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**GOLD INVESTOR!** They are Poised to be #2 Gold Producer in CANADA - Equinox Gold · SILVER / GOLD / $UFD: Surviving Global Economic Shifts | RONS BASEMENT

0:00
Today we're joined by Relin Bailey.
0:02
She's the Vice President of Investor Relations for Equinox
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Gold. They've had tremendous growth
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over the last six to seven years, bringing them up to a
0:11
point today where they're poised to be the second largest gold
0:15
miner in Canada. It's an incredible story.
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We're going to talk about briefly about what's LED them up
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to today, but also the exciting period, transformative period
0:25
that the company's moving into after a recent merger with
0:29
Caliber Mining. Roland, welcome to Ron's
0:32
basement. Thanks Ron.
0:33
This is exciting. Yeah, it is exciting.
0:36
In Full disclosure, I've owned the company's stock for over six
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years. You and I talked several times
0:42
over the past number of years, but I remember six years ago,
0:45
this was a smaller company started by Ross Beatty with this
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lofty goal of getting to 1,000,000 ounces of gold
0:53
production. And it feels like we're kind of
0:55
knocking on that door right now. What's the journey been like
0:58
over the last 6-7? Well, Ross does like to say he
1:02
started the company and we let him go with that, but it
1:04
actually started before that. So I was employee number six in
1:08
2016 and at the time we had just one development stage asset in
1:12
Brazil with a vision of being a mid tier gold producer.
1:15
And the first transaction that we did was in March of 2017, we
1:19
merged with a company called JDL Gold that had some copper assets
1:23
and some cash and they wanted to bring some gold into the
1:25
portfolio. And then very quickly on the
1:27
heels of that is when we did the merger that the Equinox goal
1:30
that you see today. So that was when Ross joined us.
1:33
So we did a merger with two other companies in December
1:36
2017. So we sort of say the start of
1:38
the company was December 2017. And Ross Beatty joined us then
1:42
as our Chairman and our largest individual shareholder.
1:45
Ross, for people who know him, is an incredibly successful
1:48
resource entrepreneur. He's a geologist, so he knows
1:51
what he's looking at. He's built probably 30 resource
1:54
companies. If you don't know him, I highly
1:57
encourage you to Google him because he's an amazing human
1:59
being, but also incredibly successful as an investor and A
2:03
and a company starter. So probably his most famous
2:05
company is Pan American silver, which he started about 30 years
2:09
ago. It's the world's second largest
2:10
gold produced silver producer now and then.
2:13
At the time he, so this is at the end of 2017, gold was around
2:17
$1300.00 an ounce and Ross felt like gold was poised to start to
2:21
run and he wanted to build a gold investment vehicle.
2:24
He already had Pan American silver, which was his silver.
2:26
He had started a green energy company called Interjects.
2:29
That was his dream energy investment and he wanted a gold
2:32
investment vehicle and he said we're going to build a gold
2:34
company, we're going to make it a million ounce a year producer
2:36
and we're going to do it quickly because we want to achieve that
2:39
maximum production when gold prices peak.
2:42
And he sure called it because both $3300.00 an ounce are
2:45
probably even higher. I haven't had a chance to check
2:47
this morning. And of course if you're going to
2:50
build a big gold company quickly, you can't do it through
2:52
exploration and development, you need to do it through M&A.
2:55
So it's been a pretty busy seven years, lots of transactions.
2:58
We bought a producing gold mine in 2018 that's Mesquite, our
3:02
mine in California that's been producing for since 1986.
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So people who say oh, you can't produce gold in California, well
3:08
yeah, you can. We've been doing it for decades.
3:11
And then in 2020, so March of 2020, we bought Leah Gold, which
3:15
gave us a big mine in Mexico and a portfolio of mines in Brazil.
3:19
In April of 2021, we bought Premier Gold which gave us our
3:23
flagship greenstone mine in Ontario, another mine in Mexico
3:26
and some very prospective exploration properties in
3:29
Canada. And then of course most recently
3:31
in June of this year, we completed our merger with
3:33
Caliber Mining and that the merger with Caliber feels like
3:36
it's that final piece in the puzzle.
3:38
So we've been working to be the million ounce a year gold
3:40
producer will be there. Just me, we should be there next
3:43
year or so. It's just a we can see it, it's
3:45
just that close now. And the way that we're going to
3:48
get there is Caliber brought some producing assets in
3:51
Nicaragua, a small producing mining in the United States, but
3:55
most importantly brought us another mining Canada.
3:57
So we've got our big Greenstone mine in Ontario.
4:00
Caliber was just finishing up construction of a mine in
4:03
Newfoundland, Canada. So with those two mines together
4:06
under one umbrella, we will eventually be the second largest
4:09
producer of gold in Canada. So that was the real driver
4:12
behind that transaction with Caliber was to get those two big
4:15
Canadian mines. Our Greenstone mine will produce
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probably around 350,000 oz a year.
4:21
The Valentine mine in Newfoundland is expected to
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produce close to 200,000 oz a year.
4:25
They're both, well Greenstone's ramping up to capacity.
4:28
It's been in production since last Valentine's, expected to
4:31
pour gold at the end of Q3 and be ramped up by around the first
4:34
quarter of next year. So by, you know the middle of
4:37
next year, we'll have those two big mines producing at capacity.
4:41
Now you're looking at, you know, 550,000 oz a year coming just
4:44
from Canada. And if you look at the mining
4:47
portfolios, you'll find that the companies that are producing
4:50
predominantly from Canada do tend to trade at a premium in
4:53
the market. So we're helping to bring that
4:55
premium to our shareholders. So that was the driving thesis
4:59
behind that. But then of course, we also got
5:01
this fantastic team. We were a bit late on the
5:04
operational side. We've had a bit of a hiring
5:06
freeze for the last couple of years because we were building
5:08
Greenstone. It was capital intensive.
5:11
We didn't wanna be, you know, we wanted to keep that money going
5:13
into the ground and not get too thin in the treasury.
5:16
So we haven't been adding new people to the team, but we were
5:18
expanding. And so with Caliber also came an
5:22
incredibly successful operations team.
5:24
And I think that's sort of the going to be the key to success
5:27
going forward is having these big minds, lots of production,
5:29
but also having additional operations expertise.
5:33
Wow, So when when Ross Beatty says he wants to do it quickly,
5:36
he wasn't joking around. No, Yeah, it's, it's been a very
5:41
busy, I guess 7 or 8 years, but it's it's so exciting to just be
5:45
on the cusp of achieving what we set out to achieve.
5:48
And so the mission like I said it was to be 1,000,000 oz a year
5:51
gold producer have a lot of gold in the ground.
5:53
So we've got 23 million ounces of reserves, 22 million ounces
5:56
of resources. So I sort of feel like we've
5:59
checked that box and now the new mission with the new team is
6:02
double the share price. So if despite all the growth
6:05
that we've achieved over all these years from zero production
6:08
to 850,000 oz this year, that's the midpoint of our guidance,
6:11
hopefully 1,000,000 oz next year.
6:13
Despite all that growth and despite the gold price where it
6:16
is, you know, you're a long-suffering shareholder, the
6:19
share price hasn't really moved. And so the new mission now is
6:22
double the share price, so. Yeah.
6:24
But you, you know, one thing that always gave me solace was
6:27
knowing that Ross was personally invested heavily into the
6:31
company and that the management team also was personally
6:37
invested in the company and that, and that there was A, and
6:40
I, and I was told this and I think I observed this, that
6:43
there was a like an owner's mentality within the, within the
6:47
management team. Yeah, we've all put our own
6:50
money into it. I like to joke that from a net
6:52
value perspective, I've actually invested more than Ross has
6:55
because I'm not a billionaire. But no, we've all put our own
6:57
money into it. This is, you know, not options
7:00
that were granted. This is Money that we took out
7:01
of our pockets and put into the company.
7:03
And same with the Caliber team. So all the Caliber executives
7:06
that have joined us, they were incredibly invested in Caliber.
7:10
And of course, all those shares transferred into Equinox Gold
7:12
shares. So very strong insider
7:15
ownership. We're at about 4.5% with you.
7:18
If you look at our peers, I think that's the second largest
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insider ownership in the in the industry, second by a lot like
7:25
the graph goes everybody else and then us so and we have an
7:29
employee share purchase program. So I think about 80% of eligible
7:33
employees are buying shares every single month.
7:36
OK, OK. And you mentioned something
7:37
interesting to me. There's 23 million oz roughly of
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gold reserves and resources in the ground.
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And if I, if my math is correct, Roland, if you're doing about at
7:49
some point here soon around 1,000,000 oz a year, that's
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almost 23 years worth of production runway potential
7:56
ahead of you. Plus, I mean, to me that's a lot
7:59
that's important 'cause I know that some of the big gold mining
8:01
companies will be producing a lot, but maybe they haven't
8:05
invested in their pipeline. And is that safe to say that
8:09
that's a a pretty healthy reserve for a company of your
8:12
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8:54
Very healthy reserve, yes. I mean, I'm not you don't
8:57
collect all of that gold. There's a recovery, sure, of
9:00
course. So it depends if it's going
9:01
heat, bleach or into a mill. But sure, 23,000 oz million
9:05
ounces of gold is a very respectable reserve.
9:07
We've also got the additional 22 million ounces of measured and
9:11
indicated resources. And so the, the goal then of
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course is to do infill drilling and convert those M and I
9:17
resources into reserves. And that's what allows you to
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carry on mining. But we're also doing a lot of
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exploration. We just this morning actually
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announced exploration results out of one of our Nicaragua
9:26
properties. So it's, it's, you know, just by
9:29
virtue of mining, we're constantly depleting our
9:32
product, right. So you do need to be exploring
9:34
internally or doing more M and A to buy more ounces.
9:37
So we've got quite a healthy exploration program going on
9:40
this year. Around $80 million will be
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invested in Nicaragua at Valentine.
9:44
They discovered a new deposit at Valentine and so they're doing
9:49
more exploration to hopefully prove that out and bring it into
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the mine life. We've got 4 million ounces in an
9:54
underground deposit sitting underneath Greenstone.
9:56
So we'll be doing some exploration there in the near
9:58
term to bring that into the mine life.
10:01
We're doing an underground expansion at our Arizona mine in
10:03
Brazil. So we're actually going to start
10:05
portal development later this year.
10:07
So, so we can go in and start doing some bulk sampling and
10:10
some underground drilling lots. So we're not only looking at
10:13
sort of infill drilling that builds up your reserves.
10:16
So the goal is to replace your reserves every year and we've
10:18
consistently done that, but also to find that next generation of
10:22
mines that will be able to come into the pipeline down the road.
10:25
And so we're doing quite a bit of regional exploration as well
10:28
at our properties. OK.
10:30
OK. I want to touch on something you
10:32
mentioned earlier that that I myself kind of feel and it
10:36
observed is following the the company closely and that is over
10:39
that six year period that you described with all this massive
10:43
growth, all these acquisitions growth is disruptive in some
10:47
ways, challenging, expensive, but it feels like the company is
10:51
now right at maybe a tipping point or a transition phase
10:55
where where they can begin, where you can begin.
10:58
We can begin to harvest some of the gains from all that work
11:04
that's gone in all that money that's been spent.
11:06
Is that a? Is that a safe assessment of
11:08
where we stand? Yeah.
11:09
And I think that's a big reason of why our share price is where
11:11
it is, is that we have been growing.
11:12
We've been growing our product year over year, but we've also
11:15
been spending quite a bit to build new mines.
11:17
So we've not only done the acquisitions that I talked
11:19
about, but we've also built 4 mines along the way.
11:22
So we've built 2 mines in Brazil, one in in California and
11:26
most recently our big mine in Ontario.
11:28
And that was, you know, a billion dollar investment and
11:30
the market doesn't like development stage risk, right?
11:33
Because there's always things that go wrong with the builds.
11:36
There's lots of mines that have been built recently that, you
11:38
know, their cap, their CapEx doubled, their, you know,
11:41
timelines got stretched out by a year or so, despite the fact
11:44
that we built Greenstone on time.
11:46
So we said we would pour gold in the first half of 2024, report
11:50
gold in May, despite the fact that we said we would, you know,
11:53
build it on budget. And we were just a hair's breath
11:55
away from being on budget. I think it's a pretty impressive
11:58
achievement in that inflationary environment.
12:00
If you cast your mind back to 2021 and 2022, input costs were
12:04
just going through the roof and supply chain delays.
12:07
So the fact that the team is able to keep it on budget is
12:09
extraordinary. So despite the fact that we
12:11
achieved those two things, we're still basically trading like the
12:14
developer. So I think until Greenstone is
12:17
fully ramped up and the market can go, OK, Phew, everything's
12:20
working the way it's supposed to to work, we still have that
12:23
development stage discount baked into our stock.
12:25
And then if there was the only complaint that we got from
12:28
Equinox Gold shareholders when we when we talked about the
12:31
Caliber merger where they're like, I felt like Greenstone
12:34
development risk was pretty much done and now you've introduced
12:36
new development risk with the Valentine build.
12:38
So I think, I think you probably won't see those two minds fully
12:43
valued in our stock until they've both been operating at
12:45
capacity for a few quarters. So maybe by the middle of next
12:48
year. But you know, to your point, we
12:51
are at that tipping point, right?
12:52
We've been building, building, building, acquiring, acquiring
12:54
network tipping over into that cash flow stage, which is what
12:57
we've been working toward from the beginning.
13:00
So if you look at where this company is today and where it's
13:03
going to be a year from now, we'll have those two big
13:05
Canadian mines at capacity. All of that development risk is
13:08
behind us. An incredible amount of cash
13:11
flow coming out. I mean these gold prices hold
13:13
are all in sustaining costs. Next year with those two mines
13:16
ramped up should be maybe $1500 per oz.
13:19
I mean forward-looking statements, this is not
13:21
guidance, but as those bigger lower cost mines increase their
13:26
production, the costs come down, right?
13:27
So we should see significantly lower more costs next year.
13:30
And now you're, you know, you're locking in a margin of like two
13:33
1500 to $2000.00 an ounce. If we're producing close to
13:37
1,000,000 oz, that's a lot of cash flow.
13:39
So now you've got your debt paid down and then we can do that
13:42
final thing that we've been promising since the beginning,
13:44
which is returning capital to shareholders.
13:46
So from the beginning, Ross is like million oz a year producer
13:49
and we'll be paying a dividend because he's an investor, right?
13:52
He want, he's our biggest investor.
13:53
He wants a dividend. So we should be in a position to
13:56
do that by probably the end of next year or so.
13:59
It'll, there'll probably be a combo dividend and and maybe
14:02
some share buybacks depending where the price is.
14:04
But that's sort of what then you've made it right.
14:08
If you've got steady state production, solid cash flow,
14:11
you're paying, you're returning capital to shareholders plus
14:14
you've got that pipeline of growth so that you can maintain
14:17
that production. That's what we've been working
14:19
for to the beginning and so close.
14:21
It's like a year away. Yeah, yeah.
14:23
Now it feels like it's it's happening from from my
14:25
perspective and I want to talk about the future growth of the
14:29
company. But first I want to touch on
14:32
Darren Hall, who was is the CEO of the of the newly emerged
14:36
companies and just touch on Nicaragua, if you will, because
14:41
I, I, I read about that mine and from what I understand when they
14:45
took that mine over, it was near the end of its lifespan.
14:48
But they've, and we know we got some great drill results out
14:51
this morning, but they really expanded that and, and grew that
14:54
organically. Is that correct?
14:56
No, they've done a fantastic job in Nicaragua.
14:58
They bought it from B2 Gold. I can't remember what year it
15:01
was, but you're right. It was had, you know, just maybe
15:03
like 2 or 300,000 ounces of reserves.
15:05
Now they've built that up to over 1,000,000 ounces of
15:07
reserves, plus they produce 1,000,000 ounces of gold.
15:10
So that was a real turn around story where they took a mine
15:13
that was supposed to be closing down and said we see lots of
15:16
opportunities here, did a ton of exploration, have been very
15:19
successful and it's, you know, it's been a great cash producer
15:22
for them. Nicaragua for us, I got it.
15:26
We're one team now. And Nicaragua was a bit of a
15:29
different operating model too at first glance because it's, it's
15:32
got 2 mills. It's what's called a hub and
15:35
spoke operating model where there's two separate mills and
15:37
multiple local deposits around the country.
15:40
And so they just, whether they're open pit underground,
15:42
they dig them up and they drive them sometimes hundreds of
15:45
kilometers to process it at one of these mills.
15:48
And in it, there's great infrastructure in Nicaragua.
15:51
Like you could never do that in Brazil because the roads are not
15:53
well enough maintained to want to be driving anything 200
15:56
kilometers. But in Nicaragua, I haven't been
15:58
there yet. I'm very much looking forward to
16:00
doing a site tour. But apparently the roads are
16:02
fantastic, good security, you know, great country to operate
16:05
them and they did to dig up from wherever they've discovered the
16:08
deposits and truck it to one of the mills.
16:10
And, and they've actually had incredible permitting success,
16:13
success as well, which shows the government and community
16:16
support. So they've been able to take
16:17
deposits from discovery through to production in less than 24
16:21
months multiple times. So they're the, we're the
16:24
largest producer of gold in Nicaragua, which obviously you
16:27
know, you're paying taxes, you're employing people, that
16:29
brings you a lot of support. So it's been a really impressive
16:33
success story there. Yeah.
16:34
So, so right now with Greenstone and Ballantyne, obviously the
16:38
opportunity to become the second largest gold producer in Canada.
16:42
But when I look at the the other projects that that the that you
16:46
guys already own right, Castle Mountain, the big opportunity in
16:50
Mexico, I mean there's already things in the in house that
16:55
could generate kind of big growth here in the next 5 to 10
16:58
years. Is that is that a safe
17:00
statement? Absolutely.
17:01
So we're still a growth focused company, but the key is that we
17:05
don't need to do anymore M and A to achieve that growth.
17:08
So that's a big, that's a big sort of, you know, another check
17:12
mark, I guess, you know, so we've been doing all this M and
17:14
A like you said, it's capital intensive, it's time intensive.
17:18
Like it's a big, it's a big process to integrate an asset,
17:22
integrate the teams for the accounting team to have to
17:24
figure out how to, you know, do the accounting treatments every
17:28
time you take something over. So hopefully that is mostly
17:30
behind us now and we can just focus on the the assets that we
17:33
own and then delivering that growth.
17:35
So just if you look at the portfolio that's currently in
17:38
production, so Greenstone, so we're going to produce 850,000
17:42
ounces are midpoint of guidance for this year.
17:44
That's only 240,000 oz from Greenstone.
17:47
But when it's ramped up to capacity, that's expected to be
17:50
closer to 3:30, maybe 350. So you've got about 100,000
17:54
ounces of growth coming from Greenstone alone in just the
17:58
next 12 months. Then you've got Valentine coming
18:00
into production. So it'll pour gold around the
18:02
end of Q3, you'll get a little bit of production in Q4, but
18:05
then it's ramped up next year. So you have another close to
18:08
180, two 100,000 oz coming from Valentine.
18:11
Then you've got the assets in Nicaragua and Brazil.
18:14
And then we've got, like you said, so that's just very, very
18:17
near term growth, right? You've got almost 300,000 ounces
18:21
of near term growth coming in the next 12 months.
18:24
Then you've got Castle Mountain. So that's our mine in California
18:27
that we're permitting. Again, people say, how do you
18:29
can you permit a mine in California?
18:31
Well, the key to success there is that this was a mine that was
18:33
already in production. So it already has operating
18:35
permits. We're just permitting an
18:37
expansion. So that will be Castle Mountain
18:40
phase two. It's expected to produce over
18:42
200,000 oz per year. And the the new Trump
18:46
administration is very supportive of resource
18:48
extraction. Gold was declared a critical
18:50
mineral and we've been accepted into the Fast 41 program, which
18:54
is a program that's intended to expedite permits for critical
18:57
minerals. So we expect to have the permits
19:00
for Castle Mountain around the middle of 2027.
19:03
Let's say it's a two year build. So by the end of 2029, now
19:06
you've got Castle Mountain ramped up to capacity.
19:08
So now you've got grainstone, let's say 350, you've got
19:11
Valentine 200, Castle Mountain 200, all of that coming just
19:16
from Canada and the United States.
19:18
So that alone is a company builder, right?
19:21
But then we've also got the Brazil assets, the other mines
19:23
in California, the mines in Nicaragua.
19:25
And then like you said, we've got this wild card in Mexico.
19:28
So Los Filos, that could be a whole another podcast just
19:31
talking about Los Filos. But it's a mine that was in
19:33
production. We needed to renegotiate the
19:36
community agreements with three communities that we work with
19:38
there. We were successful with two of
19:40
them. One of them has decided not to
19:43
sign any long term agreement. So we unfortunately had to shut
19:45
that mine down on April 1st. It will come back into
19:48
production one day and when it does expected to produce again
19:51
well over 250,000 oz per year. The only question is the
19:56
question mark is timeline, when will that happen, right.
19:59
So we've got into the market not to expect any production from
20:01
Philos this year, potentially next year.
20:03
But when it does come back into production, now you've got
20:06
another big long life mine in the Americas.
20:09
So a lot of growth built into the portfolio.
20:12
Some of those assets will be divested.
20:14
We do not want to have 11 producing mines long term so.
20:17
You should expect to see some asset sales over the next sort
20:20
of 6 to 12 months and of course the profits from those will get
20:24
right on get put right on to the debt.
20:26
So, you know, we're building cash flow, building production,
20:29
also paying down our debts and all of that leads to the the
20:32
objective of returning capital to shareholders.
20:36
Awesome. Two more questions if you have
20:38
just a few more minutes. For me, when I, when I, when I
20:41
think about the general market for gold mining stocks,
20:45
obviously it's been quite suppressed over the last 10
20:48
years or so. I feel like that's starting to
20:51
change. And I think that as we get
20:53
through this most recent earnings season, I know Thursday
20:56
of last week, Newmont Mining put out really blockbuster earnings
21:01
that we have the potential for some of the generalist investors
21:05
to join us. And it feels like that could be
21:08
aligned at the same time that Equinox is like we've talked
21:11
about kind of pivoting into this new phase for the company.
21:15
I think it presents a very exciting opportunity.
21:18
Any thoughts on what you see in the kind of the general gold
21:21
mining sector stocks at this point?
21:24
First Mining Gold is a Canadian gold developer with two multi
21:29
million ounce projects in Canada, Spring Pole in Ontario
21:34
and Duparque located in Quebec. Millions of Oz of gold in the
21:39
ground in Canada moving through the permitting process.
21:43
The company has zero debt in many big catalyst on the
21:46
horizon. Yeah, it's been interesting
21:48
because the generals have been taking meetings for a couple of
21:51
years, so they're certainly sniffing around, but we haven't
21:55
seen them taking large positions.
21:57
So I think certainly the fact that, you know, gold is holding
22:01
steady at these prices and it's not good when gold rises too
22:04
quickly because then people expect it to fall quickly.
22:07
But it's been holding pretty steady at these at these levels.
22:10
You know, if you look at all the macroeconomics around the world,
22:13
unfortunately, gold does really well if there's turmoil, right?
22:17
If there's wars, if there's global unrest, if there's
22:19
political unrest, that's when gold tends to perform better.
22:23
And none of that seems to be going away, unfortunately,
22:26
unfortunately for the world, but good for the gold industry.
22:29
So all of that's in place. And so, and we're hoping, I
22:32
mean, the thesis again, behind doing the merger with Caliber
22:35
Mining is that we're hoping that by having predominantly North
22:39
American assets in our in our portfolio, that will give the
22:43
generalists the comfort of going, OK, well, I need to get
22:45
into, I'd rather get into something that seems a little
22:48
bit less risky. And so we've, you know, by being
22:51
in North America, which, you know, Canada, the states that
22:53
are obviously very mining friendly jurisdictions, we're
22:55
hoping that that will lead them toward Equinox Gold as their
22:58
investment of choice. And we are starting to see the
23:00
gold equities sort of bridge that gap between gold price.
23:04
Usually they're quite aligned and there's been this huge gap,
23:07
like if you look at the GDX and the GDXJ, but they are starting
23:09
to close that gap. So maybe that means that the
23:12
journalists are starting to come in, but I don't know if this
23:14
stat is right, but I think something like less than 1% of
23:18
global investments are actually in gold.
23:20
So if that just jumps to 2%, I mean that's really going to make
23:23
the equity. It's been a, it's been a ghost
23:26
town for people that invest in gold and silver mining stocks
23:30
and especially the development and exploration stage.
23:33
And I agree with you 100%. And I, and I always, and I've
23:36
said this for years, I get very excited about that because like
23:40
you said, it's a lot easier to go from 1% to 2% and get 100%
23:46
more people in the market than it is to go from 15% to 30%.
23:52
So, you know, the silver lining, pardon the pun, or the gold
23:55
lining is, is that this, this period of, of, you know, maybe
24:00
not as much interest as we have traditionally experienced.
24:03
It could, could turn into a very good thing for those of us who
24:07
have kind of, you know, held the line and, and looked, looked and
24:10
recognized the real value. And when I look at Equinox, I've
24:14
always been a big value investor and I look at the management and
24:18
I look at it, you know, how your team has so much skin in the
24:21
game and just all the different factors.
24:23
I see a great value opportunity. And I'm not a financial advisor.
24:27
I know you're not either, but I do think that there's great
24:30
opportunity for capital appreciation within the, within
24:34
the stock. And I like that you, you know,
24:36
said the team has a goal to see the stock price double and I
24:39
think that's very reasonable. So I guess my last question for
24:43
you, unless you have anything more that you want to share with
24:46
us is, you know, if I, if I would have the privilege of
24:49
talking to you 6 months from now and everything had gone pretty
24:53
much to plan. I mean, what's, what's the best
24:56
case scenario where we may be sitting in early 2026?
25:00
I know nothing goes perfectly to plan in the mining world, but
25:03
pretty much to plan. It is a it is a roller coaster
25:07
industry for sure. I've been in mining since 1995.
25:10
Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's got its ups
25:13
and downs. And that's the key to success,
25:14
of course, is like you want to build your production base, you
25:17
want to, but you also want to keep costs as low as possible.
25:19
And I think that's where some mining companies go wrong as
25:22
they're like, oh, well, gold's at 3300, we can spend more,
25:25
right? And you've got to always be
25:27
keeping, you know, a cost control focus because the gold
25:30
price may not stay here forever, right?
25:32
Some people are calling for 5000 gold, 10,000 gold, some people
25:35
are saying it's going to go back to 2000.
25:36
So you have to make sure that you're building a business
25:39
that's sustainable through all of those ebbs and flows.
25:42
We actually brought in a whole new department a couple of years
25:44
ago, years ago called the continual improvement
25:47
department. So we've got AVP of continual
25:49
improvement, we've got AVP procurement now.
25:51
So trying to make sure that we, as we become a bigger company,
25:54
trying to make sure that we've got all those systems in place
25:57
to make sure that we're being as cost effective as possible.
26:00
But also giving the teams on the ground the opportunity to say,
26:04
hey, I think we could be doing this better.
26:05
Like here's where we could do some cost savings or here,
26:07
whereas we could recycle the built them, the mall built all
26:12
mil balls. That's a hard thing to say.
26:15
And they've come up with all these really cool like
26:17
innovations because the team on the ground is the one that knows
26:20
how best to add value. And they're also, if you can get
26:23
them energized and excited about contributing to to the
26:27
sustainability and and the cost production of the company,
26:30
that's really exciting. That keeps your team engaged as
26:33
well, right. So I mean, that's the thing with
26:36
Equinox Gold is from day one, we've been focused on building a
26:39
legacy company. We're not here to pump and dump,
26:42
right? We want to build a company
26:43
that's going to be here 30 years from now that's profitable.
26:47
That's, you know, a legacy for our team of something that we've
26:50
created. Just like Ross did with Pan
26:51
American Silver. We want to be able to look back
26:53
and go, that's really cool. We built something really cool
26:56
that's bringing value to shareholders, bringing value to
26:59
local communities with a, you know, a employee base that's
27:02
proud to come to work every day. That's what we're trying to
27:05
build. So despite, you know, I'm
27:07
investor relations, like I get a lot of heat when the share price
27:10
isn't performing, but I, but I take comfort from knowing that
27:13
it's, this company is led by a team with an incredible amount
27:16
of integrity, incredible amount of belief in what we're
27:19
building. And when people call me, they're
27:21
like, should I buy the stock? Where are we going to be 6
27:23
months from now? Right?
27:24
I'm like, well, if you're trying to put your kids through
27:26
university and they're starting in September of 2025, this might
27:29
not be the stock for you because there's probably still going to
27:32
be some volatility as we bring Valentine into construction, I
27:35
mean, into production until Greenstone's fully ramped up and
27:38
smooth sailing, there's still going to be some volatility in
27:40
the stock. But if you're looking and put
27:42
your kids through university in September 2026, that's a
27:45
different story. I mean, I, I, I'm a shareholder,
27:48
like my retirement is predicated on this, this stock doing well.
27:52
And I have 0 concerns about where we're going to be long
27:55
term. I know it's going to be bumpy
27:56
short term, but long term, I really feel like we're building
27:59
something that's quite exceptional and it makes it fun
28:02
to come to work everyday. I have no idea what question you
28:05
asked me, but that's my answer. Asked you to give a a a
28:07
prediction of the ideal world for Equinox 6 months from now.
28:11
But I love what you said so it was a great.
28:14
It was great. We've got a couple of slides in
28:16
our presentation deck that shows our valuation compared to our
28:19
peers and it look like we've got the largest production growth
28:23
expected over the next two years, the largest, second
28:25
largest reserve base out of the peer group.
28:28
You know, huge EBITDA growth, huge cash flow growth, but we're
28:31
still trading at the bottom of the pile.
28:33
And I have to think that, you know, as we start to deliver on
28:36
these different objectives, reduce the risk, reduce the
28:39
development risk at Greenstone and Valentine investors start to
28:42
see quarter over production growth, cash flow growth.
28:45
Like we surely we have to start making our way up that valuation
28:48
letter. It feels like we're just so
28:51
close. And, and, and, you know, Roland,
28:53
like the company's gone through this massive period of growth.
28:56
And I'm a big believer in this idea that any organization, any
29:01
company, any great achievement that's ever occurred, that's
29:05
gone through a big growth period.
29:08
There's always some suffering that goes along with that.
29:10
And that, that actually grows the strength of the, of the
29:14
company, the strength of the, of the management team.
29:17
And it really feels like to me that right now Equinox's
29:20
position to, to start to, you know, kind of transition into
29:24
more of this cash flowing stage. And, and like you talked about
29:27
with all these other internal projects available, I think, I
29:31
think the future looks bright. I'm going to, I'm going to look
29:33
forward to to watching it for sure.
29:35
Thank you. Yeah, Yeah.
29:37
Well, if there's not anything else that you want to share on
29:39
behalf of our viewer, I think you've done an incredible,
29:43
incredible job. I think I said this earlier, but
29:45
I think you and I have talked on the phone occasionally over the
29:49
last five to six years. And you know, it's always a
29:53
pleasure to get to talk to you because you're you're very
29:55
smart, you're very concise, and you're very passionate about
29:59
what you're doing with Equinox. So on behalf of myself and our
30:02
viewer, thank you. And we'll look forward to seeing
30:06
you hopefully in six months. Absolutely, thanks for having me
30:08
run.