Market Outlook: The podcast discusses the early stages of a bull market in precious metals, highlighting sustained higher prices and increased interest driven by changes in fiat money valuation and global economic shifts.
Investment Strategy: The conversation emphasizes a methodical and logical market progression, with capital initially flowing to royalty companies, then major miners, and eventually to junior explorers, indicating a healthy market cycle.
Company Spotlight: Visa Silver is highlighted as a leading silver developer with significant shareholder interest, particularly from index funds and large-scale investors, due to its potential for becoming a major silver producer.
Funding and Financial Strategy: Visa Silver is strategically managing its funding, with over $200 million in the bank and plans to utilize non-dilutive financing options like Visa Royalty and debt to support its project development.
Project Development: The company is advancing its Panuko project with a focus on risk mitigation by decoupling mine and mill startup risks, ensuring a smooth transition to production.
Resource Expansion: Visa Silver is actively working on expanding its resource base, with plans to increase mine life and production capacity through ongoing exploration and development efforts.
Entrepreneurial Insight: The podcast highlights the importance of mentorship, strategic partnerships, and resilience in entrepreneurship, as demonstrated by Visa Silver's journey from inception to its current position of strength.
Future Outlook: Visa Silver's feasibility study and strategic funding decisions are anticipated to further strengthen its financial position and unlock significant value for shareholders.
Transcript
We're in an early stage of a bull market here and I think it's going to continue to grow. >> This is Jay Martin. >> Michael, it's good to have you back in the studio. >> Very happy to be here, Jay. >> Okay, so I want to jump back into the story. Um, last I spoke to you in this capacity, I think was about 6 months ago, but I saw you in Florida at Rick Rules conference in Bokeh. Uh, phenomenal show by the way. I hadn't been to his event since it was in Vancouver. I hadn't made the trip down to Florida, but I'm not going to miss it again. And um it was such a productive few days. However, I was blown away by the fact that it's a four-day conference and I still didn't get to talk to everybody that I wanted to talk to you. And I think that's just a a consequence of how busy it was. Um how would you interpret I mean, you're on the road a lot. Uh you were there. Um how would you interpret investor sentiment right now relative to previous little rallies we've had in the precious metal cycle? How do you interpret this bull market, the health of it, the longevity? What are you watching? What's catching your attention? >> Yeah. Well, it's it's uh fundamentally different now. It feels like we have a real market. Um you know, we've had >> I'm I'm old enough to remember the 9-month bull market of 2020. >> Me, too. >> And as well as the, you know, the 9-month bull market of of 2016 as well. So, that's right. You know, both of those were exciting. uh a lot of money was raised for for good exploration programs and good development companies and things like that. What we're seeing now, I think, is a step change where we're having sustained higher precious metals prices and that's driving a lot of interest and it's a fundamental change on on how fiat money is being valued and uh you know the the debt situation of the United States uh in the global economy as well as well as the shifting of demand for gold to the brick nations and we're starting to see I think truly a change in in those dynamics. um it's making a a big difference and we're starting to see a larger and and more diverse group of uh individuals attracted to the market and I think that's what signifies that we're in an early stage of a bull market here and I think it's going to continue to uh continue to grow >> cuz that 2020 market that you referenced and you called it a 9-month market and and that's right and I remember the industry shifted like the entire sector was shot out of a cannon and all of a sudden um physical gold best-in-class miners down to explorers we're seeing massive rallying in their share price very very quickly like in a matter of weeks it it felt like and maybe that's hindsight simplifying things but this market's been very slow methodical and I feel like logical in that we saw the gold price, you know, start to run a couple of years ago, really 2024, things started hitting all-time highs, then best-in-class royalties, then best-in-class miners, then mid-tiers. And the trickle down of capital has been a lot of investors, it's made them impatient if they're waiting for the junior explorers to really pop, and they haven't yet. But I'd call that a healthy market. Like this seems like textbook bull market unfolding. What do you think? >> Yeah, I I agree and I I think that order of operations is correct. you you see the the royalty companies because they have less risk moving first then it's the the tier one majors you know companies like Agniko have performed extremely well and when you see these quarter after quarter cash flow growth and profitability increases that brings in the larger scale generalist investor and some people that you know may may may put a zero they may have had a zero allocation that may go to one or 2% allocation in their funds and they're talking very big funds but as that happens it becomes more topical uh then you start to see smaller funds and and different groups uh allocate more towards these metals. Um and you know as that continues to you know saturate you start to see groups looking for opportunities a little bit further downstream or or or earlier stage like exploration companies doesn't feel like we've seen that yet. That's what leads me to believe that we're in an early stage of this bull market. >> What we have seen is a lot of interest but it's not like it's it's gone absolutely crazy for uh you know large scale gold producers yet. those still feel early, >> but we're starting to see some of the more high quality exploration companies in the silver and gold space um you know pick up a lot and and and get a fair amount of interest. Now, as that pertains to Visel Silver, we've seen a very uh significant change in our shareholder database now and and and the list of shareholders. We've seen index funds, uh, ETFs, uh, you know, big large scale American equity investors coming in, uh, to our name. And I I relate that to a couple things. One, of course, we're best-in-class silver developer, soon to be a very large scale producer of silver and gold. Um, but also transactions in the space. In the last uh, 18 months, we've seen pretty much all of our peers, single asset silver primary producers, most of them in Mexico, uh, be acquired. And so you see a rotation of shareholders out of those single asset companies into the next the next uh in line which is Visa silver. So in the last u 8 months 9 months uh to be exact here it's it's been a very uh interesting transition of shareholders in in Visa silver and we see them add quarter after quarter as well. So we are seeing it happen in in real time and it's very exciting for us. Yeah. And that um that cycle of capital occurs because some upside is realized at one stage in the market and investors say okay what's next and they go down the food chain sequentially like that. And you know every market cycle I feel outside of precious metals as well unfolds in a very similar way. The the core pillar idea a core pillar idea begins to rally. Some folks make money and then they look for what's next and look down and the you know this is how the crypto rallies have occurred. Bitcoin will run and the what's next opportunities follow suit. Um so if we were to look at the stage in the sector that's attracting capital right now and you referenced your company Visa Silver uh largest undeveloped silver project in the world and I believe the potential to become one of the world's best silver miners and we're going to find out uh in the near term because you're moving forward there. Um, I put you in like if I were to say uh, you know, producers and then developers, but then there's funded developers and unfunded developers. Visa is kind of like a semi-funded developer at this point, right? Is that fair? >> Yeah. Moving very rapidly to we towards being fully funded. >> Okay. >> Uh, it's been my goal and my focus driving the company that we never get into the position of being underfunded. >> Yes. >> And that's a terrible situation to be in. I've had those experiences in the past and that shaped how we we operate. And you know, we we've made sure to have a very strong balance sheet. Uh so what we have now is over $200 million US in the bank. Important to note our our capex as described by the PA is about $224 million US. So we have almost our entire capex uh as per the PA in our bank accounts right now. We also have about $30 million worth of Visa royalty shares. uh and we're also working on uh debt basically to fund the next stage of uh of development here and I think that in uh the coming months you'll see that Visa Silver will be in a much stronger position financially in order to unlock the value that we see at the project and that'll come you know at the same time as uh we're putting out our feasibility study really moving this project forward very very quickly into production and being in possibly the best financial shape that I can think of for any developer uh out there. >> Let's let's unpack that a little bit. So, according to the pea, the capex to build the mine in your Mexico project would be around $224 million. That's the pea estimate. Right now, you've got 200 million US in the bank. You're also sitting on 30 million shares of Visa Royalty. And this is a company that you've openly discussed um taking to market, right, in the near term. >> Exactly. So, Visa Royalty is a very important part of our our strategy. So we we ended up spinning out uh a package of royalties on the Panuko project, our our original Panuko project to Visa Silver shareholders. Visa Silver in addition owns 17% of that company. Uh we see that there's a very clear line of sight to selling the company in the near term. >> Visa Royalty. >> Visa royalty. Yeah. >> Uh and that will help fund Visa Silver's uh construction. And analysts are predicting, you know, north of $6 a share. This is not our numbers internally, but you know, today we trade at about $3 a share Canadian. Uh, so there's a lot of room for Visa Royalty to increase and any transaction that we we undertake with Visa Royalty will directly benefit Visa Silver and allow us to basically use non-dilutive financing to help the construction of the project and get into cash flow very quickly. >> Okay. So on the ground right now at Bonuko, um, the resource is like 360 million ounces of silver equivalents. uh 220 which is in the M&I category. Yes. >> Uh test mine is up and running, right? So walk us through like near-term catalyst and timeline. What's going on? >> Yeah. And of course our our global resource is like you said 360 million ounces of silver equivalent. Uh the M&I 222 I believe. Um very high grade. It's the highest grade um you know development silver project out there of any scale. Uh, you know, right now we have the underground test mine going. It's incredible. I was just there a few weeks ago. You know, this is u an extremely well done underground mine. It's going to be our perfect our permanent entrance to the Copala vein. Okay. >> And so our goal is to get to the Copala vein through this um this this underground mine. D-risk the project by putting that permanent entrance in before we even start constructing the mill. take material above surface, stockpile it, have it there so that when the mill is started up, we'll have material sitting there ready to run through that mill. Another reason that we do that is to decouple the two startup risks. So when you have an underground mine, you have startup risk of the underground mine. We've gone through the kinks and the issues and the contractor problems and things like that. We're dealing with this now when there's no time pressure. And then when we start the construction of the mill, invariably something will go wrong. You know, whether it's, you know, at the very beginning of of uh of starting the mill, there's always little problems that you have to deal with. So, it's much better to deal with one at a time, i.e., you know, the mill when we construct the mill and having already dealt with all the issues of the the underground mine and now we're getting two blasts a day, it's it's it's moving very very smoothly at the project and we don't have that time pressure of a a hungry male waiting there for for feed. So, it's a very intelligent way of approaching the startup of a a mine in a mill and one that I think shareholders should be very happy with because first of all, we're obviously fully funded uh to do this underground mine. It's only about $10 million and it's given us a huge head start. We permanented it early. We're going to have that permanent entrance there and then we can just focus on starting up the mill when we get those those construction permits for uh for the mill. So, uh it's very exciting. Another thing to to kind of note going back to your original point about the the resource is that this resource is going to grow. Uh we are going to drill from underground. We're going to continue to expand this resource. The resource all those wireframes and all those veins are open along strike. And if they weren't at surface, I would say they're open in every direction, but they're open at depth. Uh you know, they come right up to surface there and then they're open along strike. There's going to be a lot more lowhanging fruit for us to continue to grow. We've done some internal studies around that and we see, you know, a major increase in mine life going forward just from some low hanging fruit expansion along these veins. >> Okay. Can we pull on that a little bit? Expansion of mine life for still forecasting 2027 production for anybody who's just walking in for the first time. Uh what are initial estimates showing, Michael, annual production and expected mine life at this point in time? And I know you're completing a feasibility study right now, so we'll get more information in the near future, but what can you share today? So right now the life of mine average annual production is about 15 million ounces as per the pea for 10 years. Now you notice that's about 150 160 million ounces of silver equivalent which is about half of or less than half of our our global resource. So we've only included what could really be mined very very readily readily and what could be converted to the M&I categories. That's why I say this will continue to grow. So there's basically double the resources that are in the mine plan in terms of global resources on the property. Uh and again, you know, once you're underground, you can start to mine different areas. You find different veins. It continues to grow and expand. But if we're looking at just that initial mine plan, it's about 15 million ounces per year for 10 years. But the first um the first two years of the PA being 20 million ounces. Now, we've done a lot of work and a lot of drilling since that pea and we, you know, put our updated resource together that's going into the mine plan. Feasibility will be based on a a much more improved uh resource and and mine plan. So, I actually would think that we'll see an increase in those overall ounces produced as well as um perhaps a higher production profile for the earlier years. It's going to be really exciting to see the feasibility study. One of the things that we we set out to do, which a lot of companies don't do or don't actually complete on, is we wanted to show that we weren't going backwards from the pea into the feasibility study, meaning a higher capex, lower mine life, uh lower lower produced ounces, those types of things, you know, better worse uh worse economics. Uh what I suspect will be the case is that we should be in line with the PA, if not better in some some areas. So, uh, usually the the feasibility study is is, um, a disappointment. I I'm hoping that, uh, the feasibility study will be actually a positive surprise for the market here. >> Okay. Let me ask you a question. Today, you're sitting on, uh, what is probably the largest undeveloped silver resource in the world. You have 200 million US dollars in the bank. you have an option to raise more capital without dilution in a couple different directions either through Visa royalty or some debt. Um you're in an incredible position of strength and the market has arrived right like timing looks really really good for you. um you know o overnight success right uh and that's actually what I want to ask about because I know that when you started this company uh there was a period of time where you were effectively financing large pieces of it whether that was employees salaries or office expense on a personal credit card I want to get back to that walk the audience through what year was that and and just bring us into the room a little bit Michael >> yeah so so I incorporated the company in 2017. We took it public in the fall, early fall of uh 2018 and um you know we started go to go down to Mexico and work on consolidating these projects and you know the cut by then the company had had basically run out of money and you know for you know the the geological expenses that we're doing the consulting the trips the flights you know the office space the corporate all that was basically you know covered um you know via line credit and and credit cards for for a period of time and I carried that debt. We ended up financing after and I carried that debt for some time because I I um you know I just wanted to make sure the company was in in great shape. Again, going back to that idea of of you know, never being underfunded and and you know, the enemy of a a junior mining company with no revenue is you know, running out of money. That's the ultimate failure, right? So, >> um we we wanted to make sure that that the company was in good shape. So I I took that on and you know it didn't occur to me that you know that was overly risky at the time. I was pretty confident that what we have here could could turn out to be something really special. So it was you know going back thinking back to those days those were I think about that fondly. You know it was it was a lot of fun. It was uh really exciting. We didn't know what was around the next corner. And when we first made that discovery it was uh kind of an out-of- body experience. It was it was such a thrill and I think you know you end up kind of chasing that thrill again in the future. and you know thinking about what's out there in our district and these other projects that we bought in in Sinoa you know I I think we're very excited to see about you know how do we make another discovery like Copala like Napoleon again uh but again those were those were really fun early days and uh you know that that kind of make it or break it startup >> yeah yeah yeah no doubt I I got to ask like what gave you the conviction you know 2017 2018 we were on the heels of a seven-year bare market right like companies have been destroyed wealth had been destroyed. It was very hard to raise money for anybody uh probably yourself included with Visa at that moment in history. What gave you the conviction to double down personally and pursue this? Well, I think it actually, you know, to be honest, what gave me the conviction was uh seeing my business partner Craig Perry's face uh when we were driving through the property for the first time. >> Okay. >> You know, he's he's a legendary Well, he's a legend. >> He's a legendary geologist. He's an incredible business person and um you know I I'm not a geologist but we were driving through the property the first time and and you know just his reactions to see how he responded to what he saw there kind of the surface expression of the geology. We went underground and um and toured underground mines and they were just you know they were Craig and and and other geologists were just blown away and I thought you know this will probably be the best chance here you know of anything for uh for Visa. we gota we got to get this no matter what. And so I you know we came back from that trip discussed it and and I basically stopped at nothing to uh to to get it and put it all together. And I I spent better part of a year down there in Sinaloa, Mexico and working with the families and and these types of things and you know it was a lot of fun. Um and you know it's easy to look back now and say overnight success or you know that was a smart decision or something like that but we really had no idea. Um there's a huge amount of risk and you know the funny part was is you know I felt relieved when we signed the agreements but the real work had started at that point because it was when we had to go raise $42 million US and everyone thought we were crazy you know >> when was this >> this was uh we well we signed the agreement in late 2019. >> Okay. And uh the agreement said that you know basically to to acquire the property we needed to pay 40 it's actually was $43 million uh over a period of about 6 years. So we would go and market and talk to people in Toronto and in New York and some cases I was laughed out of offices. You know how is this little company $20 million market cap? >> Sure. >> You know how are you going to raise that 20 million Canadian how are you going to raise $43 million US? Yeah. >> You haven't doesn't even have a resource. There's no discovery. Are you guys thinking? >> Yeah. you know, so well, we knew that if we did make a discovery, the infrastructure, the production facilities there, you know, the head start that we would have to move towards production uh would would pay off and and you know, my conviction was that, you know, markets are cyclical. The best time to do these deals are when, you know, people are just interested in metals. And um you know it felt like the right right thing to do was kind of be counteryclical and and now we're you know what's that uh you know 6 7 years later we're we're reaping the rewards. >> Definitely the best time to do deals is in that part of the cycle but also the hardest time to do deals is the hardest time to get people to part with their money for an idea that's out of favor. You were a $20 million Canadian market cap company. What was the Walk me through the pitch at this point? like how are you getting because you know when you're sitting down and you're telling a story and you're explaining the value proposition to somebody typically there's a moment where you see the eyebrows go up and you're like that's it that's what's getting people excited about this. Was it the people yourself and Craig your partner? Was it the geology? What was it? What was that moment? Well, c certainly Craig and and Simon who's was a director is now our chief operating officer was the COO of of Oeno and and and and Craig with his his track record of success you know NextGen and um >> ISO Energy >> ISO Energy time at Riointo Tigers Realm EMR Capital uh and now Eskina's become a knockout success as well. >> Uh you know that that that that was a huge part of it. people took a a flyer because of Craig's conviction on it as well. And and >> was that part of your strategy? Cuz I imagine we're about the same age, so I know how old you would have been in 2017. You know, was that part of the strategy for you personally and professionally to partner with one of those existing legends, right, and bring a bunch of hard work and value to their reputation. >> And that's how Craig and I kicked off our relationship originally is we we we built a cobalt company. Well, he he basically backed me to do that and I had all these ideas and you know he was I think he was quite impressed by the speed and and the >> aggressiveness that I I brought towards that and financially we we both well he you know we all did extremely well out of that and so he you know I think he was happy and willing to uh let me hitch my wagon you know and see what I could what else I could do and >> um but you yeah certainly I think if you're a young person in the business it's it's important to um find mentorship in in established, you know, professionals, people that have done it before. It's like that in any any industry, right? You learn learn from people that have done it. And um that's how it started. It was early early on, I just I was in dire need of of good mentorship. And Simon and Craig were uh were there for me. And you know, as these things progress, they you know, often turn into to business opportunities. And so we uh you know, we we all work together on on Visa Silver. And it's been it's it's incredible. It's always great to just think about how far we came from from early on. >> No doubt. No doubt. And you founded Invented Capital, which is How would you explain Invented Capital to somebody who's never heard of it before, Michael? >> Yeah. It's funny at the Rick Rule uh conference, you know, I I every year I get up and talk about Invented Capital and and what we do. And this year I actually just ran through the history of Beasel Silver much like we we just discussed here. And you know way that I explain it and and often times people will come up to us and say, "Oh, can I invest in Inventtor Capital? Where's the fund?" You know, is it is it a fund? >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> It's not a fund. It's it's an incubator. It's a private company that we you know, we we do a few things. We share office space. So, you know, companies have a really easy way of of of starting up. It's kind of like a startup startup incubator. Um, you know, we share resources like accountants and corporate secretaries and geologists and things like that. So you know your your barrier to entry is quite low if you have a concept and an idea and you know we try to find really strong uh young entrepreneurs and help them build their businesses. So the same way that Craig mentored me and helped me early on you know we try to do that as well and and what we early on we spread ourselves a bit too thin. you know, we did a lot of deals and um you know, took a lot of risks that that probably didn't make sense looking back. Uh nowadays, the the approach is really just to to to to find someone that's probably missing something, someone that's got a great concept, great idea. Good example of that is Keith Modnerchuk uh with Kosa Uranium. >> And you know, they're an all-star team, an award-winning team of exploration geologists in the Atabaska basin. actually the same team that Craig made the ISO discovery with and Keith wanted to build this company. He had all, you know, he he he did it all himself, but you know, we were able to offer him kind of, you know, a bit of a head start, a tap into our capital markets, uh, networks, our investors, um, you know, investor relations work, that type of thing. And you know, I think a company that's coming to Invented Capital knows that, you know, we can help raise the money, we can help support it. And again, to my earlier point, make sure they never really run out of money, which is the ultimate threat. >> Um, and at the same time, it's a really collaborative, fun place where where people all work together and we share ideas and and try to build companies. >> Yeah, I think it's such a valuable structure for the reasons you just mentioned. you you can pull resources and therefore cut costs and yes all the stuff like office expense, accounting and legal. Um you can access each other's capital networks. Often the most scarce resource in the resource business is cash. And so if you can pull networks together, assist each other raising capital when that time comes. And then also you must do this internally. You can workshop problems together, right? You're going through something at Visa Silver. Uh Craig's going through something with Visa Copper, whatever that is. And you can borrow each other's brain capital to solve problems. You do you bring um issues and items to the table like that and kind of boardroom defined solutions? >> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know we call kind of huddle and we have our our weekly uh calls and things like that with across the group and you know and and the best part about that is you know with the the money that we're saving across the companies more more of that's going into the ground to make new discoveries. corporate sol of people that all get together and you know I any number of our I mean I'm I'm a large shareholder of all of all of our Inventa Capital companies. Um but they certainly have an advantage over your your you know your standard issue Vancouver Junior. >> Yeah 100% 100%. And that's um okay so looking forward visa silver right now anybody who's like what's next um effectively we're looking for the feasibility study to come out of the panuko project right and get a bit more clarity on what that looks like I'm curious about what you're going to do for the next leg of your funding and you have like three options you could do there right you've got the visa royalty uh sale if that occurs and for what valuation there's a chunk of capital there you could obviously look at debt I think companies can often finance at like a 3:1 ratio. You know, you've got 200 million US in the bank already. Your capex is 224. You're almost there, right? And you could do an equity raise should you decide to do so. Uh is that a fair assessment of your three avenues to fulfill the rest of that capital need? And do you have a preference which direction you might want to go? >> Yeah, and and we've been extremely diligent in finding the next path here. And as I said in in in the coming uh weeks and months, you know, we should have some some news out about this. Um what I can say, I probably shouldn't say too much, but what I can say is we've exhausted all the the various um avenues and and you know, of course, we've spun out our own royalty, but there's also the the streaming royalty model that we've reviewed and looked at as well, which you know, at face value has very attractive cost of capital. um you know debt you know for a project like this can have a very attractive cost of capital and the advantage there is that it's it's a temporary incumbrance. It's a you know it's a liability but it's something that you can pay off when you're in cash flow and >> it's non-dilutive. >> Exactly. And you know just for the the numbers just to think about our cash flow uh and payback period you know as of the pea it was uh a 9-month payback period. Currently, it's probably somewhere less. I mean, certain much less than six month payback period. If you think about 20 million ounces, um we're at $40 an ounce now. Uh $10, let's say, ASIC, just to be really generous and round up, >> you know, that's $30 margin uh times times 20 is $600 million a year of of of cash flow there basically. And you think about the capex. So, >> you think about debt, it's something that you can pay back very rapidly. Um and I think that's that has a lot of advantages to it as well. And of course equity we're trading at about 6.7 net asset value. So we're trading at a discount to what we believe is our intrinsic value. Um now that net asset value is going to continue to to increase as we move closer to production as will the multiple. So I think you know peer companies like ours that have gone through this path in Mexico before have traded at a sometimes very serious premium uh to net asset value trading upwards of two times NAV before production even. So you know we're trading at a discount to what our peers traded at and to what we think our our true value is which would be one times NAV. Um actually that's you know less than what we think it is but you know in terms of the analyst uh consensus. Sure. >> Um, so it doesn't make sense for us necessarily to raise more equity at these discounted levels. So, you know, I think you'll the the shareholder, the investor should be able to see kind of which path we take in in the coming uh days here. So, um, stay tuned for that. >> Okay. Yeah, 100% will do. Man, I always enjoy catching up with you and I'm really glad we were able to dial it back to the earliest days today because it's easy to look at Visa Silver today. I really appreciate the origin story just because I think it speaks to the culture inside the organization. We get a sense of what you're made of, right? Like would you do anything? Would you do whatever it takes, right? And I think you proved that at the earliest stage before anybody else had conviction in Visa and you were making these big personal bets to get this thing moving, right? And I just think it speaks to the character and the durability that entrepreneurs need to succeed, you know. and you came up in conversation on my podcast recently when we were just talking about like who are the next entrepreneurs to watch and this is a very common conversation that we have in the industry. We all know the Lucas Lundines, the Ross Bees, the Bob Cordamines, the Thomas Kaplins, but who's next is like that's my job if I like one purpose in this industry, right? Is to find those people. And quite frankly, it's hard to do that when you go through an 11-year bare market because you can get hints and you can have a pretty good idea, but you really need a bit of a market to stress test that, right? And now we're getting that. And um you know, the the ingredients that I think people should look for is the durability. I mean, every entrepreneur knows you need a plan C because plan A and B are probably going to fail, right? Do you have the the energy and durability to get back up and keep swinging and do whatever it takes, right? And that's why I like to get into the origin story. Have you been very um creative and aggressive with your capital networks, right? And I reflect on the time you spend I mean you've traveled with your family to spend 6 months in New York just to develop capital relationships. You've done this a few times to ensure that you've always got optionality when you have to go back to the market for capital. The more options you have, the better cost of capital you're going to get, right? Because you can truly go to market. If you have one or two sources, you're gonna get you're going to get grilled, of course, right? And have you developed mentorship relationships that contribute both brand capital and experience, but also additional capital networks? Right? Back to that. And you know, you tick all those three boxes and then the most important one that there's now a track record of many years of you doing exactly what you said you were going to do, right? And that in itself is an anomaly in our industry, right? It's a lot of cowboys, a lot of short-term thinkers, a lot of short-term commitments, and um you know, you've very clearly proven that's not you. And you know, congratulations cuz the results speak for themselves. So, you know, it is what it is. But I just wanted to share that with you that you've come up many times in that conversation on my show. And I feel very confident putting an entrepreneur like you in front of our audience because I'm like, he's a good steward of capital. Your money's in good hands with this uh with the CEO. So, it's always good catching up with you, brother. >> Well, I'm I'm humbled to hear that. I I really appreciate that. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And I I always look forward to this every uh well, I was going to say every year, but I think we do a little bit more frequent than that. But I look forward to these uh these meetings. So, thank you very much. >> Pleasure is all mine.
Why This Is The Next Major SILVER Opportunity
Summary
Transcript
We're in an early stage of a bull market here and I think it's going to continue to grow. >> This is Jay Martin. >> Michael, it's good to have you back in the studio. >> Very happy to be here, Jay. >> Okay, so I want to jump back into the story. Um, last I spoke to you in this capacity, I think was about 6 months ago, but I saw you in Florida at Rick Rules conference in Bokeh. Uh, phenomenal show by the way. I hadn't been to his event since it was in Vancouver. I hadn't made the trip down to Florida, but I'm not going to miss it again. And um it was such a productive few days. However, I was blown away by the fact that it's a four-day conference and I still didn't get to talk to everybody that I wanted to talk to you. And I think that's just a a consequence of how busy it was. Um how would you interpret I mean, you're on the road a lot. Uh you were there. Um how would you interpret investor sentiment right now relative to previous little rallies we've had in the precious metal cycle? How do you interpret this bull market, the health of it, the longevity? What are you watching? What's catching your attention? >> Yeah. Well, it's it's uh fundamentally different now. It feels like we have a real market. Um you know, we've had >> I'm I'm old enough to remember the 9-month bull market of 2020. >> Me, too. >> And as well as the, you know, the 9-month bull market of of 2016 as well. So, that's right. You know, both of those were exciting. uh a lot of money was raised for for good exploration programs and good development companies and things like that. What we're seeing now, I think, is a step change where we're having sustained higher precious metals prices and that's driving a lot of interest and it's a fundamental change on on how fiat money is being valued and uh you know the the debt situation of the United States uh in the global economy as well as well as the shifting of demand for gold to the brick nations and we're starting to see I think truly a change in in those dynamics. um it's making a a big difference and we're starting to see a larger and and more diverse group of uh individuals attracted to the market and I think that's what signifies that we're in an early stage of a bull market here and I think it's going to continue to uh continue to grow >> cuz that 2020 market that you referenced and you called it a 9-month market and and that's right and I remember the industry shifted like the entire sector was shot out of a cannon and all of a sudden um physical gold best-in-class miners down to explorers we're seeing massive rallying in their share price very very quickly like in a matter of weeks it it felt like and maybe that's hindsight simplifying things but this market's been very slow methodical and I feel like logical in that we saw the gold price, you know, start to run a couple of years ago, really 2024, things started hitting all-time highs, then best-in-class royalties, then best-in-class miners, then mid-tiers. And the trickle down of capital has been a lot of investors, it's made them impatient if they're waiting for the junior explorers to really pop, and they haven't yet. But I'd call that a healthy market. Like this seems like textbook bull market unfolding. What do you think? >> Yeah, I I agree and I I think that order of operations is correct. you you see the the royalty companies because they have less risk moving first then it's the the tier one majors you know companies like Agniko have performed extremely well and when you see these quarter after quarter cash flow growth and profitability increases that brings in the larger scale generalist investor and some people that you know may may may put a zero they may have had a zero allocation that may go to one or 2% allocation in their funds and they're talking very big funds but as that happens it becomes more topical uh then you start to see smaller funds and and different groups uh allocate more towards these metals. Um and you know as that continues to you know saturate you start to see groups looking for opportunities a little bit further downstream or or or earlier stage like exploration companies doesn't feel like we've seen that yet. That's what leads me to believe that we're in an early stage of this bull market. >> What we have seen is a lot of interest but it's not like it's it's gone absolutely crazy for uh you know large scale gold producers yet. those still feel early, >> but we're starting to see some of the more high quality exploration companies in the silver and gold space um you know pick up a lot and and and get a fair amount of interest. Now, as that pertains to Visel Silver, we've seen a very uh significant change in our shareholder database now and and and the list of shareholders. We've seen index funds, uh, ETFs, uh, you know, big large scale American equity investors coming in, uh, to our name. And I I relate that to a couple things. One, of course, we're best-in-class silver developer, soon to be a very large scale producer of silver and gold. Um, but also transactions in the space. In the last uh, 18 months, we've seen pretty much all of our peers, single asset silver primary producers, most of them in Mexico, uh, be acquired. And so you see a rotation of shareholders out of those single asset companies into the next the next uh in line which is Visa silver. So in the last u 8 months 9 months uh to be exact here it's it's been a very uh interesting transition of shareholders in in Visa silver and we see them add quarter after quarter as well. So we are seeing it happen in in real time and it's very exciting for us. Yeah. And that um that cycle of capital occurs because some upside is realized at one stage in the market and investors say okay what's next and they go down the food chain sequentially like that. And you know every market cycle I feel outside of precious metals as well unfolds in a very similar way. The the core pillar idea a core pillar idea begins to rally. Some folks make money and then they look for what's next and look down and the you know this is how the crypto rallies have occurred. Bitcoin will run and the what's next opportunities follow suit. Um so if we were to look at the stage in the sector that's attracting capital right now and you referenced your company Visa Silver uh largest undeveloped silver project in the world and I believe the potential to become one of the world's best silver miners and we're going to find out uh in the near term because you're moving forward there. Um, I put you in like if I were to say uh, you know, producers and then developers, but then there's funded developers and unfunded developers. Visa is kind of like a semi-funded developer at this point, right? Is that fair? >> Yeah. Moving very rapidly to we towards being fully funded. >> Okay. >> Uh, it's been my goal and my focus driving the company that we never get into the position of being underfunded. >> Yes. >> And that's a terrible situation to be in. I've had those experiences in the past and that shaped how we we operate. And you know, we we've made sure to have a very strong balance sheet. Uh so what we have now is over $200 million US in the bank. Important to note our our capex as described by the PA is about $224 million US. So we have almost our entire capex uh as per the PA in our bank accounts right now. We also have about $30 million worth of Visa royalty shares. uh and we're also working on uh debt basically to fund the next stage of uh of development here and I think that in uh the coming months you'll see that Visa Silver will be in a much stronger position financially in order to unlock the value that we see at the project and that'll come you know at the same time as uh we're putting out our feasibility study really moving this project forward very very quickly into production and being in possibly the best financial shape that I can think of for any developer uh out there. >> Let's let's unpack that a little bit. So, according to the pea, the capex to build the mine in your Mexico project would be around $224 million. That's the pea estimate. Right now, you've got 200 million US in the bank. You're also sitting on 30 million shares of Visa Royalty. And this is a company that you've openly discussed um taking to market, right, in the near term. >> Exactly. So, Visa Royalty is a very important part of our our strategy. So we we ended up spinning out uh a package of royalties on the Panuko project, our our original Panuko project to Visa Silver shareholders. Visa Silver in addition owns 17% of that company. Uh we see that there's a very clear line of sight to selling the company in the near term. >> Visa Royalty. >> Visa royalty. Yeah. >> Uh and that will help fund Visa Silver's uh construction. And analysts are predicting, you know, north of $6 a share. This is not our numbers internally, but you know, today we trade at about $3 a share Canadian. Uh, so there's a lot of room for Visa Royalty to increase and any transaction that we we undertake with Visa Royalty will directly benefit Visa Silver and allow us to basically use non-dilutive financing to help the construction of the project and get into cash flow very quickly. >> Okay. So on the ground right now at Bonuko, um, the resource is like 360 million ounces of silver equivalents. uh 220 which is in the M&I category. Yes. >> Uh test mine is up and running, right? So walk us through like near-term catalyst and timeline. What's going on? >> Yeah. And of course our our global resource is like you said 360 million ounces of silver equivalent. Uh the M&I 222 I believe. Um very high grade. It's the highest grade um you know development silver project out there of any scale. Uh, you know, right now we have the underground test mine going. It's incredible. I was just there a few weeks ago. You know, this is u an extremely well done underground mine. It's going to be our perfect our permanent entrance to the Copala vein. Okay. >> And so our goal is to get to the Copala vein through this um this this underground mine. D-risk the project by putting that permanent entrance in before we even start constructing the mill. take material above surface, stockpile it, have it there so that when the mill is started up, we'll have material sitting there ready to run through that mill. Another reason that we do that is to decouple the two startup risks. So when you have an underground mine, you have startup risk of the underground mine. We've gone through the kinks and the issues and the contractor problems and things like that. We're dealing with this now when there's no time pressure. And then when we start the construction of the mill, invariably something will go wrong. You know, whether it's, you know, at the very beginning of of uh of starting the mill, there's always little problems that you have to deal with. So, it's much better to deal with one at a time, i.e., you know, the mill when we construct the mill and having already dealt with all the issues of the the underground mine and now we're getting two blasts a day, it's it's it's moving very very smoothly at the project and we don't have that time pressure of a a hungry male waiting there for for feed. So, it's a very intelligent way of approaching the startup of a a mine in a mill and one that I think shareholders should be very happy with because first of all, we're obviously fully funded uh to do this underground mine. It's only about $10 million and it's given us a huge head start. We permanented it early. We're going to have that permanent entrance there and then we can just focus on starting up the mill when we get those those construction permits for uh for the mill. So, uh it's very exciting. Another thing to to kind of note going back to your original point about the the resource is that this resource is going to grow. Uh we are going to drill from underground. We're going to continue to expand this resource. The resource all those wireframes and all those veins are open along strike. And if they weren't at surface, I would say they're open in every direction, but they're open at depth. Uh you know, they come right up to surface there and then they're open along strike. There's going to be a lot more lowhanging fruit for us to continue to grow. We've done some internal studies around that and we see, you know, a major increase in mine life going forward just from some low hanging fruit expansion along these veins. >> Okay. Can we pull on that a little bit? Expansion of mine life for still forecasting 2027 production for anybody who's just walking in for the first time. Uh what are initial estimates showing, Michael, annual production and expected mine life at this point in time? And I know you're completing a feasibility study right now, so we'll get more information in the near future, but what can you share today? So right now the life of mine average annual production is about 15 million ounces as per the pea for 10 years. Now you notice that's about 150 160 million ounces of silver equivalent which is about half of or less than half of our our global resource. So we've only included what could really be mined very very readily readily and what could be converted to the M&I categories. That's why I say this will continue to grow. So there's basically double the resources that are in the mine plan in terms of global resources on the property. Uh and again, you know, once you're underground, you can start to mine different areas. You find different veins. It continues to grow and expand. But if we're looking at just that initial mine plan, it's about 15 million ounces per year for 10 years. But the first um the first two years of the PA being 20 million ounces. Now, we've done a lot of work and a lot of drilling since that pea and we, you know, put our updated resource together that's going into the mine plan. Feasibility will be based on a a much more improved uh resource and and mine plan. So, I actually would think that we'll see an increase in those overall ounces produced as well as um perhaps a higher production profile for the earlier years. It's going to be really exciting to see the feasibility study. One of the things that we we set out to do, which a lot of companies don't do or don't actually complete on, is we wanted to show that we weren't going backwards from the pea into the feasibility study, meaning a higher capex, lower mine life, uh lower lower produced ounces, those types of things, you know, better worse uh worse economics. Uh what I suspect will be the case is that we should be in line with the PA, if not better in some some areas. So, uh, usually the the feasibility study is is, um, a disappointment. I I'm hoping that, uh, the feasibility study will be actually a positive surprise for the market here. >> Okay. Let me ask you a question. Today, you're sitting on, uh, what is probably the largest undeveloped silver resource in the world. You have 200 million US dollars in the bank. you have an option to raise more capital without dilution in a couple different directions either through Visa royalty or some debt. Um you're in an incredible position of strength and the market has arrived right like timing looks really really good for you. um you know o overnight success right uh and that's actually what I want to ask about because I know that when you started this company uh there was a period of time where you were effectively financing large pieces of it whether that was employees salaries or office expense on a personal credit card I want to get back to that walk the audience through what year was that and and just bring us into the room a little bit Michael >> yeah so so I incorporated the company in 2017. We took it public in the fall, early fall of uh 2018 and um you know we started go to go down to Mexico and work on consolidating these projects and you know the cut by then the company had had basically run out of money and you know for you know the the geological expenses that we're doing the consulting the trips the flights you know the office space the corporate all that was basically you know covered um you know via line credit and and credit cards for for a period of time and I carried that debt. We ended up financing after and I carried that debt for some time because I I um you know I just wanted to make sure the company was in in great shape. Again, going back to that idea of of you know, never being underfunded and and you know, the enemy of a a junior mining company with no revenue is you know, running out of money. That's the ultimate failure, right? So, >> um we we wanted to make sure that that the company was in good shape. So I I took that on and you know it didn't occur to me that you know that was overly risky at the time. I was pretty confident that what we have here could could turn out to be something really special. So it was you know going back thinking back to those days those were I think about that fondly. You know it was it was a lot of fun. It was uh really exciting. We didn't know what was around the next corner. And when we first made that discovery it was uh kind of an out-of- body experience. It was it was such a thrill and I think you know you end up kind of chasing that thrill again in the future. and you know thinking about what's out there in our district and these other projects that we bought in in Sinoa you know I I think we're very excited to see about you know how do we make another discovery like Copala like Napoleon again uh but again those were those were really fun early days and uh you know that that kind of make it or break it startup >> yeah yeah yeah no doubt I I got to ask like what gave you the conviction you know 2017 2018 we were on the heels of a seven-year bare market right like companies have been destroyed wealth had been destroyed. It was very hard to raise money for anybody uh probably yourself included with Visa at that moment in history. What gave you the conviction to double down personally and pursue this? Well, I think it actually, you know, to be honest, what gave me the conviction was uh seeing my business partner Craig Perry's face uh when we were driving through the property for the first time. >> Okay. >> You know, he's he's a legendary Well, he's a legend. >> He's a legendary geologist. He's an incredible business person and um you know I I'm not a geologist but we were driving through the property the first time and and you know just his reactions to see how he responded to what he saw there kind of the surface expression of the geology. We went underground and um and toured underground mines and they were just you know they were Craig and and and other geologists were just blown away and I thought you know this will probably be the best chance here you know of anything for uh for Visa. we gota we got to get this no matter what. And so I you know we came back from that trip discussed it and and I basically stopped at nothing to uh to to get it and put it all together. And I I spent better part of a year down there in Sinaloa, Mexico and working with the families and and these types of things and you know it was a lot of fun. Um and you know it's easy to look back now and say overnight success or you know that was a smart decision or something like that but we really had no idea. Um there's a huge amount of risk and you know the funny part was is you know I felt relieved when we signed the agreements but the real work had started at that point because it was when we had to go raise $42 million US and everyone thought we were crazy you know >> when was this >> this was uh we well we signed the agreement in late 2019. >> Okay. And uh the agreement said that you know basically to to acquire the property we needed to pay 40 it's actually was $43 million uh over a period of about 6 years. So we would go and market and talk to people in Toronto and in New York and some cases I was laughed out of offices. You know how is this little company $20 million market cap? >> Sure. >> You know how are you going to raise that 20 million Canadian how are you going to raise $43 million US? Yeah. >> You haven't doesn't even have a resource. There's no discovery. Are you guys thinking? >> Yeah. you know, so well, we knew that if we did make a discovery, the infrastructure, the production facilities there, you know, the head start that we would have to move towards production uh would would pay off and and you know, my conviction was that, you know, markets are cyclical. The best time to do these deals are when, you know, people are just interested in metals. And um you know it felt like the right right thing to do was kind of be counteryclical and and now we're you know what's that uh you know 6 7 years later we're we're reaping the rewards. >> Definitely the best time to do deals is in that part of the cycle but also the hardest time to do deals is the hardest time to get people to part with their money for an idea that's out of favor. You were a $20 million Canadian market cap company. What was the Walk me through the pitch at this point? like how are you getting because you know when you're sitting down and you're telling a story and you're explaining the value proposition to somebody typically there's a moment where you see the eyebrows go up and you're like that's it that's what's getting people excited about this. Was it the people yourself and Craig your partner? Was it the geology? What was it? What was that moment? Well, c certainly Craig and and Simon who's was a director is now our chief operating officer was the COO of of Oeno and and and and Craig with his his track record of success you know NextGen and um >> ISO Energy >> ISO Energy time at Riointo Tigers Realm EMR Capital uh and now Eskina's become a knockout success as well. >> Uh you know that that that that was a huge part of it. people took a a flyer because of Craig's conviction on it as well. And and >> was that part of your strategy? Cuz I imagine we're about the same age, so I know how old you would have been in 2017. You know, was that part of the strategy for you personally and professionally to partner with one of those existing legends, right, and bring a bunch of hard work and value to their reputation. >> And that's how Craig and I kicked off our relationship originally is we we we built a cobalt company. Well, he he basically backed me to do that and I had all these ideas and you know he was I think he was quite impressed by the speed and and the >> aggressiveness that I I brought towards that and financially we we both well he you know we all did extremely well out of that and so he you know I think he was happy and willing to uh let me hitch my wagon you know and see what I could what else I could do and >> um but you yeah certainly I think if you're a young person in the business it's it's important to um find mentorship in in established, you know, professionals, people that have done it before. It's like that in any any industry, right? You learn learn from people that have done it. And um that's how it started. It was early early on, I just I was in dire need of of good mentorship. And Simon and Craig were uh were there for me. And you know, as these things progress, they you know, often turn into to business opportunities. And so we uh you know, we we all work together on on Visa Silver. And it's been it's it's incredible. It's always great to just think about how far we came from from early on. >> No doubt. No doubt. And you founded Invented Capital, which is How would you explain Invented Capital to somebody who's never heard of it before, Michael? >> Yeah. It's funny at the Rick Rule uh conference, you know, I I every year I get up and talk about Invented Capital and and what we do. And this year I actually just ran through the history of Beasel Silver much like we we just discussed here. And you know way that I explain it and and often times people will come up to us and say, "Oh, can I invest in Inventtor Capital? Where's the fund?" You know, is it is it a fund? >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> It's not a fund. It's it's an incubator. It's a private company that we you know, we we do a few things. We share office space. So, you know, companies have a really easy way of of of starting up. It's kind of like a startup startup incubator. Um, you know, we share resources like accountants and corporate secretaries and geologists and things like that. So you know your your barrier to entry is quite low if you have a concept and an idea and you know we try to find really strong uh young entrepreneurs and help them build their businesses. So the same way that Craig mentored me and helped me early on you know we try to do that as well and and what we early on we spread ourselves a bit too thin. you know, we did a lot of deals and um you know, took a lot of risks that that probably didn't make sense looking back. Uh nowadays, the the approach is really just to to to to find someone that's probably missing something, someone that's got a great concept, great idea. Good example of that is Keith Modnerchuk uh with Kosa Uranium. >> And you know, they're an all-star team, an award-winning team of exploration geologists in the Atabaska basin. actually the same team that Craig made the ISO discovery with and Keith wanted to build this company. He had all, you know, he he he did it all himself, but you know, we were able to offer him kind of, you know, a bit of a head start, a tap into our capital markets, uh, networks, our investors, um, you know, investor relations work, that type of thing. And you know, I think a company that's coming to Invented Capital knows that, you know, we can help raise the money, we can help support it. And again, to my earlier point, make sure they never really run out of money, which is the ultimate threat. >> Um, and at the same time, it's a really collaborative, fun place where where people all work together and we share ideas and and try to build companies. >> Yeah, I think it's such a valuable structure for the reasons you just mentioned. you you can pull resources and therefore cut costs and yes all the stuff like office expense, accounting and legal. Um you can access each other's capital networks. Often the most scarce resource in the resource business is cash. And so if you can pull networks together, assist each other raising capital when that time comes. And then also you must do this internally. You can workshop problems together, right? You're going through something at Visa Silver. Uh Craig's going through something with Visa Copper, whatever that is. And you can borrow each other's brain capital to solve problems. You do you bring um issues and items to the table like that and kind of boardroom defined solutions? >> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know we call kind of huddle and we have our our weekly uh calls and things like that with across the group and you know and and the best part about that is you know with the the money that we're saving across the companies more more of that's going into the ground to make new discoveries. corporate sol of people that all get together and you know I any number of our I mean I'm I'm a large shareholder of all of all of our Inventa Capital companies. Um but they certainly have an advantage over your your you know your standard issue Vancouver Junior. >> Yeah 100% 100%. And that's um okay so looking forward visa silver right now anybody who's like what's next um effectively we're looking for the feasibility study to come out of the panuko project right and get a bit more clarity on what that looks like I'm curious about what you're going to do for the next leg of your funding and you have like three options you could do there right you've got the visa royalty uh sale if that occurs and for what valuation there's a chunk of capital there you could obviously look at debt I think companies can often finance at like a 3:1 ratio. You know, you've got 200 million US in the bank already. Your capex is 224. You're almost there, right? And you could do an equity raise should you decide to do so. Uh is that a fair assessment of your three avenues to fulfill the rest of that capital need? And do you have a preference which direction you might want to go? >> Yeah, and and we've been extremely diligent in finding the next path here. And as I said in in in the coming uh weeks and months, you know, we should have some some news out about this. Um what I can say, I probably shouldn't say too much, but what I can say is we've exhausted all the the various um avenues and and you know, of course, we've spun out our own royalty, but there's also the the streaming royalty model that we've reviewed and looked at as well, which you know, at face value has very attractive cost of capital. um you know debt you know for a project like this can have a very attractive cost of capital and the advantage there is that it's it's a temporary incumbrance. It's a you know it's a liability but it's something that you can pay off when you're in cash flow and >> it's non-dilutive. >> Exactly. And you know just for the the numbers just to think about our cash flow uh and payback period you know as of the pea it was uh a 9-month payback period. Currently, it's probably somewhere less. I mean, certain much less than six month payback period. If you think about 20 million ounces, um we're at $40 an ounce now. Uh $10, let's say, ASIC, just to be really generous and round up, >> you know, that's $30 margin uh times times 20 is $600 million a year of of of cash flow there basically. And you think about the capex. So, >> you think about debt, it's something that you can pay back very rapidly. Um and I think that's that has a lot of advantages to it as well. And of course equity we're trading at about 6.7 net asset value. So we're trading at a discount to what we believe is our intrinsic value. Um now that net asset value is going to continue to to increase as we move closer to production as will the multiple. So I think you know peer companies like ours that have gone through this path in Mexico before have traded at a sometimes very serious premium uh to net asset value trading upwards of two times NAV before production even. So you know we're trading at a discount to what our peers traded at and to what we think our our true value is which would be one times NAV. Um actually that's you know less than what we think it is but you know in terms of the analyst uh consensus. Sure. >> Um, so it doesn't make sense for us necessarily to raise more equity at these discounted levels. So, you know, I think you'll the the shareholder, the investor should be able to see kind of which path we take in in the coming uh days here. So, um, stay tuned for that. >> Okay. Yeah, 100% will do. Man, I always enjoy catching up with you and I'm really glad we were able to dial it back to the earliest days today because it's easy to look at Visa Silver today. I really appreciate the origin story just because I think it speaks to the culture inside the organization. We get a sense of what you're made of, right? Like would you do anything? Would you do whatever it takes, right? And I think you proved that at the earliest stage before anybody else had conviction in Visa and you were making these big personal bets to get this thing moving, right? And I just think it speaks to the character and the durability that entrepreneurs need to succeed, you know. and you came up in conversation on my podcast recently when we were just talking about like who are the next entrepreneurs to watch and this is a very common conversation that we have in the industry. We all know the Lucas Lundines, the Ross Bees, the Bob Cordamines, the Thomas Kaplins, but who's next is like that's my job if I like one purpose in this industry, right? Is to find those people. And quite frankly, it's hard to do that when you go through an 11-year bare market because you can get hints and you can have a pretty good idea, but you really need a bit of a market to stress test that, right? And now we're getting that. And um you know, the the ingredients that I think people should look for is the durability. I mean, every entrepreneur knows you need a plan C because plan A and B are probably going to fail, right? Do you have the the energy and durability to get back up and keep swinging and do whatever it takes, right? And that's why I like to get into the origin story. Have you been very um creative and aggressive with your capital networks, right? And I reflect on the time you spend I mean you've traveled with your family to spend 6 months in New York just to develop capital relationships. You've done this a few times to ensure that you've always got optionality when you have to go back to the market for capital. The more options you have, the better cost of capital you're going to get, right? Because you can truly go to market. If you have one or two sources, you're gonna get you're going to get grilled, of course, right? And have you developed mentorship relationships that contribute both brand capital and experience, but also additional capital networks? Right? Back to that. And you know, you tick all those three boxes and then the most important one that there's now a track record of many years of you doing exactly what you said you were going to do, right? And that in itself is an anomaly in our industry, right? It's a lot of cowboys, a lot of short-term thinkers, a lot of short-term commitments, and um you know, you've very clearly proven that's not you. And you know, congratulations cuz the results speak for themselves. So, you know, it is what it is. But I just wanted to share that with you that you've come up many times in that conversation on my show. And I feel very confident putting an entrepreneur like you in front of our audience because I'm like, he's a good steward of capital. Your money's in good hands with this uh with the CEO. So, it's always good catching up with you, brother. >> Well, I'm I'm humbled to hear that. I I really appreciate that. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And I I always look forward to this every uh well, I was going to say every year, but I think we do a little bit more frequent than that. But I look forward to these uh these meetings. So, thank you very much. >> Pleasure is all mine.