The Fremantle Fundie that picked WA1 at 20c and Almonty at $1

Summary

• Investment Strategy: Norfolk Capital Management focuses on a long-only, value-driven strategy in the energy and resources sector, emphasizing exploration, strategic assets, and value-disconnected investments.
• Exploration Insights: The fund's success in exploration is attributed to understanding geological indicators and management's ability to implement effective exploration programs, as demonstrated by their investments in WA1 and Q2.
• Strategic Asset Focus: The fund targets assets of strategic importance, such as Almonty's tungsten mine, which benefits from geopolitical dynamics and supply chain considerations, particularly in the context of Western nations reducing reliance on Chinese supply.
• Market Positioning: Currently, the fund holds a significant cash position, reflecting a cautious yet opportunistic approach to market conditions, while maintaining investments in precious metals and strategic assets.
• Commodity Outlook: The fund remains bullish on commodities like rare earths and lithium, recognizing their strategic importance and potential for significant value creation, despite current market challenges.
• Risk Management: Lessons learned from past investments emphasize the importance of avoiding over-leveraged companies in cost-curve trading environments, highlighting the need for careful risk assessment.
• Global Economic Perspective: The fund is wary of current market highs and potential economic downturns, positioning itself to capitalize on future opportunities while maintaining a defensive stance.
• Future Themes: Norfolk Capital Management is focused on the long-term strategic importance of critical minerals and the potential for government intervention to support supply chains outside of China.

Transcript

I I picked Tobani to be the winner. Yeah. >> So, this would have been in and around the time Resolute had all their drums. I think a little bit after. So, >> Oh, so you'd be killing it. Maybe up three times then. >> And on the short side, Boss. >> Wow. Well done. That's That's a good one. >> Yeah. Mins 40 bucks. >> Oh, well done. >> I think I think you tick tick. >> Peter Brenville, Chris Wener. Welcome to Money of Mind. Thanks for having us. Yeah, >> thank you so much for joining us. Um, >> Norolk Capital, Norfolk Capital. That's right, isn't it? >> Funds Management North Capital Management. >> Norolk Capital Management. You guys um Yeah, you guys manage one of the the newest funds on the block. And I mean newest, not in a derogatory way because your your returns certainly uh to date have have probably beaten every fund manager in this in the space. But um we're delighted that you're you're joining us and going to share your insights, your your your journey into funds management, investing in the sector that we all love, which is mining stocks. Um and we're delighted to that you can join us. >> Yeah, thanks for having us. Um I think you're right in saying that we are a new fund in that I think our strategy was only, you know, which is purely energy and resources focused was only established properly about a year and a half ago. The fund in its structure, I guess in its organization has been operating since 2021, but the kind of valuedriven longonly energy and resources mandate that we've been running uh has probably only been really engaged for a couple years now and uh Chris came on board about a year and a half ago. So, but uh the returns profile has been there for a good four years. So, we've got some track record, I guess, and um sort of showing our faces, getting out there. >> Was it was it a sort of long-term goal that that you guys had or is it more of a natural evolution to to get where you are today? >> It was a bit bit of a stepping stone process for me. I was a capital markets lawyer for a long time in mining. So mostly focused on um small and mid midcap opportunities uh IPOs, placements, whatever have you within the corporate and capital markets world. And then I did about five years over in London as a um M&A and joint venture lawyer on uh trade and shipping. So, um, gave me some pretty good perspective on what the world looks like outside Perth and I've sort of been investing along the way through that journey. Um, had some good successes um, which I guess kept my interest in investing in the in in that space. And so when I got back from UK, I tried to upskill myself a bit, studied geology and finance and then created the uh, structure that is now Norfolk. Um, so that's kind of a bit of a backdrop to how my investing career came to be. >> And and you run it as a as a twoman band now, but where did the the relationship start for the two of you? >> Yeah, so I mean Pete and I have um we've been uh friends and known each other for a very long time, but um I've got a quite a different um background to Pete. I sort of started in um I did a bit of time at a big four in auditing. Um I then moved into the valuations team and worked on um independent experts reports for quite some quite large mining transactions. I then moved into investment banking, corporate finance at uh brokers and various shops and um Pete was a client of mine there. So that's how we sort of rekindled our relationship and um you know did a few transactions together and you know a year and a half ago we um you know I I studied chartered accounting and um did my corporate governance institute of governance course. So it's quite a complimentary skill set to Pete's um legal and geological background. >> Bring different skill sets together especially you know I didn't have the analytical or valuation components tied down and a very experienced set of hands and wanted to get into funds management. So um it was it was quite a natural fit. >> Yeah >> it is it is remarkable to me that a a lawyer and an accountant have you know backed to pre-discovery uh you know stocks and it's not like you had a spray and pay approach. You you were pretty targeted with your your positioning but you've you've had two two positions in exploration companies which went on to discover something very very meaningful in very short order without actually having know a geologist kind of qualifications but um >> yeah that that's kind of remarkable and understand Pete you've um you've you've done a lot of ground work on on learning geology. Yeah, I I think my well my geology sort of studies um occurred after those two discoveries. Can't really sit back and say, "Oh, I'm the greatest geologist in the world." Um I think we'll go into the three kind of areas or pillars I guess of our investing strategy in mining and the first being exploration and discovery. You really need to understand that there is risk and luck involved in exploration. And it's not so much that it's pure luck. It's just that whether you can upskill yourself to a level uh which means you need less luck than the next person to find a discovery or to hone in on somewhere which might potentially give you a discovery. It's kind of the angle that we take. Um, so when I say that, I mean, you know, from a a green fields perspective, let's say, um, which were probably the two that you were referring to. understanding the team whether they've been out into remote areas of the world or underexplored areas what the initial geochem geo physics looks like I think is really important because they're the only lead indicators that you follow to see whether something makes sense or not and whether the management are actually implementing a um geo physics and geoc program which aligns with the targeted or body that what they're trying to target so Um uh for example in West Aruna um I think the initial geoysics was aiming for IOC targeting for WA1 and they ran gravity, they ran passive seismic and they ran magnetics and those are the three primary geophysical targeting methodologies that you would run to target that type of war body. It just happened that that's the same mix of geoysical methods that you would run to find a carbonotide as well. Little benign to the team at the time. So if I could distill it, give any sort of feedback, it would just be try your best to understand the ground that you're working with and whether there's actually a warranted reason to be out there plugging holes or whether just, you know, drilling wild cut holes for the sake of it. M >> so you mentioned the course came after that outstanding success. Did that sort of light the fire to to go and do a bit more? >> It did. Yeah. Because I did a lot of work on it at the time pretty much because um I was uh in and around the management quite a bit. So it was it was of interest to everyone around. Um, but it it really got me thinking if you're going to do this full-time, you need to really upskill yourself in in those areas if you're going to create a fund or a strategy that's in part around exploration. >> And that is part one of the three pillars that you mentioned. So if you if you give a quick overview of the other two and then we can dive much deeper into that exploration and and early stage part. So in addition to sort of valuebacked exploration when I say valuebacked I think the value needs to be there to invest in the first place. So that's should have mentioned that before. But the other two pillars that we look at are um assets or really all bodies which are we think going forward are going to be of strategic importance either to another corporate or namely to a government body. And the third one's really um kind of bread and butter developer producer um value disconnected investments at a decent return which is the markets mismatching. >> So if we if we have a quick sort of snapshot at how the portfolio comes together like bottom up top down these types of things like you guys are long only as well in nature. Is there a target number of companies that you like to to put together for a for a portfolio too? Yeah, there is um so we are long only I think at at the very start we're value focused um long only global investors and we do have a top down bottom up due diligence process but there always needs to be a value proposition there and a and a decent one. So you know the top down bottom up investing methodology makes sense. You can get down the whole path and then find out that there's no value there. But we do look at the macro side of things, theatics, commodity um cycles at from the top up, see which commodities we want to be based in. And usually because of the value um attraction, we ended up we end up looking at commodities which are somewhat beaten up. And uh I think that's probably the differentiator for us as value investors as opposed to a contrarian is that there's definitely some overlap, but we will be looking at companies or assets which which is just just simply too cheap to to look away from as opposed to um just investing in things because it's against the grain. >> I want I want to uh cast your mind back kind of 12 months ago because I understand portfolio composition right now is is very different to 12 months ago. But I want to want to like rewind 12 months ago. What were you thinking? What were your thesis? And and how you kind of positioned accordingly 12 months ago? >> Yeah. So I mean 12 months ago or sort of maybe a bit longer than that, 15 months ago. Um we were staring down the barrel of um potentially a second Trump presidency. Um you know, we had a pretty good entree to that in 2017 to 2021. You know, there was trade wars back then. And there was um you know uh tariffs and all sorts of things. Uh a lot of that looked to be quite inflationary especially second time round. Reshoring of um of of everything to the US. Um looked to be uh very um buoyant for commodities and also a good backdrop for um precious metals as well. If it wasn't going to be Trump, it was going to be the Democrats and I don't think it was going to be much different. They were going to keep on spending I think. So, um it was really just positioning the portfolio with a steady um amount of um precious metals and then a um a suite of these critical mineral investments which um some have played out, some haven't. Um they've been pretty important for our strategy over the last 12 months, the strategic assets, if you will. Um so commodities like rare earth and tungsten um silver >> yeah some lithium >> lithium names in there as well still not everyone yeah not everyone's cup of tea at the moment but this is kind of >> where we like to look at things when they're in dumps where we can see that there might be some basic strategic value to really good assets >> going forward. good. Um, so they have been playing out pretty well last year as Chris said. Um, so our uh our cash position is a bit reflective of that at the moment. It was like yeah 15 odd months ago I don't know if it was as obvious that that theme would become so pronounced. Um, >> all I remember was like antimony would was going crazy. Maybe that was in GI, maybe that was like a a whiff of what was to come in some respects, but to predict like that rare earths would have been as responsive as as what played out or >> even um even even tungsten with alonte like it's a remarkable outcome. Um why why don't we kind of pry into some of those those those important positions starting with with our monty >> which is a pretty a pretty undered loved uh tungsten stock on >> Az. I mean, it's a really interesting story and it has been for many years now and it's only just come to the um come to light and become known and um and and moved really. Um so it was the fund invested in it in 2021. Um it was listed on the ASX $15 million IPO. Um market cap was around $125$150 million. um they own the Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea which is the largest tungsten mine outside of China and critically this was probably what picked um the fund's interest at the time is China accounts for 80 over 80% of the world's tungsten supply another 10 to 15% from um Chinese uh allied nations um back then you know so it was it's been quite a journey from then to now but um they had a going for it. At the time it had a floor price offtake contract um where the floor price was two times the operating costs. Um they struck that contract in 2018. Um the investment was made in 2021 originally. Um floor price contracts are all the rage now with MP Materials, but I I wasn't aware of another company that had a floor price contract. I'm still not aware of one. Um they had other things going for them like they had um a uh financing deal from KFW the German stateowned bank um that was uh backed by the Austrian um government because the offtaker was Austrian um so there's a lot going for it at the time and it just felt like at some point in time in the near future um given the investments was made in 2021 that was at the end of Trump's first term there was probably going to be um a desire to secure this mineral from outside of China. Um, and that sort of came to the head late last year when China banned the export of tungsten. Um, and that sort of put a bit of of a rocket under the stock and um, uh, they listed on the NASDAQ and raised $9 million. And um >> I think to your point though the >> when those first ones were coming out antimony gallium it it it did sort of validate some of our thinking at the time did sort of follow our money a few times throughout the manti journey that we're still currently on at the heart of it is is the western world's desire to move away from Chinese supply >> supply chains and I guess the underlying defense spending promises that have been made by NATO allies. Uh Chris can probably talk to this better than I can, but the numbers are many multiple s more significant than co spending. Um do you want to chat? >> Yeah, I mean just you know the NATO spending recently um the NATO nations agreed to increase their spending of GDP to 5% from 2% um peranom and that would equate to um an incremental additional spend by 2035 of $1.3 trillion from NATO nations. I went back and had a look at I thought when that was announced a few months ago, I thought is this the largest um stimulus package for resources in our in our time and I went back and looked at what I thought might be the last time that could have possibly been topped which was after the GFC and the Chinese stimulus package after that 2008 2009 was 5 to 600 billion. So it's two times that um >> peranom. Yeah, I know there's a bit of water to come under the bridge with that. You know, like they've got some checkpoints and the NATO spending. I think next year they have to come up with a plan. Each nation 2029 is another checkpoint. It only comes in in 2035. But I think you know and that only happened recently. The general con thought was and hope as a resource investor is that these western nations are going to need to come up with a lot more western supply of these niche and critical minerals. Um and if you're in a project like an alonte which has you know a tier one asset in a very niche commodity you know at some point in the near term it would be worth something more than $150 million. That's sort of the thinking on that one >> and and and it's still playing out for us at the moment. You know, we've invested in a um North American uh rare earth hard rock monzite asset um which is North America's largest at the moment. It's 200 million tons at 2% which is by far and wide um the largest source of rare earths on the continent. Even if you apply a sliver of that um of the value of that um that cash to be deployed to defense to secure that supply, it by far covers that mine plus many many others in terms of development cost if they wanted to apply to that. >> Yeah. >> If we look at our monty specifically, is this how you thought you'd get paid on it? >> More or less. Um >> yeah, >> part of our strategy I guess is focusing on all bodies which are important to either companies or to governments and the thesis took a lot longer than we were happy with to play out. Um you know 4 and a half years is a decent hold before it starts to break even again. Um, but I guess we the way we look at it is we're happy to hold things for a while as long as the or body is hugely important to the world and and and tier one quality. Um, >> stock selection there matters, right? Because you could have you could have invested in EQR or G6. >> We had a look at all of them >> and you would have lost you would have lost money. >> Sure. and and and they will probably come right in the right pricing environment, but when you're looking at tungsten on um it's almost doubled in the last 3 months. Um when you're looking at a prior pricing environment, a lot of those marginal assets are difficult to um to to sell to other investors, other other institutional investors who are going to drive the >> drive the price. I think on the alonte one it was interesting thing about it. It was the valuation was backstopped by a base case um earnings rate um without any trade wars or um you know tungsten now being used as a foreign policy tool. Um it was still undervalued by probably um 100% just based on normal operating environment. Um but there was always that defensive strategic angle which was the real um you know upside case which which has eventuated. >> What are the other um so I guess one of the one of the risks that we identified at the time was was the amount of leverage that it had profile. >> Yeah. um which we got comfort with given the parties involved um and I guess their um their perceived um objectives out of the investment >> um which proved to be true. I mean four and a half years later for a debt provider not to be paid back anything's um quite the weight. Al Monte at the time was operate actually operating and producing tungsten from another mine called Panaskcara and um so we knew they could run a mine. We knew they had a mine and if tungsten did play out the way we were hoping um you know they may have been cash gener generative from that. >> Yeah. And it's the go it' be the go-to investment in the space. That was the key. There's >> not many um not many western >> uh companies producing tungsten. one one stock in your portfolio that didn't take four and a half years to to play out but was a you know super meaningful part of the journey WA1. >> Yeah. Yeah. That was >> ding ding ding. We probably got to do half. Yeah. We're still there, mate. >> That's good. It's a safe place to be. >> Yeah. >> Um talk talk us through that experience. >> Yeah. Well, a very um unique investment. I don't think um it's able to be replicated again. I was actually traveling out to the West Aruna um you know for for different things pot included in a in a previous life um helping that management team who found Looney um and had the opportunity to start the fund in the same office. So, um, don't know if I can replicate those scenar that scenario again now that we're a twoperson mob down in Fremantle. Um, it was special, >> but it was about again for exploration for us, understanding lay of the land first, what the targets look like, how they're going to go about it, and whether they have the right skill set to be out there. And I I knew the guys had been out there for a long time. They know the land. Um Paul Parker came on board who was um he he was the head of exploration for uh Sandfire and IGO for quite a long time. Very safe set of hands, very very knowledgeable. Um, and I I I gathered a lot of confidence from his um the way the way that he and Tommy Lions were approaching the exploration out there. um how they were thinking about targeting how they were picking up massive land packages to begin with to figure out how the broader um geological and stratographic profile looks like in the western because it's completely underexplored area and how they went about figuring out what kind of deposits might be out there which were ICG at the time developing a geoysics program and geochem program that aligned to that knowing that there's 30 40 m cover out there so not much is going to come to surface. How do you go out into elephant country and find these behemoths elephants? Um, and that's what they did. And a lot of the time, this is what happens in green fields exploration. and a company will go out and try and find a certain type of deposit and it'll end up being another type of deposit. It's actually the same same thing world I believe. Um so I think just getting comfort that if you are going to take on exploration risk one that valuation that you're entering out makes sense to take on that risk and two that the methodology that the management team are taking to it makes sense. Um and that and and therefore you need to kind of dive into the actual rocks. valuation aside, you've you've actually spoken in and around management quite quite a bit there. How important is that in picking under any of the three pillars that you have an investment? >> Uh it is highly important. I think all body in our view is more important as in a good old body can fix bad management but a bad body can undo good management and that's kind of um way we look at things. So, uh it's a bit hard to answer that with um examples, but um we do absolutely um value good management, but I think it it's becomes more important in our other two pillars in development and production assets as opposed to exploration. Um, but you still need to have people that know what they're doing, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. And if we we look at the other outstanding sort of exploration success that you guys had, Q2, which is still playing out in an unloved part of the market right now, but I'd love to have you sort of walk us through that example. >> Yeah. So, um, Q2's was a really interesting one. It's, um, it was almost, um, hiding in plain sight. um they acquired they were already in um an explorer of lithium in James Bay at the start of last year. Um and they agreed to acquire the Cisco project which is now their um key project. Um the vendors of the project and this was in the announcement um when they acquired the project um had a market cap of around $15 million Canadian. Um they they drilled three holes into the project. Um, one of the holes 115 m at north of 1%. Um, another hole I think about 50 or 60 at around one. Um, and it looked well the the geologists at um, Q2 um, correctly a pin that they' identified a a mineralized pegmatite system of say 200 220 m cumulative. Um it looked as if they had potentially drilled under the um pegmatite and then they drilled a bit to the north and then for some reason they stopped. Um so this is probably an example of one that >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's one that we had a really good look at and you had sort of three holes drilled. Um, two of them hit mineralization as Chris says, you know, once about um 115 move a percent decent interval. You've got four or five stack pegmatites that they've gone through and then they've stepped out uh sort of northeast hit a bit more gone under it south and then stopped and said, "Oh, you know, I don't know." for whatever whatever reason they stopped exploring it and sold it to Q2. Our assumption was well it could be any number of directions around the um the most southern extent of the hole. You know if you take a view that it's dipping back to the southwest and they've gone under it the body could continue. Uh 150 is not a insignificant interval uh to begin with. Um and we sort of thought what's the probability that you know five or six of these stacked pegment tites one of which is 45 m simply form a halo of about 50 m wide. >> It's pretty unlikely. M >> it's more likely that they continue somewhere else or um you know there might be a fault of some sort that split them off and they continue at depth but the idea was that that area needed more exploration to test it properly. >> Yeah. >> And that was that was the premise of the investment. >> You don't often get to buy something. It's effectively postd discovery, but it's it's packaged and valued pre-discovery if you're a student. >> It was a gift. >> Absolute gift. >> Yeah. >> Um, but you know, the vendors took scripping Q2. Maybe they just thought >> better off giving it to someone else to explore and we'll take the equity upside which they've um enjoyed. >> And um, you know, this is one again it's gone from one of our early discovery um opportunities to now what we think will be a very important strategic asset for um Canada. So >> it goes from one of your pillars to the >> Now that it's no one there, you know, but the all body is there. Um if it was part of that first pillar and we didn't think it could be moving to another one, probably sell it. >> There's a lot going for that. Um outside of the size of the body, I mean the expiration target they put out the other day, 215 million tons to 329 at 1 to 1.4%. You know, it's going to be one of the largest hard rock um spudge main deposits globally. Um but in addition to that it's you know 10ks from the Billy Diamond Highway um that then connects further to um shipping routes. Um there's a there's a lot going for it just outside of the size. So >> from surface kind of dips pretty favorably. It's >> that' be a two two or three billion dollar company a couple years ago. Yeah. Or maybe a couple couple years from now. >> Love the optimistic couple months from now. I I can't help but you know have noticed a um plethora of kind of acquisition stocks that have been in your portfolio over over the last yeah like 12 12 odd months too and I can I can think distinctly of New World Metals Acquisition Corp and and Adriatic come to mind all >> y >> all all acquired within >> admittedly we didn't um we didn't we we owned uh Adriatic as a um from IPO and saw the discovery of uh um yeah uh rapichche deposit. That's right. Um >> it's a good idea. >> So we we we sold that um you know after the discovery phase um after it had all been drilled out. >> Ah gotcha. >> But um it's one of those assets where um because it's so you know, the quality is so high that it doesn't matter. You could have picked it up at the same price um you know, two years later or or or paid more. You know, those sort of real quality uh assets. I'm just looking at your logo sort of withstand the heat of the LON curve. Look at WA1, even Q2 at the moment. Um Adriatic, they they all sort of um humbly, you know, move up in a very orderly manner. uh as as they go through that. Um but to go to your question on MAC, um we wanted sort of some larger scale Australian copper um copper exposure. We knew Mick is a good operator. Um and it presented a good M&A opportunity I guess from the outset if they could um if they could deal with the guess ugly corporate and capital structure issues that they presented from IPO IPO on the ASX. Um would we have liked a little bit more of a premium? Yes. Um but I still think you know in that environment when you're that deep in earth's crust trying to mine copper it's not a bad outcome >> where you did get a better outcome whereas New World when you had the luxury of uh >> two competing biders going toe to toe >> new world um New World was uh an excellent investment for us but we we it's been through a few different vehic that antler asset. We've been exposed to it, I guess I should say, through different vehicles. So, we first uh came across it when we were shareholders in Trident Royalties, which was taken out by Dera and they held um so Trident held a royalty over the asset. So, we got familiar with it then. Um always thought it was a great great asset. again quite strategic for US purposes eventually. Um high grade needed a few more tons. Um but that's what we saw over the last 12 to 18 months a bit more money spent on it. Um started to position itself as a a viable source of copper in the US. Um so that was that was one of the reasons as they started that sort of um strategy to for us to reenter it directly. Um and that ended up being a good call in the end. Um did we think that there was going to be a bidding war on it? No. Absolutely not. But um are we thankful there was? Yes. Yes. We are. So, a lot's gone the way of your kind of setup over the last Yeah. 12 12 to 18 months. Maybe some of it luck, but a lot of it skill and a good process to support it. What What hasn't gone to plan? >> Yeah. I mean, there's Yeah. >> How long do you have? >> There's been, I'd say, a common without pointing out individual names, um, I think there's a a very common thread through the ones that haven't gone right. Um and those are probably that um where there's a commodity that's trading um into the cost curve, deep into the cost curve. Um where the time that it trades into the cost curve is longer than we um have expected or hoped. Um and then the key part is uh when they've had debt involved. Um and that really if you're if you're operating into your cost curve and you're not generating much cash and you got debt um quite often that's it. Yeah. It brings duress to the equity holders. So and that's where we participate. So and quite often a lot of these have had a decent dose of um management underperformance. Um they're the ones that haven't worked out so well. Um uh you know some in the coal sector um some in the uh lithium sector. Uh they're they're two key sectors that spring to mind. >> Yeah. I mean we we heard one of your um one of your presenters talk about uh venadium being this year's big uh uh I guess the contrarian view positive contrarian view which we thought you know probably sounds about right. And so we we've had Venadium uh in the portfolio. It's been a tough hole because you you know there's different different thematics, different technologies that are coming to market which have promised certain growth profiles that haven't been met. >> Um to say that they won't roll out that way in the future, not sure. Could be a great commodity to be in, might not be as well. And so they're the kind of tricky ones where you can kind of see light at the end of the tunnel and so you're investing now where you see value but that that light might just keep getting further and further away from you. So everyone's numbers are different but one of the yeah kind of like analysts that I was looking at the other day. So 15% of venadium demand 2025 attributable to like battery storage. That number was like 0% like six years ago. So it is it's an increasingly like yeah significant proportion of of the composition of demand for venadium is a is a big growth market. >> It is I think that that's probably been exacerbated by the lack of demand in the um in the steel making side of things. So as that comes as that's come down venadium redux flow batteries increased and so you've kind of got a disproportionate setting if you will you know representation of the market. Um if you were to have the Chinese property sector firing on all cylinders, I'm sure that percentage would be diluted. Um do we think it's a an area of growth? Uh you know those those venadium redux flow batteries? Yeah, absolutely. They're they're incredible pieces of technology which bridge a gap between um you know kind of gas and lithium batteries um you know providing somewhat long-term energy solutions um and I guess could be grid scale battery solutions and some of them are being rolled out in China and and elsewhere but um just haven't quite seen the adoption of those batteries affect the venadium pricing yet >> with good projects that are sort of few and far between as well, right? >> Yeah. Yep, that's right. And and there are a couple quality projects, but there's also a lot of bad supply, cheap supply. >> If if we round out the the third pillar of your approach as well, I'm really curious. This is the established producers who might be trading in the cost curve or showing value for for a variety of reasons. How much time do you sort of spend and keen to have you guys run through us a couple names here? >> Yeah, we do I mean we do a lot of a lot of work on um producers as well and a lot of it's you know benchmarking and you know being value investors going down the curve and and seeing what presents good value. Um, one that, um, springs to mind that we do still hold and I still think, um, shows compelling value at the moment is Glen Core. Um, it's got one of the largest, um, you know, coal production bases, you know, tier one quality globally, produces nearly a million tons of copper. Um, it's got a marketing division which is worth maybe as much as the whole mining business. Um, and you see at the moment things like Anglo Tech, um, BHP coming for Anglo last year. Um, you know, MAC being sold, NWC being sold, um, there's just a lot of demand for copper, uh, projects and copper mines globally, and it's something that we we can't find enough of. Um, and so we do think, you know, things like Glenor present compelling value um, at the moment. That's probably one of the production names that we that we do hold and still um think is, you know, presents good value. >> Yeah, I mean it's presented good value for a good year and a half now for for how long we've held it. Um, >> you know, they have misguidance a couple times, especially their copper divisions, but it is trading historically very cheap. It's got great assets. >> It's positioning itself well. I think there was a lot of promise around listings elsewhere >> and it kind of spooked one half of the market and then lived up to the other half. So, uh it's got a wild comeback. Um but yeah, there kind of good that's a good example of a producer where um see value now in the right in the right copper and um particularly coal environment can really outperform. I um yeah I I'm I I could peel into to Glen Coror all day. Fascinating company and >> my view is always evolving with with that one. But yeah, some of the parts you kind of get comfortable. Can they realize that some of the parts fail you midst to >> yeah like a a pretty a pretty dynamic landscape with the majors and their strategy sort of been >> nowhere in in some respects too. >> It's been a bit disjointed. feel like they're starting to get a bit of a better hold on on that. Keen to see how it plays out over the next six months. >> Fascinating to see Glassenberg pick up more stock recently as well, albeit small given his sort of huge interest already. >> Yeah. >> But it just adds to the the curiosity around Glenoo. I find >> the lazy 50 million, wasn't it? >> Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pocket change. >> That's it. >> And Firefly also in this category. >> Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Firefly was a um really interesting one. Another thing I would sort of recommend to people looking at these sort of early uh early stage exploration or development is just to try and I mean that's one of the beauties of our industry is you go out and meet with management, speak with management. They generally have time for you down this side of the market. Um that's that's a privilege that you don't necessarily see elsewhere or in other industries. Um, but that that that when they first picked that up, that was the first thing we did was go and meet with management, chat to them about the ming mine, what what it it had done historically, why they thought that they could explore for it differently or find more tons and copper elsewhere, which they have done and very well. Um, >> yes, that was an interesting one. They flipped the they flipped a subscale production story on its head and said, "No, that's that that's probably not the way to do this. I think we um dropped the production. Um we will put the plant on care and maintenance or keep it on care and maintenance and we'll go and explore." That's what they've done the last two years. >> Yeah. and they've obviously leaned into a lot of that football zone um that that sits under it under the existing mind. Um and it's become its own refreshed story I suppose. Um you're taking a a good management team, decent asset and turning it into a asset. Um that that was valuebacked obviously at the time. what we thought was value backed in pickled crow. So um got a multi-million ounce highrade gold deposit in your back pocket. Um and it was only trading like it was it like it had bought crow. So um was a bit of a nob brainer for us on a valuation front. uh and and it actually took 2 or 3 months after the acquisition for the market to start to catch on. So people do have time. I think they think some of the time they have more time than they realize to um have a proper look at these at at these acquisitions. Discovery is a little different because they're they're quite um reactive um volatile. So uh but acquisitions I think people can spend more time on DD. >> Yeah. And maybe before I ask you what portfolio looks like now, have you have you kind of got a a pretty um pretty sound do not touch list now? Like have you have you honed in the uh the the gut instinct on like places to avoid or areas to avoid or people to avoid? >> Yeah. Yeah, we do have one. there's a blacklist. >> Um yeah, I mean it's trial and error. I think on a commodity basis there's not many. It's mostly um mostly correlates to um which commodities scarce might be readily available and abundant on the earth. Um and then um Chris can talk more to the jurisdictional stuff. Yeah, I mean the jurisdictions has been one that um we've um yeah got a few battle scars on. Um you know, we we don't say we definitely won't invest in certain jurisdictions, but we certainly um like to avoid certain jurisdictions. um some in West Africa we've uh learned learned the hard way on um and you know I think quite often you know again being value investors there can be you know you can be lured into a value trap sometimes um and a lot of it's I think you know investing in in mining stocks and mining in general and exploring and developing uh mines is is difficult enough as it is um to then have to deal with um unstable jurisdictions can just add a whole another element that sometimes the value proposition doesn't stack up. Sometimes it does and we have invested in West African gold explorers and and done okay out of them even in um very tricky jurisdictions but I think it has to be have that value back stop um there. Um >> so things like Marley, >> Tabani, those sort of things, you know, they're great assets. >> Whether you be there um or or WF, you know, whether you your stomach is hard enough to take on the risk, that's really question you got to ask yourself. A lot of people do and they make good money, choose to be quite selective out of it, maybe sleep a bit better, but we could be making some margins out of there. But you can see what happens when it goes as well. >> How much is going out to site a part of the process for you guys? >> Yeah, it's big. It's big. We um we try to go on as many site trips as possible really. We've been um yeah, we've been around done a few. We've been to Tela. We've been to China. We've um been to Brazil. Um >> yeah, we've been all around WA. >> Yeah, lots of WA stuff. Nice and easy. But um >> over to the US. Yeah, try try to get a feel for things. Um, I'd say probably the Brazil and China trips were probably the most eye opening. >> Um, just seeing what you can do with a a a cheap and very good labor force over in China. >> They are light years light years ahead of us. Yeah. >> Um but Brazil on on on and probably talk more through China, but um Brazil uh I went over there and had a look at the clay projects and um Sigma Lithium and a few other things. Um and I was pretty impressed with what they can achieve over there in very remote areas of Brazil as well. um the quality of the geology and the or bodies out there. Um there's a lot going for it in Brazil. >> Lots of stuff in Australia. Do you know what else is a super important way of meeting management in Australia, mate? >> I thought you were about to to tell me that the boys have been on a site visit to Sydney. >> They have. They have. They're going on another one as well. It's coming up. This site visit they're going on is October 21st to October 23rd in Sydney. Investors go free. It's the IMARK conference, mate. >> IMARK conference. Investors go free. Guess what, mate? We're going as well. >> We're going as well. Yeah. It's stacked with a heap of six speakers as well, mate. 3-day conference. Whether you want to chat with small caps, midcaps, and bigger companies. >> There's government there. There's um a whole host of financia type of people, >> international companies as well. It's a >> service providers, tech. Yeah, it's a plethora of different names and a wicked way to to meet people and just get your pulse on what's happening in the Australian resources market, in the global resources market, whether it be the financing, the commodities, or the government angle, like you say, mate. So, it's a conference not to miss in Sydney October 21 to 23rd. Get your tickets, >> come join us. >> Should we talk about how the uh the portfolio is positioned right now? I think this is a a super interesting part that a lot of people out there would be keen to hear. and you guys have some pretty um pretty interesting positions more broadly in the portfolio. So, I'd love to hear you guys unpack that. >> Sure. >> Yes, we're pretty um we're pretty uh well positioned in cash at the moment. Um as well as well as um precious metal stocks, but um >> what percentage >> precious metals? >> Uh precious >> cash equivalent. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It'd be 50 60 >> 50 60%. Yeah, that's that's a that's a huge number. >> It's a huge number. >> It is. It is. And we've never been this high before. >> It's a pretty pessimistic kind of view of capital markets, >> I think. No, I'd struggle to call it pessimistic as um opportunistic >> opportunistic, right? So, you're maximizing your optionality for >> Yeah. I I think a lot of our our strategy has been playing out over the last 6 months. um you know when we were talking about investing in things four 3 four years ago they're now they're now being able to be monetized and and realized and it's taken a while for us to get here but I think it's probably more a factor of um giving ourselves a pat on the back and and saying well done and monetizing thing as opposed to not being willing to invest in things albeit >> we wouldn't have the most optimistic view on the global market at the moment. >> Was it is it fair to say that you you think opportunities that are that are showing real value are hard to come by? >> I think it's more a factor of um harvesting positions that have played out um and and then looking uh to the next um investment really um and just being very aware that markets at alltime highs. The trade wars are completely in the rear vision mirror. you know that the market's not pricing in any factor of that flaring up again or you know blowing up again. Um you know those days in April are complete distant memory now. Um so you know the fact that the global economy is you know bumbling along it's growing just um we are in a bit of a goldilock scenario where the um you know inflation's not high enough but the um jobless rates are going up just enough so they'll they'll ease rates this month. Um I think we're you know but as I said the markets are at an all-time high. it won't take much for it to pull back a bit and then we're we are positioned well to um deploy some of that capital and you know things like copper names we're underweight now just just a factor of um selling into some takeovers and things like that. So >> the um to put you >> yes there's it's been harder to find >> quality assets at decent valuations >> but that's kind of a byproduct of the market cycle >> um in what we believe we're starting to see um higher valuations on things lower earnings and that's kind of the time we like to be monetizing things. Um, you have gold at where it is for a reason. You've still got a lot of central bank buying. Um, what is it? The US, Germany, Italy, France have a sort of 70% of their their value in reserve in gold. Um, you've got most domestic sorry most um >> developing >> developed markets at about 20%. And then um got emerging markets which for some reason still includes China at 7 and a half%. And there's a few of those countries which are remandating that their gold in reserve needs to come up to circuit 20%. So, you're going to have huge amounts of buying from um policy makers um government bodies to try and meet those revised numbers. Um, and I think the stat was if China was to keep buying at the rate it is to meet a 20% um, gold in reserve uh, percent, it would be buying for around 18 months. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. 18 more months. >> 18 more months. >> Yeah. So, so why not why not put a greater proportion of the fund in in in gold gold miners which can benefit from that margin even in a you know bare case outlook. >> That's kind of what we're doing at the moment. So yeah, there's cash and gold we're still very constructive on and then um strategic assets again that term that we think will be important to delivering into um you know western um objectives to uh to disconnect themselves from Chinese supply. How do you think about the the sort of frothiness in critical minerals, strategic mar minerals, however you want to sort of frame it? There's there's been pockets in in those various markets, whether it be rare earths or others that have been quite quite sort of excessive in the in the runs up lately. Does that give you a bit of pause? Yeah, I think a lot of it's um in those strategic, you know, in those critical minerals and rare earths. It's it's finding um assets that can get through to production that are not just um you know, rock chips and a bit of early stage exploration. It's it's finding something of that maybe of strategic value. That's that's where we really focus on those types of critical and >> it's really difficult to bring rare earth assets to mark or to production I should say and then trying to convince the market to bring on >> rare earth assets which >> have never been developed. So um you have you have certain clay um clay projects you have some which are hosted in chevanite or zenit time instead of the usual monazite bassinite. Um so there's still a lot of teething and learning to be done for the rare earth uh industry. Um and and and so you can still find very good value in really good assets which have been developed before. Um so that's kind of where we focus at the moment. >> And the the the the gold positions that you still see have some some value. Um are they are they producers, developers, both of the above? We've actually um we've entered a few uh explorers of late. Yeah. >> Down the chain a bit. >> Expecting the retail further to go further down and get the more outsized returns. >> Yeah. I mean, you could find the returns a year ago in some pretty big names and um >> they've they've, >> you know, been doing a lot of catch up over that time and >> and and now they've sort of caught up and I know I'm kind of going against what I'm saying about gold going up even further, but the the flow of money has been so prevalent now. is pushing pushing further down into >> well it's already been through developers and now starting to push through into explorers. Still a lot of money to be made in all three areas. Um >> just where we see the value where we've you know previously been in the Romeliuses and the Spartans and it's rolled over into some other ones and then now it's rolled down the curve in the into explorers. Um and there's been a couple of um yeah really compelling explorers/developers that we've seen lately which we've invested in. >> Yeah. Because everyone's been focused on the producers. So there hasn't been a lot of capital flowing into these >> explorers. Um >> when you say explorers, do they have a a resource or >> they Yeah, generally they'll have hints in and around the area. Um >> uh or or they'll be bringing it to market um you know for an IPO, but it's more of a defined resource which could expand. M >> um you know I think development we more more or less classify as as where the discovery exploration is over. >> Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. And there was there was one a quote from Dallia you shared with um with us last week. He says uh uh it's an unhealthy market bloated with fat/ debt. A doctor would warn of a heart attack. Do you think a heart attack's on its way? Certainly hope not. >> Possibly. >> We're positioned well if it does. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know if um a whole lot of cash and gold helps with heart attacks, but if it does, then we'll be sitting pretty >> does help you sleep easier without the risk of uh >> yeah, high cholesterol and >> heart failure. >> He was I think he's right though. I mean, it's a very toppy, very bloated, debt bloated globe at the moment. especially for western um countries. Uh so something's got to give. >> How do you think about sort of constantly reassessing that that world view and where the portfolio sort of sits? Is that >> weekly meetings between you guys or just looking at benchmarks out there, indices around the world, commodity prices, these sorts of things? >> I mean, we're doing it um we're looking at it day and night. Um and you know so we're we're obviously um discussing it you know every day but it's we have weekly meetings where we go through the portfolio go through the um news of note um different um macro micro changes um specific things that happen in certain um commodities. So we're constantly um you know learning and uh and evolving our strategy. And one thing we do, we make a note of doing is after we um exit a position um whether it's for a good reason or a bad reason, we discuss what went right, what went wrong, what can we learn from it, and we we take that forward with us into our new investments. It's it's striking that you've had such enormous returns from like you know expiration success or like kind of kind of like bull market kind of dynamics and now the portfolio is so defensive like to make that switch. It's rare normally people kind of they'll they'll double down on the thing that has already worked as opposed to taking a vastly different strategy. And and if >> if you get this right it's a it's just a remarkable capital allocation. >> Yeah. And if we get this wrong, I'm sure we'll cop a bit of hate, but I >> Yeah, as we sort of said, it's not because we're ultra bearish. >> Yeah. >> You know, I do think the economy, the global economy can come out of um the other end of all all these, you know, tariff wars and um bloated debt and uh deglobalization issues. by productivity means so electrification, AI, robotics, you know, things that are going to stimulate the globe, things that bring real demand to commodities can definitely >> pull us out of all this. Um, >> and don't get us wrong, we're extremely um constructive on commodities and the commodity outlook um for the medium and long term. It's just at this very moment. Um, >> do you want to be piling in at the top of the market or would you ideally try to do it lower and maybe we're being too cute? But, um, >> I think, uh, I think you've got a bit of time to have all this play out >> and if the opportunity arises, we invest in it. Just so happens that right now it's not not in front of us. We've got our strategic investments. Um, >> yep. >> Yeah. Like we did we did just take investment in a rare earth hopeful where >> um it's got a joint venture with another major mineral sand rare earth um producer in Australia and there's an asset over in Kenya that they're looking at and strategic importance of those to the both the governments. Um, so where it makes sense, where it meets our quality threshold, and where it um where it falls into one of our strategies, we'll we'll definitely still >> I I still feel this sort of real uh philosophy on on managing money that it is your money in the fund. You're not trying to in a sense knock it out the the park in terms of performance at risk of having a a base of of wealth that kind of grows. Is that am I picking up on it right? >> Yeah. I think um where you haven't been in the industry for 10 20 years and you're trying to set yourself up as the new fund manager um you want to be getting some decent returns but not risking everyone's capital just to get it because it's not like you can close up the fund and move to the next one. Um so we are cautious with the way we use our money. Um but to date the strategies that we've implemented have proven to be quite lucrative. So we'll continue running that out. >> Speak to me a bit about some of those those themes that you're very kind of constructive on with a more medium-term outlook and yeah like is it going to be more of the same in terms of the types of allocations that you've had today or do you think you'll you'll lean kind of kind of harder into different types of commodities? I think um rare earth is still front and center and quite prevalent. I mean we've got what one or two um minds in the western world now and we all know how important um rare earths are going to be for um you know electric vehicles, robotics, weaponry, you know, it's going to play more into that defense um discussion that we had earlier. Um I just think that there's some you know real strategic assets out there that can still generate a lot of value. um like that commerce resources that we mentioned earlier which has you know largest project >> yeah ashram project um uh it's you know 200 million tons at 2% with um um good met characteristics um there's things like that which you know strategic assets in strategic minerals which we still think there's value to be made um >> and people forget as well there's only two producers of rare earths in the western world. Um, you know, the two two well-known producers um the rest of it is controlled by China and China allies and stuff like that. Yeah, >> there's a lot of work to be done there. A lot of money to be spent to get >> Western countries up to where they need to be to be competitive. >> Yeah, I think that plays into that NATO spend as well. a lot of one of the amazing things about that is not just the 5% of GDP, it's the um the 1.5% of that can be spent on infrastructure. So, it's um assisting some of these projects which might not have great access to um ports and things like that, getting those to market. It's think that's going to be huge in the commodity space in the next 10 years. >> And you mentioned the sort of constructive look on on commodities in general. Obviously, rare earth you've just mentioned as well. Are there other specific commodities or pockets or themes that you're you're super bullish on as well? >> I still think lithium um despite where it's sitting right now. I think if you can um find a you know a potential tier one asset um and it's quite good to be an explorer at the moment in lithium instead of a producer or a developer because of the hard times that the um the prevailing price is um you know deploying onto those those companies. Um yeah, I do think lithium, you know, I think we're very early in the demand um thematic there of of the AVs, of the robotics, um of the best. >> Yeah, people forget that it is a nent industry. It's >> it's it's it's early in its days of development. Um it's been through two or three proper cycles. Um uh as part of the um electric battery uh revolution. Um so it's going to take some more time, some more cycles to level out >> and and that makes it even harder when your demand profile is changing so dramatically year on year. Um but if you can invest in hugely quality early stage assets um then I think that's the best um way to squeeze the lemon when it does >> does grow. You also mentioned coal, which I'm quite curious about sort of um a much more established market than than lithium, but also the the commonality of trading into the the cost curve and these sorts of things. Have the the lessons you've learned in the past couple years guided you to a couple names or just watching it from the sidelines for now? >> Yeah, >> we've definitely learned some lessons um good and bad. uh >> light to quality is what we've done to quality really, you know, and going up the curve to to a Glen Core, you know, >> try and try and diversify it if you can. Um it's certainly, as we've seen in previous upcycles, it's got a lot of um a lot of value there to be had. I think we underestimated a little bit how long the down cycle would would be. >> Yeah. And I think it's obviously bit like lithium a function of how much um money flowed into the market when it was booming and standard cyclical nature of commodities. Too much money supply demand. Um but hopefully fingers crossed we're at the bottom of this next cycle. Um hopefully it doesn't take too much longer to play out. I can't let you guys leave without a um an overrated, underrated segment, Jen. So, uh I'll give you a I'll frame a theme and >> this will be funny if we say say the same thing or not. >> You're allowed to be different. >> So, first one for me is private capital replacing public equity in junior mining. >> Overrated or underrated? Private capital replacing private equity. >> Public equity. >> Public equity. >> Yeah. So, you know, juniors, explore codes staying private longer. >> I'd say it's underrated. >> Yeah. I think underrated as well. >> Yeah. >> Um cost of capital goes up a little bit when you go private, uh go public. Um and your flexibility, the way you're able to execute on objectives. >> Yeah. Yeah. When you're private, you rarely raise the next lot of capital at a lower share price. >> No, that's right. Yeah, exactly. So, controlling that cost of capital is important. >> Public disclosure is just uh it's extremely ownorous. You don't need to do it. >> Absolutely. Don't do it. >> I guess if you have the luxury of not having to go to >> um public markets, that's that's that's ideal. >> Reliable form of of capital to progress a project. >> It's everything, right? Mhm. >> But as a function of a fund manager, you have to try and you know for our mandate meet certain liquidity um objectives. So um is it something we would look at going all private? Probably not. But there in lies the opportunity for someone that doesn't need our sort of money. >> How about activism in the resources space? investor activism >> underrated. >> Yeah, I think it's underrated. I think I I implore it. um there should be a spotlight on um the people driving the um the ships and um making the decisions and you know earning good money if if they do a good job >> yeah this probably fits into the last question about um transparency in um use of capital I guess in private versus public vehicles but in public it's all on show and um your governance should reflect that absolutely >> we keep an eager eye out or folk in that space. >> Wouldn't call us activist just yet. Probably not big enough to be the activist. >> Uh what about the project generator model? >> Underrated. >> I'll say underrated. >> Yeah. >> Much more prevalent in Canada than than Australia. We do have our examples here. >> And um yeah, may maybe rising in popularity. Would you ever back one or do you think it it's just the the time horizon uncertainty to the discoveries? Maybe not. >> I think it depends on the team. >> Yeah, I I yeah, I think I I would I would back one. Um and we we kind of have just backed one without that's not the main reason we backed it. But yeah, I think when there's some, you know, really good operators in a specific part of the world, um this one's in North America, not Canada. um you can generate significant value if you've especially if you've got an existing project and then it's just a nice to have like it's a second prong. Um yeah, I think you can generate value for sure. >> Yeah. Yeah. Government price floors slash stockpiles or any form of governments getting busy in the resources space. >> Underrated. >> Yeah. Underrated. Absolutely. I think it's um I think we're going to see a lot more of it. Um hopefully we see some in the tungsten space soon. Um, >> it's a really only logical solution to buy from China. >> Monty helping you out already. So, >> yeah, I know. But we we we don't have a government buying it yet. Um, so I think that should be that that would be an absolute no-brainer for the um US government to stockpile some tungsten um or do a um you know do a floor price contract with our monte would be >> I think quite appropriate. >> That would be very appreciated. >> We'll have a few calls here. Will we get one in Benadium? underrated, overrated. >> This is just I'm just ripping off the uh the priceful price. I'm trying to predict the next price. Yeah, >> I mean that would that would be nice as well. Where else kind of makes sense, I guess. You know, follow suit. Um there's obviously been a bit of chatter around the Australian government going down that path or not yet to be seen. Um >> but I think it makes sense for those, you know, super important commodities that we've already discussed. How do you how do you how do you shore up western supply while allowing markets and enterprise to have shity on on building those projects. >> Um and and that is I think going to be a conversation that investors and and governments will need to have for for quite a while from here. I think the problem has been that the U uh the China has gotten so far ahead of the western world in developing these rare earth and other um critical mineral projects that the western nations simply have to step in now and do what they've been doing for the last 1015 years because that we won't catch up organically. There needs to be some intervention. So I think that's why it's so underrated and needs to happen. >> Feels like a completely different playing field, right? >> Absolutely it is. It's been a different playing field for quite a while. That's probably one of your biggest takeaways from went over there was just >> how far ahead they are on >> on on planning, execution, controlling narrative, controlling pricing environments. >> Um they are very well thought through. >> Yeah, they don't get enough credit. have done just a tremendous job of building their economy and building their supply chains and fully integrating and really shutting shutting themselves off from needing almost anything from the rest of the world >> and things like made in Australia and those sort of policies great on paper. I think this is kind of the opportunity for governments like Australia to step up and say we'll put our money where our mouth is >> and start following through with some of these policies. as it applies to resources. >> Do you sort of think of that as like a 10 year 20 year type theme? >> Probably. I mean, some of the um some of the uh targets for you know the increase of 5% of GDP on defense spending that that sort of starts to come to fruition in about 10 years time. So, uh, there'll be a lot of planning, a lot of, um, initial investment, I guess, in trying to get projects up to meet that defense spend cap. Um, but yeah, it's not a short-term thing. You can't just roll out those sort of things overnight, but it doesn't mean you can't start doing it. >> Overrated. Underrated. Broker research. >> Underrated. Love the brokers. >> Underrated. if you um know what to look for and um put a dose of um realism on some of it. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think they're a good guide that you can well that Chris can use to uh normalize um forecasts and information numbers. >> A lot of them do a huge amount of incredible work and they do, you know, site visits that you can't go on and things like that. So, it's highly valuable to what we do. Absolutely. Would you want to rely on them solely? Probably not. >> Overrated, underrated, passive flows, ETF flows for moving mining stocks specifically through the through the evolutions. >> I think um pretty overrated to be honest. >> Um I think it will probably become more and more um important going forward as the money pools continue to flow. Um but I'm I guess I'm thinking more specifically around um index changes and things like that and quite often the moves are not as um profound as you expect them to be. >> I think there's a lot of front running involved with them and then on the flip side there's also conversely where change and they come out know the flows come out and the ones that front run front run it out. So >> totally >> um it's a bit of give and take and I think it's a bit as well. Yeah, last one for me. Uh, just the valuations of uranium developers and producers. Overrated, underrated >> as in overrated, expensive. >> Yeah, >> probably overrated here. >> Yeah, overrated. Yeah, a difficult um very difficult part of the market to uh to find value in in our in our mind. Um, >> yeah, >> I think there's a lot of uh a lack of transparency. It's very opaque the um pricing and contracting environment for a lot of these >> uranium um miners. So, it's hard for us to get a feel on on value and like real value. Developers, yes, it's it's a bit easier. Um uh but there's a lot of corporate stuff that goes in behind these producing uranium uh assets which which we don't see it and sometimes it comes to light. You might have seen that recently with a few different names having to disclose their contract books. Um so it's difficult to find uh a clear value in the producers. J gents, we made um we we wrapped up the potty and then we just started remembering we got a beer. I feel like it was December December last year, but it could have been >> November, December. >> Could have been November. But um we tried to predict we we all predicted uh what's going to be the best performing stock in 12 months time, the worst performing stock >> in 12 months time and min price and then we tried to predict minor on all this. Okay, Pete, you picked to be up the most CCE. So, commerce. >> Commerce and Ashram. Yeah. I guess that uh validates our long only theory. >> Um yeah, trading in Canada. That's a good question. I'm not sure what it was trading at at the time. >> Yeah. So, we we made these bets on the 14th of November last year. >> 14th of November. >> This was this was a bet over a beer and your short was Pantoro. That's done exceedingly. >> All right. So, I probably lost >> your min pick 65 bucks. Now, we've still got >> two months. Still got two months. >> Months. All right. Better get buying. >> Chris MTM. >> Great pick. That was That was a few months before it started running. >> Yeah. >> Stella pick. >> Yeah. So, this is the um you know, this is down that critical minerals path. Um >> it's in the name. >> Yeah. Well, metallium now. um was in the name. >> Yeah. So it's yeah the flesh technology professor tour um out of Rice University um >> it's um extraction of rare earths using non-traditional means is one of the key pillars of their business. The other one's recycling and some other things but >> they've since moved um you know they've onshored into the US they've got one site they're looking at others um >> an interesting story. >> Yeah was your short >> and quite interesting your short is IPX now >> I think of those two as a bit of a pairs. Yeah, tried to pair that one. >> Well done. >> And your minres price 45 bucks. >> What's it now? 35 or so. >> Yeah, 37. Fluctuates a bit. >> Trev. >> Yeah. >> Y RL as your highest pick. Yand. >> Oh, that didn't pay out well. >> I think some drilling results came out maybe a week after. >> Your your short was good. I think we can call it 100% on this. >> Oh. >> Oh, Javoir. >> That's right. It took 12 days of of 2025 before that. Yeah. Went to zero. So >> it's good. >> Very well done. >> You knew something we didn't. >> No, I did. I knew it was debt was unrepable. >> One of our key learnings. >> Your minres prediction was 15 bucks. So I touched that on the way down. >> I think I was a I went fast and um I might be very wrong by the end of the year, but we you know anyway, we'll see. >> I I picked Tibani to be the winner. Yeah. Yeah. >> I can't cuz that's that's had a volatile run. I can't remember. >> 30 odd cents. 32 33 I think. >> Yeah. And it traded up. So this would have been in and around the time Resolute had all their drums. I think a little bit after. So >> Oh, so you you'd be killing it maybe up three times then. >> I have to have to double check. And on the short side, Boss. >> Wow. Well done. That's that's a good one. >> Yeah. And men's 40 bucks. >> Oh, well done. >> I think I think you tick tick tick. This has been a volatile year. Two months to go. Any anything still? It's all still to play for, I'd say. >> Oh, we're choosing we're choosing our next one. >> I think Pete CCA's still got a lot of lot to run. That's had >> handicapped. Yeah, that's got strong tailwinds, I think, for the last >> I'll do that. And that when I say CCA, it's um the reverse takeover by Mont Royale of of Commerce. So, that that'll come to the ASX um relatively soon in the next month or so. Yeah, >> guys, this has been uh awesome. I appreciate you making your podcast debut with with us and and sharing your philosophy, how you think about the world, how you've sort of set up the fund and everything that kind of comes with it. So, yeah, can't thank you enough. >> No worries. >> Here. Thanks for having us. >> Awesome. M massive thank you to the North guys for coming and joining us. And also a huge thank you to our fantastic partners at Sanvic Ground Support. I'm Mark. Get your tickets for the conference. And last but not least, focus. Check out the platform brought to you by Market Tech. UO. >> Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out a disclaimer.