Gold M&A
Rule Investment Newsletter #3
Welcome to the Rule Investment Newsletter, our free periodical published monthly-ish (as our schedule permits). In this, we focus on Gold M&A, providing you with a primer to the business model and why it works so well in the mining space, as well as the different investment approaches one can take.
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Rule Symposium 7-11 July
This topic will be a great primer for your participation at the Rule Symposium 7-11 July, where over 1,000 people have already registered to attend in person in Boca Raton, Florida or via our live stream, in which the following companies mentioned in this article will participate. You will find video interviews by Rick and most of these companies at the end of this newsletter.
Dundee Precious Metals
Agnico Eagle Mines
Aris Mining
G Mining Ventures
McEwen Mining
Seabridge Gold
Dakota Gold
Integra Resources
Revival Gold
Banyan Gold
The event will be hosted by the Rule Investment Newsletter Editor, Paul Harris.
If you haven’t registered, click on the handsome chap below to do so.
Gold M&A
Nothing generates excitement in the markets or among investors, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This article started out to be piece on the upcoming M&A boom in extractive industries, and as we got into it, there was more than enough to keep our writers and, hopefully, readers busy in the gold space, particularly with the gold price breaking out above US$3,300/oz and this surge beginning to be reflected in company share prices. In a subsequent issue, we may write about M&A in other parts of the commodities space, such as copper.
We are addressing this topic within the broad educational overview that is the mandate of the RIM letter, and we have also solicited the opinions of some key industry players to voice their thoughts on M&A. For a deeper understanding of some of the themes we will touch upon, we refer you to the Rule Classroom, particularly the Q&A webinar we will subsequently host about this edition of the newsletter in which you get to quiz Rick and Paul on the subject matter.
This Q&A webinar will be held at xxx Eastern Time on xxx. Click on th button below to register.
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Big Picture
An active M&A cycle is one of the identifiable aspects of a bull market. M&A is both a result of and a cause of bull markets, as when done properly, it is immediately beneficial to the shareholders of the acquired company, while adding hope and liquidity to the sector. It is also accretive to the acquirer as in the long term, it results in more viable and productive companies. These outcomes are good and good when done correctly, however, it is not unusual for the shares of the acquiring company to initially trade lower as the shareholders of the acquired company look to cash-in on the immediate profit they may have made and arbitrage the shares of the acquirer, or sell them as they are received, where a transaction is an all stock deal.
Depending on a shareholder's view of the acquiring company, this may or may not be a wise thing to do. For example, high-grade Kirkland Lake Gold sold off in November 2019 when it announced it would buy low-grade Detour Gold. The market initially hated this deal, but the addition of the long-life Detour Lake asset, although low grade, was a great boon for Kirkland, which within two years received an US$11 billion merger offer from Agnico Eagle Mines. Longer term, intelligently constructed acquisitions benefit the acquiring company, and their share price in the intermediate- and longer-term often reflects the newly acquired strength of the combined entity.
How do M&A transactions unfold?
M&A in the gold space is necessary as gold miners need to replace depleted ounces. Miners rarely buy at the low point of the cycle when prices are cheap, but at the higher part when prices often rip. This is good news for investors in junior exploration and development companies as this can mean significant premia, particularly if there is competition to drive the price up.
The normal trajectory of a mining bull market is that the largest and best companies in the sector move first. Industry veterans become risk-averse during a bear market and concentrate funds in high-quality defensive positions. When the bull market narrative begins to be established and generalist investors come into the space, they too are attracted to the largest, highest quality and most liquid names. The out-performance of Wheaton Precious Metals (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) and Agnico Eagle Mines is an example of the fact that the largest and highest quality names outperform the sector as a whole by a substantial margin early in a bull market. This outperformance does two things: it causes early investors to look for value discrepancies in the market and gives the larger, more liquid companies higher trading volume, a higher share price and hence a lower cost of capital. Their capital cost arbitrage often becomes the first impetus for M&A.
High-quality companies with good assets that haven't enjoyed the share price appreciation of the first movers become the prime targets as either the market recognizes the value discrepancy and arbitrages it away, or the first-tier companies take over the second-tier companies. In either case, analysts sharp enough to identify the value discrepancy make money, which is what we are trying to do here.
Prevailing market conditions, such as the metal price outlook, relative valuation multiples and other factors can impact timing. For example, the divestment process undertaken by gold sector leader Newmont in 2024 saw it shed six operating mines, which suppressed M&A activity as bidders concentrated attention on its portfolio. Who wouldn’t want a Newmont mine? At least 50 companies did, and were in Newmont’s data room for the sale. For the winners, like Discovery Silver and Orla Mining (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant), the acquisition of a Newmont asset will be transformational, but it meant many companies sat on their hands in 2024, waiting to see how things would shake out. The conclusion of Newmont’s sale means that many of the 50 or so companies in its data room were unsuccessful and still looking for assets, creating an expectation of M&A activity picking up in 2025.
“Our industry was consumed last year with the Newmont divestiture process. We were a part of that and very grateful to have taken over the Musselwhite asset. The rest of the industry was also occupied in that. Now that the process has been completed, there'll be more opportunities for the bankers and the miners to work on other value-creating transactions. So far, we're seeing maturity in the M&A approach to create shareholder value. That needs to be done methodically and calculated, but exuberance will create a tipping point where poor behavior is rewarded,” said Orla Mining CEO Jason Simpson.
In addition to creating valuation discrepancies that impact who has the ability to transact and who does not, market conditions, such as a run up to $3,000/oz gold lifts everyone’s spirits and valuations, giving managements the confidence to transact.
“Most M&A happens in a period of peak valuations, the time when buyers and sellers have the most confidence to engage. M&A is a strategic confidence game. Sellers have to have a view that they are selling at the best price they can, and buyers have to have confidence that now is the time to deploy their cherished capital towards M&A. Typically, we see the buoyancy of this when commodity prices are strongest, and by definition, valuations are strongest. In 2010, the gold sector traded at a premium valuation to the gold price and that is where M&A peaked. We are not there again yet; the precious metal producers are not trading above the bullion price, so there is still room in valuation. M&A is going to tick along and get more active,” said Elian Terner, MD and Head, Global Mining & Metals Investment Banking at National Bank Financial.
M&A Themes
How do we make money on M&A? The short, unhelpful answer is by being positioned in companies that are likely targets of the bigger companies, but how do we identify the companies that may be within the sights of the big guys? Various M&A themes have proven to be actionable over the last 50 years.
Opportunistic Acquisition
M&A is top-down by definition. Opportunistic acquisition occurs when a big company with a lower cost of capital takes over another big company with a higher cost of capital, rationalizes the assets and, over a couple of years, the value of the whole exceeds the sum of the parts. The 2023 acquisition of Newcrest Mining for $16.8 billion by Newmont is a classic example of this. Among the larger gold producers, Newmont, Agnico Eagle Mines, B2Gold, Gold Fields, Kinross Gold, AngloGold Ashanti and Pan American Silver have undertaken significant transactions within the past couple of years and may not be looking to transact at this time. The exception is Barrick Gold, which has not transacted and has undertaken a protracted slide into third place behind Newmont and Agnico. Many analysts argue the company needs to make a significant transaction. To move back to a par position with Newmont and Agnico would require Barrick to acquire a company the size of Gold Fields or Kinross Gold. Barrick has hamstrung itself, however, with CEO Mark Bristow declaring the company will not pay a premium to acquire a company, which gives other companies little incentive to engage. The lack of a premium is the reason Great Bear Resources rejected its overtures and was eventually bought by Kinross in 2022 and ended up with the Dixie deposit, which Kinross calls Great Bear. Opportunity could see Barrick reverse course quickly, of course.
“I'll never speculate on M&A. M&A is difficult. It's very competitive, and things aren't always as advertised. In the last ten years we've done three deals, and they have all been bolt-ons with synergies. We've got a great pipeline and a great technical team, which is the best place to be, as we can maintain our discipline and wait until we see the right opportunity. Great Bear's a good example,” said Kinross Gold CEO, Paul Rollinson.
M&A exploits market weakness, which can result from a company being undercapitalized or financially over-extended on a mine build, or whose lack of market presence creates a valuation disparity another is keen to exploit. An example of this is Alamos Gold acquiring Argonaut Gold in 2024. Argonaut overextended itself building the Magino mine in Ontario and in its weakened state, sold other assets before being taken by Alamos whose Island Gold mine is immediately adjacent to Magino.
[Gold M&A] goes down the food chain. It has to. There are many single asset-producing companies or those with very advanced near-term development assets, which the mid-tiers go after. The developer sector is unloved based on relative valuations. They trade at deep discounts to NAV (net asset value), and that is where the value lies. At some point over the next year, we'll start seeing developers being acquired more aggressively,” said Nicole Adshead-Bell, director of Cupel Advisory.
When M&A activity picks up, the fear of missing out (FOMO) kicks in as the best assets are acquired and boardroom pressure mounts to do something to avoid losing a competitive position. This can be defensive or reactive. Newmont’s 2019 acquisition of Goldcorp was a defensive move after Barrick Gold merged with Randgold Resources. Newmont has subsequently divested most of the assets it acquired from Goldcorp.
“Capital restraint is definitely the name of the game, especially in uncertain times. A lot of miners learned their lesson about punching too hard at a questionable moment of time. However, all it takes is a change at the top and suddenly this is no longer true because somebody's come in with a very different aggressive strategy,” said Kevin Murphy of S&P Global, who manages the most extensive mining database in the industry.
Acquisition for Scale
Companies that are not first tier, but enjoy reputational advantage, often acquire other companies to add to their scope and scale, increase their trading liquidity and attractiveness to exchange traded funds (ETFs), which increases the buying of their stock. The current acquisition bid by Equinox Gold for Calibre Mining is a classic example playing out before our eyes. Both are mid-tier companies in the crowded $1-4 billion market capitalization range. Their union would create a $8 billion market cap company with a production profile of more than 1Moz/y, 24Moz of reserves, 22Moz of measured and indicated resources and less direct competition from other companies.
It's going to be a very value-enhancing transaction. We're going to see a re-rate (in Equinox’s valuation), and a pile of new buyside money coming in. We'll have a re-rate from being larger, we'll bring a pool of new investors into the company, and there'll be more ETF buying because we'll be higher on the rankings of big ETFs. I've never been a big fan of getting bigger for the sake of getting bigger. That makes no sense at all. There's no value added to that. But if you can get bigger and actually truly get a re-rate, it's good to do,” said Ross Beatty, chair of Equinox Gold.
Not so quick Mr Beaty! With few operational synergies in the Equinox-Calibre deal, a major shareholder of both companies, Van Eck, opposed the fusion, and forced Equinox to sweeten the deal, which was passed at Calibre’s shareholder meeting on 1 May.
With more than a dozen gold producers in the $1-4 billion market capitalization bracket, bulking up to move into the $5-10 billion capitalization would bring greater differentiation and market visibility. This is important as many institutional investors cannot invest in companies with capitalizations of less than $1 billion.
“There is a rationale to get to scale to improve the liquidity of your stock. We talk to hundreds of institutions, and they say they might get excited about a story, but if they cannot position themselves in and out of a company, because there isn't enough liquidity, they won't invest. Investment managers today are so big and have so many different liquidity screens that drive their investment criteria, that if a company can't meet them, even if a project is fantastic, they just can't invest,” said John Ciampaglia, CEO of Sprott Asset Management.
Single Asset Arbitrage
Equity markets penalize single asset producers in favor of those with multiple assets. The cause of this discrimination is simple: risk. If a single asset company faces any operational issue its entire existence may be threatened. A mill breaking, the host government wanting a greater slice of the pie, or a natural disaster can devastate a company with only one asset. The inability to keep its mill fed resulted in the demise of gold developer Pure Gold Mining in 2022. Many are watching to see if the assets’ new owner, West Red Lake Gold Mines (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) will be more successful. Companies with multiple assets with multiple cash flow streams can better weather such storms. For example, SSR Mining saw its share price take a hit after a tailings slide at its Çöpler mine in Turkey, but it is far from washed-up.
Resilience is why multi-asset companies enjoy higher share prices and other metrics than single-asset companies. Of interest to us is that the single asset discount can be arbitraged away through M&A. An example here is the $2.5 billion takeover of Centamin by Anglogold Ashanti in 2024. As single asset companies are vulnerable to being taken over by bigger companies, this creates pressure for the best single asset companies to transact to reduce that risk. Gold companies in this situation include Lundin Gold, Torex Gold Mining and Artemis Gold.
“There were a lot of ill-timed, ill-conceived deals in the last cycle. We see a lot of smarter, strategic, driven deals happening now where companies are really trying to combine in a way that makes a lot of financial sense, with diversification-driven rationale. Investors want to see premiums around deals because there was a period where we saw a lot of zero premium deals that didn’t get investors excited,” said Sprott’s Ciampaglia.
Synergistic Acquisition
Synergistic acquisition is where a company with a low cost of capital acquires assets proximal to its existing assets to leverage its ability to put them into production by enhancing their existing infrastructure. Agnico’s acquisition of O3 Mining in March 2025 is of this type. O3 Mining was in Agnico’s backyard in the Abitibi gold district in Quebec, Canada and proximal to its Canadian Malartic mine. Other similar Abitibi bolt-ons could eventually follow for Agnico in the shape of Cartier Resources in whom Agnico increased its stake to 27.7% in March, and Probe Mining. This type of M&A is attractive to the smaller company investors that populate the subscriber base of this newsletter.
Another probable likely candidate is G2 Goldfields whose Oko project is part of the same Oko deposit in Guyana that G Mining Ventures (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) is building a mine on, having acquired Reunion Gold in 2024. A M&A transaction here would unify a camp with more than 10Moz. G2 announced an updated resource estimate on Oko in March, which increases to 3.1Moz in all categories. This 49% resource increase is the amuse-bouche that could spark a takeover. Unification of this camp could prompt another transaction as a low-cost 10Moz camp would be of interest to a larger company. AngloGold Ashanti holds 15% of G2 while Barrick Gold was previously a joint-venture partner in Reunion Gold. Competitive tension is great news for the shareholders of the acquired company as it can result in multiple bids and a higher premium. One cannot have an auction with only one bidder.
Another example on the horizon is Rupert Resources and Aurion Resources in Finland. Rupert is the larger, more advanced company with its Ikkari deposit, where it is looking to produce 227,000oz/y, but to optimize and maximize its economics, it will need to lay back its pit onto the ground of Aurion’s Helmi deposit. A transaction was anticipated throughout much of 2024 yet still has not happened. Now is a good time to introduce a caveat. Although such acquisitions make economic sense, the self-interest of the management team sometimes prevents matches made in heaven from taking place. Gold major Agnico Eagle Mines is also in the frame here as it owns 13% of Rupert, and also operates the Kitilla mine in Finland to the west.
To provide some balance, not everyone is a fan of M&A, notably Barrick Mining CEO Mark Bristow, who notes that higher metals prices are generating transactions on lower quality assets.
“Rising gold prices make all ore bodies look more profitable or viable, but at the same time, people forget about costs and cost inflation and ultimately running out of reserves. That is where our industry is today. We have very little inventory left ahead of us and constantly buying assets that just a year and a half ago weren’t viable, and paying a premium for them,” said Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow
Bristow’s point is valid, yet he also recognizes that companies have not been investing enough in exploration to replace their depleted reserves, and so will need to buy to maintain production.
How to Play
How can investors play M&A? The short, unhelpful answer is to be long on the company being acquired. Potential transactions can be identified, but the key uncertain variable, as always, is timing. The O3 Mining transaction mentioned above was visible for the past five years or more, and depending upon when investors bought O3, the result was a takeover for a premium or a take under for a loss, as O3’s share price eroded significantly over that timeframe.
There are few instances where a buy signal is telegraphed ahead of time. AngloGold Ashanti loaning Nevada gold explorer Corvus Gold, in which it held a 19.7% stake, $20 million in May 2021, which included a 90-day exclusivity period to review Corvus, which had property neighbouring AngloGold’s Silicon project, is about a clear a signal as one can get, although still with risk of non-completion. A current example is G2 Goldfields, which is in the process of funnelling non-Oko exploration properties in Guyana into a new company, G3 Goldfields, to prepare for an eventual acquisition.
Another signal that a transaction may happen is the outsize cash positions of Eldorado Gold ($867 million) and Dundee Precious Metals ($635 million) (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant). These are mid-tier producers in a peer group of 18 that ended 2024 with an aggregate cash position of $5.4 billion. These companies may find themselves in a position of having to transact or become targets themselves.
The rising gold price has not touched all stocks to the same extent, and this valuation discrepancy means it is a great market for buyers, although stressful for shareholders of undervalued juniors who bought their stock at higher prices. This M&A cycle has been characterized by deals, that even with substantial premia, mean take unders. The January 2024 acquisition of Marathon Gold by Calibre Mining is an example. Fortunately, M&A transactions involving smaller companies are often all stock deals, which provides the shareholders of the acquired company an opportunity to obtain a positive result and turn a take-under into a win by riding up the expected share price appreciation of the acquirer. Many Marathon shareholders would have been made whole or better by holding onto their Calibre shares. The same is true for Adventus Mining shareholders following its 2024 acquisition by Silvercorp Metals. The key is to hold the stock received in a transaction for long enough for the synergies of intelligently constructed M&A to work through the income statement of the acquirer and be beneficial for the stockholder.
In addition to being long on the acquired company, more sophisticated investors can also go short on the acquirer to lock in the exchange ratio to their benefit.
As with most aspects of investment, timing and time horizons are critical. There is rarely a quick win and so investment to this theme is of the sit-and-hold type. A key question to ask, and one which CEOs are often vague on, is who are the potential buyers of the company?
Targets
Now the stage is set, let us look at some more candidates. We will mainly focus on projects in the Americas, which is not to say that there aren’t attractive opportunities elsewhere, as Ramelius Resources is showing with the acquisition of smaller Australian rival Spartan Resources in a A$2.4 billion (US$1.5 billion) deal announced mid-March, and Gold Fields which bid $2.1 billion to buy Gold Road Resources to unify the Gruyere mine in Australia, much like it did at Windfall in Quebec.
Multi-asset producers
Wesdome Gold Mines is in the blue-chip jurisdiction of Ontario, Canada, and enjoys the highest reserve grade in Canada at about 11g/t for its Kiena mine and 17g/t for Eagle. It could be a good addition for a bigger company, and is likely to improve the geopolitical risk profile of any acquirer. The company could also be a merger instigator.
New Gold brings a strong Canada focus too, with Rainy River in Ontario and New Afton in British Columbia, which produced excellent performance in 2024, giving the company one of the lowest AISC in its class. New Gold is emerging from the challenges and cost blowout of developing Rainy River, and its turnaround has been so successful that the company is now investing in exploration to extend its asset mine life, and growth through acquisition.
Orla Mining brings a curb appeal that sees it enjoy a market capitalization beyond its 136,748oz of 2024 production, which will be enhanced by the acquisition of Musselwhite from Newmont. Orla may be too rich for another company to digest, but its high valuation means it has the firepower and leverage to continue growing via M&A.
A variation in the risk diversification theme is Dundee Precious Metals, a multi-asset producer with some of the lowest costs in the industry and no debt. It is stockpiling cash on its balance sheet, but this success makes it vulnerable to attack from above. A bidder would get a lot of cash as well as ATM assets that print money. As a defensive strategy, it needs to acquire to get bigger. Fear of becoming a target spurred Dundee Precious Metals to implement a shareholder rights plan in March 2025.
“If [a company] has too much cash, either they get taken out by somebody who needs that cash and is willing to pay a premium, or they have a market reduction in value because cash does not add any real value per se. You want to deploy that cash in assets or give it back to your shareholders,” said Ross Beaty.
McEwen Mining (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) is also a potential M&A instigator, led by industry legend Robert McEwen. The company has struggled in recent years, but its performance is improving, which could give it leverage to buy other companies. In March, it made a strategic investment in Goliath Resources, for example. McEwen’s stock has been buoyed by its ownership of McEwen Copper, and so it also needs to consider its future when and if it undertakes a public listing of that subsidiary, or if a larger company buys its copper business.
Single asset producers
Torex Gold Mines faces the quandary of being a single-asset, single-jurisdiction producer with the additional need to diversify the risk of operating in Guerrero, Mexico. It has declared commercial production at its Media Luna project at its high-grade El Limon Grajales Complex and is expected to reach a steady-state underground mining rate of 7500tpd by mid-2026, six months ahead of the schedule. This will help the company maintain production of 450,000ozpa soon. Company CEO Jody Kuzenko is now actively discussing the company’s hunt for other assets.
Lundin Gold is knocking it out of the park with its high-grade Fruta del Norte (FDN) gold mine in Ecuador. It is one of the highest margin operations in the work, which allowed the company to rapidly repay its debt, and begin paying dividends. Its exploration team is also finding much more gold, promising multiple decades of production. FDN would be a jewel for any major, but it would be expensive to acquire. More likely is that the company will seek to acquire other assets and grow into a bigger gold company. Few assets are even close to matching FDN’s high grade, and so it could follow Kirkland’s example (see above) and go for lower grade at scale, with longer life.
Artemis Gold has brought its Blackwater mine in British Columbia, Canada into commercial production. With several hundred thousand ounces a year of production expected, it already has a multiple-billion-dollar market capitalization. It would be a powerful addition to any senior producer, such as Newmont, which is developing a strategic presence in the Pacific Northwest. However, the company’s valuation could make it an acquirer rather than acquired, as it will have the single asset vulnerability until it does so.
Development stage
Several gold projects in the US could benefit from expedited permitting and other factors under the Trump administration, with gold included in the minerals of his March Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production executive order.
Perpetua Resources’ Stibnite project is large and permitted in the US. It has an amazing environmental rehabilitation program underway, will produce several hundred thousand ounces a year, and has an antimony-critical mineral byproduct.
Dakota Gold (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) is in the historic Homestake district of South Dakota and has Coeur Mining’s Wharf gold mine some 15km away. Being in Coeur’s backyard makes that mid-tier producer a natural buyer for the company, although others could be drawn to a US gold project. The area is well known from a mining point of view, having previously been operated by Barrick Gold. Dakota Gold has a team that can build, led by Robert Quartermain who built the Brucejack mine in British Columbia for Pretium Resources. He has also recruited key local staff who have worked at Wharf and other mines in the area.
Idaho presents several opportunities. In addition to Perpetua Resources (mentioned above), Integra Resources (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) has been active in the M&A space, acquiring Florida Canyon Gold in 2024 to add gold production to its DeLaMar development potential. Revival Gold (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) has the development-stage Mercur gold project in Utah and Beartrack-Arnett in Idaho in the wings. Revival provides an acquirer with an instant US project pipeline. Liberty Gold has Black Pine in Idaho which is an open pit heap leach project on the edge of the Great Basin. This type of deposit is as simple as mining gets and could appeal to a broad audience. The company references the amount of money the Marigold mine in Nevada has made for SSR Mining and SSR would be a suitable suitor for the company, or others with Great Basin experience.
Canada has seen a spate of large gold mine developments in recent years, including Blackwater, Côté, Magino and Greenstone, but there are more to come. Leading proponents include Seabridge Gold’s (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) KSM deposit is massive, and the cost of acquiring the company could prevent it from being an M&A target. Simply, the company’s valuation may be too high for an outright purchase. However, the company is open to partnering with the project and having a minority stake. The company has obtained a substantially started designation and is advancing on a pre-construction works program, meaning any partner could hit the ground running with the development of the mine.
Other developers include Skeena Resources and its Eskay Creek project that will produce several hundred thousand ounces a year of gold and silver, and could have an antimony-critical mineral byproduct. Troilus Gold’s Troilus deposit in Quebec is getting serious attention from global financial institutions, including Societe Generale, KfW IPEX-Bank, and Export Development Canada, which are arranging a structured project debt financing package of up to US$700 million, and export credit agencies from Germany, Finland and Sweden. Why? Because European smelters want the copper-gold concentrate Troilus will produce as part of its 303,000oz/y of gold equivalent production. Add in a low valuation and Troilus is a target for bigger gold companies seeking copper exposure.
Explorers
Collective Mining. Multiple discoveries in a tight geographic area and a major underground mine, at lower grade, being built less than 2km away. The Collective team has been down this road before, selling previous company Continental Gold to Zijin Mining for C$1.3 billion in 2020. The Apollo discovery at its Guayabales project would be a natural extension to Aris Mining’s (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) Lower Marmato mine development, particularly if Collective is successful in delivering on the 10Moz or more of potential company executives believe is there, but Agnico Eagle Mines (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) is in the wings as a strategic investor in Collective. Agnico has been looking at getting something going in Colombia for some time, having previously drilled the Anza project with Newmont, before returning it to Orosur Mining in 2024. Would Agnico be willing to accept the geopolitical risk of Colombia when it has built such success in Canada? Would Agnico also be willing to take out Aris to consolidate the area?
Founders Metals. Although pre-resource stage, great drill results at its Antino project in Surinam have excited the market with hits such as 28.5m grading 7.12g/t, which resonates more given the perception that it is easier to permit mines in Surinam than in North America. The company has successfully raised a large treasury, including participation from B2Gold, and plans to drill 60,000m this year.
Snowline Gold. With a 7Moz high-grade, near surface, open pittable resource at Valley in Yukon, Canada, and B2Gold as a shareholder.
“Where do you find more tier one assets? For Snowline, it is a fantastic environment to be in. We have strong defenses regarding insider ownership positions, so we are well protected against any hostile valuation arbitrage, but nonetheless, we're bringing forward something that has a lot of value,” said CEO Scott Berdahl.
Also in Yukon is Banyan Gold (Rule Symposium 7-11 July participant) which is advancing the 7Moz Aurmac deposit.
With Dominican Republic again looking to increase gold production GoldQuest Mining could gain attention from companies interested in developing a 100,000oz/y gold mine at its Romero project, which recently obtained a pathway to enter permitting after being stuck for years. Agnico Eagle is a strategic investor in GoldQuest, and while Romero may be too small for its needs, it would suit an up-and-coming mid-tier company with an Americas focus.