By James Kwantes
Published first at Patreon.com/jameskwantes

With gold back above US$2,000 an ounce, these remain golden days for the precious metals and dog days for the juniors.

Is gold’s surge the start of the long-awaited “turning”? Maybe.

What my scars tell me: larger pools of money will eventually wash into heavily cyclical market sectors that remain hated. It’s especially true for the mining ecosystem, which is essential to modern civilization and our survival as a species. It’s also true for gold-related stocks, in an unstable world living through a cheap-money hangover and still awash in personal and government debt.

Power Players in the resource space continue to stuff their stockings with bargain-priced share certs. There has also been an uptick in mining M&A, including takeovers, purchases of minority stakes and mergers of equals. The latest was Heye Daun’s Osino Resources (OSI-V), snapped up by Dundee Precious Metals (DPM-T) Dec. 18 in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $287 million. Those are healthy signs in a capital-starved sector.

The spidey senses of insiders also seem to be tingling. On insider positioning, INK Research’s Energy and Basic Materials indicators are at 154% and 327%, respectively. Anything above 100% means there are more stocks with key insider buying than selling over the past 60 days.

Ryan Beedie

One of the mergers of equals was Metalla Royalty & Streaming’s (MTA-V) recent acquisition of Nova Royalty Corp. (Nova shareholders own roughly 40% of the new Metalla). The two companies had common directors and a key common shareholder at the centre of the action: Ryan Beedie. Beedie is the scion of a B.C. billionaire family whose fortune was made in industrial real estate.

Beedie, through Beedie Capital, owned 17.5% of Nova equity as well as convertible loan agreements with both Nova and Metalla. As part of the deal, Beedie subscribed for $15 million of Metalla equity, increased the existing Metalla convertible loan and cancelled the Nova debt deal.

Beedie had previously backed Steven Dean’s Atlantic Gold, building a roughly 25% equity stake before the company was purchased for $800 million by Australia-based miner St. Barbara in 2019. Prior to investing in and financing Atlantic Gold, Beedie had passive investments in True Gold Mining (bought by Endeavour Mining) and B2Gold, according to this Business in Vancouver article.

Dean and Beedie are now partnering on Artemis Gold (ARTG-V), which is building the Blackwater open-pit gold mine in British Columbia’s central Interior. Dean is Artemis’s chairman and CEO; Beedie is a director. Mine construction was 45% complete as of Sept. 30; first gold pour is slated for the second half of 2024. Blackwater is slated to produce 321,000 oz annually in years 1-5, 381,000 oz in years 6-10 and 438,000 oz in years 11-17.

On Nov. 27, Beedie spent about $471,000 buying another 80,000 Artemis shares at $5.89. He owns about 56.35 million shares, a more than 28% stake. Artemis has been a rare solid performer in the gold space, with a stock price of $6.23 and a one-year return of about 40%. Beedie is also a 10%-plus shareholder of Integra Resources (ITR-V), through equity and convertible notes.

Before getting more active in mining equity and finance, Beedie was in the running to be a co-owner of the Vancouver Canucks NHL team. In 2005 he and business partner Tom Gaglardi (Sandman hotels, Moxie’s restaurants) sued Francesco Aquilini over ownership of the hockey team, alleging that Aquilini reneged on a partnership with the pair and then went behind their backs to buy the team. Aquilini won the case and owns the Canucks; Gaglardi now owns the Dallas Stars NHL team.

Dave Lotan

Veteran junior resource entrepreneur Dave Lotan has appeared in this space previously as a prolific buyer of companies with which he’s involved. He’s been adding to his stake in well-financed Finland gold explorer Aurion Resources (AU-V), where he’s chairman, as the stock languishes along with the rest of the junior mining complex.

Lotan’s most recent buying started on Halloween with a purchase of about $8,500 at 47-48 cents. He has since spent more than $127,800 at prices ranging from 39 to 48 cents. Lotan owns just shy of 10% of Aurion’s equity. The company has 30% ownership of a JV with B2Gold that has yielded the Helmi gold discovery along strike of Rupert Resources’ (RUP-T) 4M-oz Ikkari gold deposit. Aurion also has a JV with Kinross and is exploring a large 100% owned land package in Finland’s emerging Central Lapland Greenstone Belt.

Lotan has also been adding to his stake in Chibougamau Independent Mines (CBG-V), a major player in the Chibougamau gold district of Quebec. CBG also owns a 2% gross metals royalty on Cerrado Gold’s (CERT-V) Mont Sorcier iron ore deposit in the Chibougamau district. Earlier this year Cerrado merged with Voyager Metals, the previous owner of Mont Sorcier.

Between Sept. 22 and Oct. 30, Lotan – a director – bought another 606,500 CBG shares at 10-11 cents, taking his stake in the company to 18.1%.

Finally, Lotan has been buying Fox River Resources (FOX-CN), which holds the PEA-stage Martison phosphate project near Hearst, Ontario. Lotan, the non-executive chairman, spent about $63,000 buying shares at 16-21 cents between Oct. 5 and Nov. 17, taking him over the 10% threshold.

Glenn Pountney

Veteran junior mining investor Glenn Pountney figured in an early Patreon post, Whale Watching and the 10% Club, for his purchases of Mirasol Resources (MRZ-V). The former head equity trader at First Marathon Securities is notable for his trading track record as well as successful exits on large positions including Norsemont (bought by HudBay in 2011) and Klondex (purchased by Hecla in 2018).

Pountney continues to be unrelenting in his purchases of MRZ, a prospect generator with a flagship project (Sobek Central/North) in the Vicuña discovery district of Chile/Argentina. Mirasol is one of only a few juniors with ground in the emerging district (Sendero Resources is another). Vicuña hosts important discoveries including Filo’s (FIL-T) Filo del Sol copper deposit and NGEx Minerals' (NGEX-V) Los Helados deposit and Lunahuasi discovery, both controlled by the Lundin family.

The junior resource veteran has spent $126,200 buying Mirasol shares since the beginning of October, at prices ranging from 50-62 cents. Since the middle of March 2023, Pountney has added more than 1 million shares (at 50 cents to $1.10). He now owns 7.297 million Mirasol shares, an 11.1% stake in the company.

Mirasol shares have bounced off the 50-cent low and currently trade at 71 cents. The company recently announced that access roads have been completed to priority drill targets at Sobek Central, 7 km west of Filo, and Sobek North, 3 km west of Lunahuasi. A combined 3,000 metres of drilling is planned for Q1 2024 beginning with Sobek Central targets, followed by Sobek North.

André Gaumond

The last several months have not been kind to renewable energy stocks, as developers of wind and solar projects grapple with higher interest rates and red tape. Shares of Altius Renewable Royalties (ARR-T) were not spared, plunging below $7 by Halloween after spending most of the summer north of $9. Exploration legend André Gaumond (Virginia Gold Mines, Virginia Mines) took advantage of the drop to add to his stake in the renewable Altius, where he’s a director.

Gaumond spent about $240,000 buying Altius Renewable shares in November, at prices ranging from $6.94 to $7.35. Other insiders were also active in November – including CEO Brian Dalton – but with much smaller purchases. ARR shares have since rebounded to the $7.70 level. Gaumond owns 189,565 ARR shares in various accounts, directly and indirectly.

Altius Renewable Royalties stock began trading in late February 2021 after an IPO priced at $11 a share. Mothership Altius Minerals (ALS-T) retains a 58% stake in ARR, which has a 50-50 joint venture (Great Bay Renewables) with Apollo Global, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Altius provides up-front financing to U.S. renewable energy projects in exchange for long-life royalties. The JV recorded $3.9 million in royalty revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared to $3.2 million a year earlier.

I interviewed Gaumond back in March – read the story here – and he was very bullish on Altius Renewable Royalties, describing it as an “early-stage Franco-Nevada.”

Kelvin Dushnisky

Kelvin Dushnisky is known for his track record in gold – which continues with his chairmanship of B2Gold (BTO-T) – but he’s been buying lithium stocks. Dushnisky was CEO of AngloGold Ashanti from 2018-2020 after 16 years with Barrick, finishing as president.

Dushnisky is a director of developer Lithium Americas (LAC-T) and he’s been buying the stock after a rather ferocious decline from $20 in April 2022. In October he spent more than $400,000 buying LAC shares at $9.03 to $9.49. LAC CEO Jonathan Evans also opened his wallet, spending about $655,000 buying stock at US$6.70 ($9 CAD).

The purchases came after Lithium Americas split into two public companies – GM-backed Lithium Americas (LAC-T), holding the Thacker Pass lithium deposit in Nevada, North America’s largest known deposit, and Lithium Americas Argentina (LAAC-T), which has 44.8% of the Cauchari-Olaroz brine deposit in Argentina as well as secondary projects. The share prices of both lithium development companies have declined dramatically since the split, with LAC currently trading at $8.72.

Dushnisky also spent $138,950 buying B2Gold shares in early October, paying $3.97.

Wishing you and yours the best of the holidays and a happy, healthy and profitable 2024! Thanks for your support ❤️

James

Disclosure: I own shares of Aurion, Fox River Resources, Mirasol Resources, NGEx Minerals, Lithium Americas (Argentina), Lithium Americas and Altius Renewable Royalties.