Robert Cohen B.A.Sc., MBA, CFA

When buy this ETF, you are just buying what is in the index. It’s not managed, it is just market cap weighted. Managed money is completely different. He has very little overlap with what is in the index, and has a history of outperforming the index. Compare this against the different mutual funds to see how they performed.

Located in the Sugar zone in Ontario. They’ve drilled the top 400 m of their deposit, which has a decent grading resource at about 7-8 g a ton, and have about 4000 ounces. That means they have found about 1000 ounces per vertical metre. That is a pretty good metric for the start of a deposit. He would like to track this to see how it goes as they go deeper, and if the deposit can grow some legs on it. Pretty interesting.

A mid-cap gold company. They are having trouble with their Didipio mine. The Philippine government has put a kind of moratorium on production as they review the environmental impact. This makes it a tough place to invest. If they lose their license, it represents 30%-40%. The political risk would scare him away.

Just changed presidents. Their growth is coming from the Ana Paula project in Mexico, a decent project. Their other mine in Mexico has got a rising cost structure, and he is not so keen on that one.

Has a rich copper discovery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Half their NAV is made up of this project. Very high grade, very robust. Working in the DRC can represent an elevated political risk. Another part of their NAV comes from the platinum project, which is also in south Africa, which he expects will not be developed until further out. That makes him question whether he should own this.

A project that is effectively right underneath the Horne Mine Complex in Québec. Originally it was very low grade gold and copper, so in order for this to be economic, they have to be able to mine it using bulk mining methods, and keep the costs as low as possible. That would entail blockading. He gets a little weary, because it becomes a “show me” story. He is on the sidelines, but it could be an interesting project.

A really nice, high grade gold deposit in Burkina Faso. It has about a 1 million ounce in indicated resources. They are mining about 100,000 ounces a year. Very robust. Very fast payback. Great economics. Great management team. They’ve been pulling some good drill results from the other areas as well. He likes the story.

This now has a project in Mongolia which has epithermal veins, which he loves. When you do find them and they carry great grades, it can grow really fast. This has a 50 g/meter width quite prominent with something like 16% which gets him excited. Still very early stage.

The Bruce/Jack project north of Stewart BC. In their final stages of construction, with 13 km left to go on the powerline. This will be a very interesting mine to follow. The geology is complex because it has a high-grade nature to it, and is a little nuggetty. If this works, it will become one of Canada’s important gold mines.

A gold project just north of Nunavut. This has been a very interesting project. Because of past ownership and the amount of money put into the exploration, this is now a robust project. They are just going into production now.

They want to build a mine in Brazil, but there are some environmental controversies. They have the Volte Grande project which is over 6.1 million ounces in all categories, and a grade over a gram a ton. In early years, they can have higher grades, so you get a really robust payback. From a technical perspective, everything is great.

Their Cobre copper project in the Panama will make this company one of the largest copper miners in the world. They have to get through the construction. They have debt on the balance sheet, which makes things a little precarious. He would probably stay on the sidelines.

One of the premier Canadian gold miners. Producing about 1.65 ramping up to 1.7 million ounces a year. Reasonable cash costs. Not a cheap stock, but they’ve done an incredible job and have a lot of growth behind them. They are also investing in a number of junior companies. Very good management. He likes this.

An exploration project in Nevada. Really great geology. They are still reinterpreting all the stacking that has gone on in the batter, which he finds pretty interesting. Market cap is $700 million, so it is not a cheap stock. If it pulls back, this is one you could look at.

Has a huge mine in Ontario and is perennially seen as being a takeover candidate. They wanted to permit the West Detour zone, but the permitting process is going slower than expected. There are some loans coming due this year, so they will have to do some financing. Once they get through that, this is a decent producer. One thing to keep an eye on is the new Life of Mine plan (LOM). Overall, this is a cheap stock. As a takeover candidate, it would be a sizable acquisition of possibly $3 billion.