Nick "The Mining Book Guy" on Mundoro Capital and their JV with Vale
Trevor Hall And welcome back to Mining Stock Daily. This is Trevor Hall and I'm joined by a dear friend of ours, that's Nick, the Mining Book Guy. Nick, you are doing some really interesting things and really putting some of your investments out there for the public to see. But before we get into some of that, how are you my friend?
Nick Oh, I'm well, Trevor. And thanks for having me. It's great to catch up with you here.
Trevor Hall One of the reasons I wanted to--well, actually the reason I reached out to you, is because you recently put out a video on a company that you and I have had extensive conversations about, actually for probably more than two years now. And that's Mundoro Capital. They have exploration projects the Timok Magmatic Complex and Serbia. They've got a J.V. with JOGMEC and another one with Freeport. And recently just came out with another announcement with another J.V., this one with the Vale. And there's a number of different interesting catalysts to this for a number of reasons. But you did put out a video on your thoughts on why you were putting money back into Mundoro. So, give us the highlights of why you're doing this and what really popped out with you about the surprise of this, J.V.
Nick Trevor, thanks for highlighting that. And, um, before I get into some of the details, I just want to be clear that this video went out to my free email list, which anyone can subscribe to. We can talk a little bit more about that later. But it's not in the public domain at the moment. But I put it out there within 24 hours of the Vale J.V. with Mundoro, when that was announced. And I thought it was quite a shock because this stock was trading basically at its kind of two-year low right before that. So clearly the market didn't see it coming. And it really just adds another dimension to why Mundoro is special as a tiny--we can say nano Cap Junior, less than $10 million Canadian market cap, and to have three world class J.V.'s; The JOGMEC J.V., as you mentioned, with a Japanese national company, the Freeport J.V., which is a very well recognized company and now Vale. And that is so unusual for such a tiny company to have these great deals. And the market did pick up on it a little bit. We'll see as time goes on if that changes. But I had to put the video out there, because this is a perfect example of inefficiencies in the Junior market, where sometimes it can take a few days or even a few weeks. And, you know, whether it's newsletters or professional investors, you know, they don't always pick up on it. And I wanted to buy shares for myself and also perhaps be the first person to publicly announce why this Vale deal was such a big deal.
Trevor Hall It's really interesting. And you mentioned basically a two-year low in the stock price that really took a hit a few months back when I believe it was JOGMEC that came out and showed some drilling assay results that really weren't not all that impressive. However, JOGMEC did decide to move through with the phase two of that joint venture, which was really telling. So, there was good news and bad news, it seemed like. But things are still improving. But this is different because this is Vale. Vale, a Brazilian company. And you mentioned this in the video, really doesn't have much of a presence in Europe, but now they do.
Nick I'm glad you caught that, Trevor. This is something I still want to speak with Teo Dechev, the CEO of Mundoro to confirm. But I always think it's even more valuable when a company does a J.V. with one of these Majors that is entering a new space. It means that they see something that they're willing to put their name out there to try to seize an opportunity that, you know, is different than, for instance, a different Major. You know, a good example would be Rio Tinto that already has a lot of exposure to Serbia, where they're just adding, you know, the third J.V. or the fourth type of deal. And so, I always value that more highly. I think that's something that you know speculators or investors should look into. And there's definitely this positive momentum going on in Serbia, where we don't just have Vale and JOGMEC and Freeport, but we have Zijin Mining, one of the largest Chinese firms that has basically invested billions of dollars, having bought the Cucaru Peki asset from Nevsun and buying the Bor Mine that has over 100 years of mining history there. So, you have multiple players from all over the world converging in this area. And again, the market is still not catching onto it because Mundoro is literally the only way to get junior Exposure to the area. And it's a fantastic way to do that.
Trevor Hall Do you think it's kind of telling right now with the Junior market as a whole--there's not much attention being given to Junior mining and exploration just now. Basically, there's not a whole lot of inflow of money right now. We have--seems like we've been having the same conversation for a number of years. This may not be any different. I mean, does this give you any hope or do you think it's going to be more of the same?
Nick It's a great question, Trevor. And yes, we have been discussing this for, you know, the last few years. I think the hole that's being filled by the lack of outsider new money--we have either J.V.'s like this J.V., additional J.V. with Mundoro or you have strategic investments where a corporate will, you know, invest at the company-level rather than the project-level. Now, my understanding is in general, strategic investments are more common in the gold space for smaller gold companies. And with the base metal companies, you're more likely to see the J.V.'s. But either way, that is money that is coming directly from these larger players who know that they need to fill the gap in their discovery potential and that there's a better chance for the tiny Juniors like Mundoro to do a lot of the legwork and that they can partner with them and still have a lot of influence and end up with a majority position. But it's the small companies like Mundoro that are creating that initial value and still a key part of that exploration process. So that is continuing nonstop. And it doesn't matter how low, you know, the copper price might go or, you know, how certain commodities are in the doldrums. We're going to continue to see that. But bigger picture, I agree with you, generally in the doldrums with outside money. And we're hoping that at some point more generalist money or larger funds will invest rather than just these corporates.
Trevor Hall Well, I think there is something to be said. It's that old adage that those Junior companies do a much better job of exploration because the Major companies are filled with bureaucracy. And at a stage in exploration, when you need to be agile and very versatile and things move quickly, those larger companies just are kind of bogged down with bureaucracy a little bit more than those Junior companies who can be mobile a little bit. So I think this is a good thing. It's a good thing from Mundoro, obviously. It's also a good thing for Vale in a time where they haven't had a whole lot of good news in the last year, to perhaps find new jurisdiction for them.
Nick Yes. And I'll just add, you know, another dimension of Vale is, see the rarity of Vale to have other J.V.'s, it's actually very hard when I do a search to find other companies that they've J.V.'d with. And so that, just whole basic supply and demand, like for a company like Vale to say we're going to do a J.V. with Mundoro and not have done other J.V.'s over the last few years emphasizes the value in this area. We can say the same thing about Freeport. It's very rare to see other J.V.'s with Freeport. And it's honestly pretty rare to see JOGMEC do J.V's. So Mundoro doesn't have one, it doesn't have two, it has three J.V.'s with these great partners that again, are entering Serbia when there aren't that many other players there, but they had to make that decision to do a deal with Mundoro and it shouldn't be taken lightly.
Trevor Hall Nick, I only have about a minute left before I gotta let you go. But I do want to bring up one more company that's seen Osino Resources. They are working on their Phase 2 drilling at the Twin Falls project there in Namibia. I know you have visited that project and you are a big shareholder and believer in what Heye Daun is doing there with Osino. What do you want to see out of this Phase 2 drilling? What's something that's going to really catch your attention?
Nick Just for clarity, it's the Twin Hills Project.
Trevor Hall Sorry, I always say Twin Falls.
Nick And there's a recent news release that's short and sweet with some great visuals. I think the key thing-- and I what I love about the way it's presented is that you have infill and step out holes for the initial discovery of the Twin Hills Central discovery. We have all these other targets within a few kilometers of each other. I think they're all on the roughly dozen kilometer trends. And so, I love that mix of expanding a discovery and also having multiple other opportunities nearby. And it's very exciting over the next couple of months, you should definitely follow.
Trevor Hall Thanks, Nick. Good to chat with you. We'll catch you again another time.
Nick Thanks for having me, Trevor. Bye.