on potash, trading at a few X cash flow or things like that. 1713 01:30:31,040 --> 01:30:33,760 And you're like, OK, that's, that's a freebie. 1714 01:30:33,880 --> 01:30:36,160 That's just structural. I just buy, thank God I had some 1715 01:30:36,160 --> 01:30:37,800 liquidity, you know, to buy some of those things. 1716 01:30:41,240 --> 01:30:44,120 But yeah. And so that's the gold 1717 01:30:44,120 --> 01:30:46,320 landscape. And I'm just like, well, you 1718 01:30:46,320 --> 01:30:47,440 know, I play from the investment side. 1719 01:30:47,440 --> 01:30:49,560 That's great. But man, what could you do if 1720 01:30:49,560 --> 01:30:52,440 you're a company, think of all the different ways and the more 1721 01:30:52,440 --> 01:30:54,040 diverse ways you could play the field. 1722 01:30:55,000 --> 01:30:59,920 And, and if you can just go and build a company that has a an 1723 01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:04,120 incredible culture and decision making, you can set the culture 1724 01:31:04,120 --> 01:31:07,920 of the company. You can create a culture where 1725 01:31:07,920 --> 01:31:10,640 people lay information unfiltered on the table and 1726 01:31:10,640 --> 01:31:12,520 surrounded by a bunch of extremely bright people who then 1727 01:31:12,520 --> 01:31:14,480 digest it and try to make rational decisions. 1728 01:31:15,520 --> 01:31:19,720 And you know what? I, one of my mottos for 1729 01:31:19,720 --> 01:31:22,440 investing in the sector is, you know, on the front foot and 1730 01:31:22,440 --> 01:31:25,880 terrified all the time and you're scared constantly 1731 01:31:25,880 --> 01:31:27,640 investing the sector and you're crazy if you're not. 1732 01:31:28,560 --> 01:31:30,680 You should, you should be thinking about risk every night 1733 01:31:30,680 --> 01:31:33,680 you go to bed. And honestly, you can't help it 1734 01:31:33,680 --> 01:31:37,000 if you're paying attention, but you can never let it put you on 1735 01:31:37,000 --> 01:31:38,680 the back foot. It's you. 1736 01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:40,920 You can only, you have to be aggressive to be successful, but 1737 01:31:40,920 --> 01:31:42,720 you have to be very, very fearful at the same time. 1738 01:31:42,720 --> 01:31:47,240 It's A and a company that reflects that the things like 1739 01:31:47,240 --> 01:31:52,320 that, that has a bunch of really bright, talented people that has 1740 01:31:53,040 --> 01:31:56,640 it's ethically aligned that who are, you know, are generally 1741 01:31:56,640 --> 01:32:01,360 incorruptible and and you don't, you know, like one cancer. 1742 01:32:01,360 --> 01:32:03,560 I see in companies all the time as guys go and they don't want 1743 01:32:03,560 --> 01:32:05,640 to talk about their their losses, only want to talk about 1744 01:32:05,640 --> 01:32:07,440 their wins. The meetings that went well, the 1745 01:32:07,440 --> 01:32:09,280 conversations that led to something they don't want to 1746 01:32:09,280 --> 01:32:11,920 talk about, the conversation they had with with whomever that 1747 01:32:11,920 --> 01:32:14,600 they screwed up and they burned a bridge. 1748 01:32:14,960 --> 01:32:16,960 And the problem is when you start getting filtered 1749 01:32:16,960 --> 01:32:19,680 information on a table, you don't know how it's filtered and 1750 01:32:19,680 --> 01:32:21,280 what you're missing. You start making decisions 1751 01:32:21,280 --> 01:32:25,000 around bad information. It's not that useful. 1752 01:32:26,280 --> 01:32:30,760 So having a small room of really bright, talented, aligned, 1753 01:32:30,920 --> 01:32:35,520 ethical human beings of that mentality and having an object 1754 01:32:35,520 --> 01:32:37,480 to play the field in that way, I think you could achieve 1755 01:32:37,480 --> 01:32:40,560 extraordinary things. And I think that you could, you 1756 01:32:40,560 --> 01:32:43,000 know, I don't know the insides of a bunch of companies. 1757 01:32:43,000 --> 01:32:45,360 I, there's a few I could probably name that I think 1758 01:32:45,680 --> 01:32:47,840 reflect that to some extent. And I think they've done some 1759 01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:49,160 brilliant moves and brilliant things. 1760 01:32:51,400 --> 01:32:52,760 I think there's a huge opportunity for that. 1761 01:32:52,760 --> 01:32:54,000 And I think there's room for more. 1762 01:32:54,600 --> 01:32:59,040 And I, I would, would love to see that through. 1763 01:32:59,040 --> 01:33:03,240 I just, I just, I believe in that thesis about as much as 1764 01:33:03,240 --> 01:33:04,960 anything I've ever believed in in my career. 1765 01:33:05,480 --> 01:33:10,240 And so that's a very long, sorry, long winded answer to to 1766 01:33:10,240 --> 01:33:11,800 what you asked. But I think those are the 1767 01:33:11,800 --> 01:33:15,880 primary facets. And for us, we believe Mayfair 1768 01:33:15,880 --> 01:33:17,760 represents that. And you know, there's a whole 1769 01:33:17,760 --> 01:33:21,880 story there and a reason why there was a reason why the 1770 01:33:21,880 --> 01:33:24,360 market didn't like it. It was very obvious. 1771 01:33:25,720 --> 01:33:32,560 And then we watch things change and in a very meaningful way. 1772 01:33:33,160 --> 01:33:35,600 And it's a it's an object of it's one of those objects of 1773 01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:39,320 elegance doesn't jump off the page of people, but there's a 1774 01:33:39,320 --> 01:33:42,360 it's the coalescence of elegant factors make it extraordinary in 1775 01:33:42,360 --> 01:33:46,920 our mind. And yeah, so that's our focus 1776 01:33:46,920 --> 01:33:50,600 through that company is to is the whole hopefully build 1777 01:33:50,600 --> 01:33:52,560 something that reflects that. It's not our company. 1778 01:33:53,520 --> 01:33:55,600 We are the largest shareholder, but it's not our company. 1779 01:33:56,160 --> 01:34:00,800 So, you know, at the same time, you still have to build a 1780 01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:03,040 company. You can't force it you, but you 1781 01:34:03,040 --> 01:34:04,480 can hopefully guide it and steer it. 1782 01:34:06,600 --> 01:34:09,920 That that rationale of creating a sort of network of of super 1783 01:34:09,920 --> 01:34:14,480 switched on people just getting to to integrate and work closely 1784 01:34:14,480 --> 01:34:17,680 with people from different fields and getting the 1785 01:34:17,680 --> 01:34:20,680 experience from from permitting. And all those various sort of 1786 01:34:20,680 --> 01:34:25,040 facets must must come back with a lot of sort of spades as as an 1787 01:34:25,040 --> 01:34:27,360 investor as well. So yeah, that that really 1788 01:34:27,360 --> 01:34:30,120 resonates. Appreciate you massively sharing 1789 01:34:30,120 --> 01:34:33,760 the sharing your time Darren and and hearing about your thinking 1790 01:34:33,760 --> 01:34:36,240 in in every single facet of what you do. 1791 01:34:36,320 --> 01:34:37,600 Really enjoyed this conversation. 1792 01:34:38,640 --> 01:34:39,960 Well, thank you. Appreciate that. 1793 01:34:40,280 --> 01:34:42,320 Thanks for having me. Thanks so much mate. 1794 01:34:42,360 --> 01:34:45,080 Mate that was a fantastic conversation, so stoked to to 1795 01:34:45,080 --> 01:34:48,480 share that one and a massive thank you to our fantastic 1796 01:34:48,480 --> 01:34:51,640 partners Rounded Sandy Ground support and Cross Boundary 1797 01:34:51,640 --> 01:34:53,000 energy. Peter Roo. 1798 01:34:58,200 --> 01:35:01,000 Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. 1799 01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:03,440 If you thought any of this was anything other than 1800 01:35:03,440 --> 01:35:06,200 entertainment, you're an idiot. And you need it right out of 1801 01:35:06,200 --> 01:35:06,640 disclaimer.