PDAC: Who are the future leaders of the mining industry?
The next mining leaders should focus on building companies instead of selling them, according to Tavi Costa, a global macro analyst at Crescat Capital.
“Many of the young leaders are missing an opportunity with the perspective of building something short term and selling on a speculative market rather than building anything. This is probably true for most of the younger CEOs in exploration, unfortunately,” Costa said during a panel at PDAC 2023 in Toronto that discussed future leaders in the industry.
“If you’re sitting on a good asset, at the early stages of a secular bull market for gold or precious metals or commodities in general, that shouldn’t be your mentality. That’s the mentality typically coming out of a bear market and looking for selling your company for a two to three x rather than a multiple of that. That’s not how Ross Beaty or most of the successful guys in the industry made their money. They made it building things.”
When asked about a good example of a leader in the market today, Costa mentioned the CEO of i-80 Gold Corp (TSX: IAU; NYSE: IAUX) Ewan Downie as his top pick.
The company last month strengthened its presence in Nevada’s Eureka district with the acquisition of Paycore Minerals (TSXV: CORE), owner of the property that hosts the high-grade FAD deposit located immediately south of its 100%-owned Ruby Hill property.
“He (Downie) is very aggressive, a mover and shaker in general,” said Costa.
For Jeff Clark, senior precious metals analyst at GoldSilver.com, a name to keep in mind is Shawn Khunkhun, CEO at Dolly Varden Silver Corp (TSXV: DV; OTC: DOLLF).
“I owned Dolly Vaden back in the day and it just didn’t go anywhere, so I sold it and when Shawn bought this company, he completely turned it around. They’ve got 145 million ounces in all categories, it’s probably going to 200 and then it’s probably going higher than that,” said Claude.
“He’s very clear on what his agenda is, and that is to build this as big as possible, so can be bought out.”
For Claude Bejet, private investor and contributor of the Swiss Gold Letter, Ramón Dávila, president and director of Guanajuato Silver (TSXV: GSVR; OTCQX: GSVRF) is a miner to keep an eye on.
Before joining the silver and gold producer in Mexico, Dávila was COO and member of the Board of Directors of First Majestic Silver Corp from 2004 to 2014.
“He basically did the fortune of First Majestic. He’s doing a fantastic job, buying a lot of mines, putting them together and he’s gonna organize huge growth plus mergers and acquisition.”
The winner of this year’s Young Mining Professionals’ (YMP) Peter Munk Award, Vincent Metcalfe, was cited by Anthony Vaccaro, president of the Northern Miner Group.
Metcalfe worked as director of evaluations and vice president of investor relations at Osisko Gold Royalties (TSX: OR; NYSE: OR) and served as president and CEO of Falco Resources (TSVX: FPC; US-OTC: FPRGF) before founding Nomad Royalty. In 2022, Nomad accepted Sandstorm Gold Royalties’ (TSX: SSL; NYSE: SAND) offer to buy the company.
“Metcalfe built up Nomad very quickly through acquisitions and sold it to Sandstorm for $740 million. So, he’ll be looking for his next project, so that’s definitely a name to watch,” said Vaccaro.
“The other one that really impressed me in the past year is Andree St-Germain, CFO for Integra Resources. She’s a tireless worker. She’s very, very smart and has that peoples touch.”
She joined Integra (TSX-V: ITR; NYSE: ITRG) as CFO in early 2017 and helped oversee the sale to Eldorado Gold Corporation in July 2017 for C$590 million ($433m). Ms. St-Germain is currently a director at Osisko Mining Inc. and Ascot Resources Ltd.