Ross HealyIamgold CorpIMG.TOPAST TOP PICKNov 18, 2020

Neither is in the lowest-cost quartile in the space. IMG is the most-improved gold story in Canada. He is a gold bull, but neither would be in his Top 20.

(Note the short timeframe.) Inflection point in 2026, where FCF will be a wall of cash. Will be one of the top 5 mines in Canada once it hits full operation. Still a takeover candidate.

Consistent theme across his Top Picks will be companies that are going to rerate, due to new projects or a shift in business.

This one has benefited from strong gold prices, but real upside will come from the Cote gold mine around Sudbury. It will start to operate at full speed by end of 2025, meaning material growth in production. Budget doubled, but all sins are forgiven because so has the price of gold since the mine opened. They'll be able to de-leverage, resulting in significant FCF in 2026 and 2027 for either buybacks or distributions. 

Key will be what happens after 2028, because their West Africa mine ends. No dividend.

The question was on Iamgold and Teck Resources. IMG has declared some good news from its Quebec mine and Teck has more copper production with gold as an add-on. However both operate in some places that are less politically agreeable. He likes the gold sector but prefers bigger and more diversified companies in more stable countries including the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Chile. Following along this theme he owns both Kinross and Agnico Eagle.

Great rocks. Lousy balance sheet, which needs to be fixed with refinancing and can get ugly for existing shareholders. For most investors, he'd sell and take the tax loss. Then re-buy in 31 days depending on outcome of refinancing. New CEO is an expert in troubled companies.

Don't argue with an uptrend. Pulling back to the trendline. You can see that it was parabolic. Will probably take a pause, but moving in the right direction along with gold. Long-term investors will be fine.

Whole sector's been a pretty good place to be. If you're looking for real strength as far as opportunity goes, move downstream from the big names to mid-tier names like IMG. Those are the ones that are behaving quite robustly.

Often it works to buy a basket, and then drill down and add one name for some extra alpha.