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$5,000 Gold Call Comes With a Financial Crisis Warning | Willem Middelkoop · Kitco MINING

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Kitco Mining on-site coverage of the Precious Metal Summit is presented by New Core Goal.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Investing in juniors.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris, here at the 2026 Precious Metal Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me now is Willem Middlecoop, who is the founder and CEO of Commodity Discovery Fund.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Willem, welcome back to Kitco.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be back, and it's always great to be back in Beaver Creek.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, I echo that.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're in Beaver Creek.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're at the PMS, the Precious Metal Summit.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: What has been the sort of vibe for you this week?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: What are your general impressions of this year's event?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Too many people.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Too many meetings.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: We can see it's the start of a new bull market.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: We often get a question what have you found?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Anything new?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: I always tell them if I need to find anything new at the conference, I haven't done my homework.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: But we're here just to meet up with management teams.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I just finished a very interesting uh meeting actually with a new CEO of Hercules Metals.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: You might be aware of that story.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh George Ogilvy, he just sold Arizona Sonorum for two billion to Hud Bay earlier this year.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: We were investors in that one.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: We were large investors in Hercules Metals.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And when I met George Ogilvy during a conference in Zurich in March this year, I asked him what are you going to do now?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I don't know.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Take some holidays, take some time off.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked him, Have you ever looked at Hercules Metals?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: They have a very strong copper discovery in Idaho.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't aware of it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I said, please look into it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I sent him some stuff.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And now he's the new CEO, so very happy with that management team change.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just George, the CEO, a lot of the management team from Arizona, Sonora, and Copper have gone in, and I think collectors believe they've invested what almost five million Canadian into the company, too?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: A little scoop, I can tell you, the team of six wanted to invest more, but weren't allowed to invest more of their personal money in this story.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: So Copper now believes, just like us, that this is a new Copper district which is being found in Idaho.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Was uh found, of course, by Chris Paul, a rather young geologist.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he was also the CEO of his medals.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we saw him struggling a bit over the last two years.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't have a very strong ward.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: So first we brought in a new chairman, Macho Bosse, the former right-hand man of Robert Friedland.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And after a site visit, uh I really noticed that he didn't have the strong uh IR if I person, investor relations person.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: So uh very happy that uh George Ogilvree brings his whole team.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Chris Paul is actually very happy because he can he will stay with the company, he will be involved as a geologist, as uh let's say the VP exploration, and he's just happy that he has more support now on the management and the board level.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh I want to unpick a couple of things there, if I may, William.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's your view on geos as CEOs?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: You you mentioned that they, you know, in this particular instance, they perhaps have limited capital markets experience, which is obviously a fundamental part, uh, you know, 50% of a CEO's job.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your you you look at a lot of companies, what's your view?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's some great examples of uh geologists who can be a good CEO as well, but most of the time Exceptions rather than the rule?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's it's another job.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And ask the average geologist if he wants to have 40 meetings in three days with investors in hotel resort.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: He hates they hate it, you know.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: They want to kick rocks, they want to be outside.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a different character.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why you have professionals.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And George Ogilvy is a mine engineer, but he's somebody who turned into a great CEO, but he understands the technical part of the business as well.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: He already has uh had uh three successful exits, uh sold to Arizona Sonorum for two billion to Hud Bay, and that's just a perfect character to be a CEO.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be a salesman as a CEO, but not like a second-heart, second-hand car salesman.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be um you must like it to tell the story to dozens of investors and keep doing that year after year.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a bit of a guy like that as well.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm a fund manager, but I always like to sell.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I always like to tell the story because I really like this industry.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: I really like the good stories out there.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I read the news that George and his team were going into Hercules, I was very impressed by that.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a really good move.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Consequently, a couple of weeks later, a few weeks later, a few weeks ago, I was quite surprised to see that George is becoming the new chair of Barksdale Resources.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was surprised.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I want to ask your opinion or get your views on that because for me, you know, see your CEO job should be a full-time job.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a lot on your plate, you've got a lot to manage.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, being a chair can be quite a full-time job as well.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: I I was I was surprised.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I'm not his spokes uh person.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we didn't we didn't really discuss it in our meeting uh just uh today.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think you you can be a chair of another company.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a full-time he is not an executive chair.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I I personally don't have a problem with that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is there a potential conflict there?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're both copper companies, they're both uh copper exploration companies.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if I ask George, I've got fifty thousand dollars to invest in a copper exploration company, which one should I invest in?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you Hercules because he put in a few million of his own money.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't do that with Barksdale.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that these are apples and and and oranges, uh, which can't be compared.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh so I I don't have any problem with that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: This guy, he's 59, he has uh tons of energy.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when I compare to myself, I'm 64.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I do a lot of other stuff as well, besides being the fund manager.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: I scale it down, but I I know and understand that sometimes you like to do different things in life as well.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that that's was a really good answer.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he's a real good, he's a real expert on copper in the US and it shows.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's even better that he's he's evolved with more and more copper projects in the US because he it will make him a better uh partner uh for all the majors looking for new copper projects in the US.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I I've picked up on at this year's event, Willem, the the juniors in general seem much more confident.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: The financing window has been open quite wide over the past year or two.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Companies have been able to raise a lot of money.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's the bright side of the story.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Some serious work, some proper work.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they are executing, they've been able to put plans in place for you know two or even three years.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it seems to be you know a spring in their step again.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's the bright side of the story.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's the bull marked which is starting.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but on the other um side of the story, we're here as an investor, uh I'm uh the the founder of the commodity discovery funds to find new discoveries, which companies are making new discoveries, and they're very few actually.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, although more money is coming into the the space, which is good, more drills turning, so more different discoveries should be made.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I I'm I'm surprised by the lack of the quality of let's say the tier one, tier two discovery.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very hard for us to find new stories.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I want to this this may be an extension of your point there, and and referring back to your comment about second-hand car salesmen.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because the perhaps in a better point in time, a better moment in the market, there seems to be more second-hand car salesmen here chasing money.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, companies that should not be financed.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's out rattling the can.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but there are a few exceptions.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just back from a site visit in Minnesota earlier this week where Talon Metals is uh doing a very remarkable world-class uh nickel copper discovery.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they had one of these amazing holes over 45 meters of massive sulfides, which graded around 50% copper equivalent.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look at the size of this system and the London guys, uh the London family is all over now.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this this story, uh, you can compare this in size and grade with Norylsk in in Russia.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, that's one of the big beasts out there.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jack Londin's been putting quite a bit of his personal money in the world.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Invest visitors and he visited the site as well.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, excellent.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've picked up the there's less of a buzz about MA this year as well.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I put that down to the fact that juniors have been able to raise money, so they perhaps no longer need a saviour to put them out of their misery, which they might have done sort of a couple of years ago.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they think that they can execute, they can do work, they can hold potential acquirers at bay for quite a while longer.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh as an investor, what's your view there?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want your management teams or the management teams or the companies you've invested in, presumably you want them to do work, execute, add value before a takeover offer comes?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: But what I think is interesting to mention that the major companies out there, the major producers out there who have to buy these new projects, they have the same opinion, I think, like we do, that not that many great discoveries out there.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the best projects have been sold already.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Rupert has been sold, Reunion has been sold, G2 Goldfees has been sold.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I was on the UCO mining tour uh in June this year, and it was um great to see that three majors were on that tour as well.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Normally, you just see fund managers and maybe high net worth investors on that tour.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: But three major companies sent their teams just to look for new projects.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the majors are struggling.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, majors are entering um a state like uh Idaho nowadays because they understand that Arizona and Nevada, uh you know, you won't find any new large discoveries probably there in those states.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: But Idaho is a new state and is so is getting opened up to mining.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So majors are struggling uh as well.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Again, continuing on from that, uh Willem, some of the majors, it does seem there's an increasing trend for the majors to be making strategic investments in the juniors or the ones they think do have that potential.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, recently, just this week, Adniko Eagle Mind is going big with scout discoveries.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that includes a 14.8 million dollar Canadian investment to take a 14.9% stake and the right to earn up to 70% interest in Scouts Elk City and Moldoon projects by funding up to 60 million and 30 million dollars over eight years in exploration in each in those projects.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Great example.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it shows AcNICO has made several of these uh smaller investments for them small, uh big for the for the juniors involved.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: So AcNICO is clearly building a portfolio.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Santa Gold has been doing that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the majors understand that they need to take positions in juniors to have a foot between the door, uh to understand the project a bit better, to have an advantage uh on their peers when it comes to MA.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I don't see a lot of MA coming from the majors.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it is it is it it is a healthy sign for our industry, but will it lead to more MA?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm doubtful.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you about a subject that's sort of dear to my heart, and that's the sort of communications aspects.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I imagine you sit in a lot of presentations here, you sit in a lot of presentations in general.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're not a technical person, neither am I.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're in a presentation, all the companies want to talk to you or show you the drill results, a long section, a cross section, and you know, by and large, that information just goes right over my head.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: I agree totally.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to have a side business and be a consultant and to teach them how to present.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do this together.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: And leave and tell them what slides they need to leave out.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you might remember we have organized a discovery day in Amsterdam a few years.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: We stopped doing that because it's not our core business.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: But we always coach the presenters, leave out all the technical stuff you tell during the uh investor conferences in North America because our audience in Europe is not interested in this, they won't understand it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: So just focus on the supply and demand of the metals, tell them some great stories.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we could start a business there.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh, I I interviewed uh John Hatworth brought asset management, and he basically said the same thing the companies do a terrible job of presenting themselves.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, um, as we sort of move towards the end of our conversation, Willem.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Aside from you, you're always smiling.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Investors uh the investors are never happy.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they always want more, they always want a different strategy.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do you want from companies that you're investing in today or potentially investing in today?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I want to hear the honest story, and I I stopped taking a many meetings actually.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: You said that I I'm in many meetings.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I only do five, six meetings a day because I stopped listening to all these dozens of stories, all these companies predicting uh they will do a discovery.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: We we wait uh and we'll speak to them after the discovery, and then we go in big time and we spend a lot of uh time to to do due diligence.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I find it harder and harder to come up with real great stories, real new investments we want to do, so we become more and more selective, and also to the brokers who are reaching out to us to plug their private placements.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: We we say um we say uh we have to say no uh many times a day, actually.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and fortunately we can hide now by telling them we just do the tier one and tier two projects only, and most of it what you see as tier three, tier four, or even tier five.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they get offended by that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: They they think they're advancing you a tier one or tier two opportunity.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, we think this is tier three or four.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And they always ask me what's tier one, and I always say, What at least ten million uh ounces of gold.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then you end up with the snow lines, they're very few.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then what's tier two?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say at least five million ounce.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, 95, 98 out of 100.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now you've you've obviously got the commodity discovery fund, but if you were to construct a precious metals portfolio today, how would you allocate amongst physical royalty companies, producers, developers, explorers, and so on?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I can tell you the changes we have made within our uh funds, and that has been a steep learning curve over the last 18 years.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um we started at the Golden Discovery Fund, we were very oriented on precious metals.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um now we're more critical metals fund.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you know, um there's always a new name where the battery metals, now it's all critical metals.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at the critical metals, what's real critical and what what has size?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: We need to have size.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Our fund has grown to over 400 million Canadian now, so we need sizable projects.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you find size in gold, in copper.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, lithium is getting quite a sizable industry now as well.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, uranium is still a bit small, but if you have the big investments like or the big discoveries, the big stores like chemical and exe and energy, we like them.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: In nickel, there are very few stories which are which have size, talometals is one.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we stopped doing the rare earth elements and all these specialty metals because it's just a too small market.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Who will be the buyer of all those projects?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: There are only one or two producers uh in the market who can produce these uh rare earth elements.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if we look at uh what part uh you send to the real junior miners and what part you send to the producers, we learned uh that you shouldn't uh invest all your money in junior mining because it's just too volatile.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we put like let's say 50-6% in the real juniors, the the largest discoveries out there, the top 40 worldwide, and then the rest of the portfolio uh are uh producers, and we make them market neutral to have some hedging option strategies around them, so we have less volatility in our funds.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a strategy, and we keep quite a bit of cash because you always have these nasty drawdowns and corrections or even crashes, and then you have the cash which you can uh well put at work.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's uh 2026 has been a very interesting year so far.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what what what's your outlook for the rest of the year, William?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, of course, last year was wonderful.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we had 71% return.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um this year's this year started uh quite nice in January, but then we get uh got this nasty correction.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh gold equities down 40%.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we were down 20% during that correction.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um we are up this year like 15% year to date.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think the correction is almost finished, and I I expect a very strong recovery in the last, let's say, two, three months this year.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think this year will end quite strong, but as one caution, uh we see the interest rates going up worldwide, and I'm quite nervous that it could cause some volatility and even a larger correction somewhere next year, or even the start of a new financial crisis.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you should be a bit deep should be a bit defensive as well, and that's what we try to do within our front.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh within the last week we've seen uh some of the mid-tier producers and silver companies hitting 52 week highs for some of those all-time highs.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um does that suggest to you that as you say, the this pullback, this uh consolidation is is coming to an end and the next leg up is is beginning.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why we focus a bit more on the producers as well.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because the producers now, especially in precious metals, but also in the copper space, they have a license to print money.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the uh at the prices out there.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um gold has gone back to towards$5,000 uh rather soon.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: I expect silver to go back to at least$100 silver uh$100 per ounce uh also later this year or early next year.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the copper market will be very, very strong because of the fundamental strong demand out there because of the AI in the data centers.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Willem, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing me with me your your insights and your thoughts.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Willem Middle Coop, thank you for joining me today.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot more to come from the 2026 Precious Metal Summit here in Beaver Creek in Colorado.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned and hit that subscribe button.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kitco Mining.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Kitco Mining on site coverage of the Precious Metal Summit is presented by Newcore Gold.