Peter Bojtos Discusses Lessons Learned in Mining, Business, M&A and Gratitude from a 40-Year Career

Trevor Hall [00:00:04] Hey everybody, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. This is Trevor Hall and today is Friday September 6th. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is going to be our last in-depth interview before the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit and the Denver Gold Forum, where I will be collecting a lot of content doing a lot of interviews with a number of executives from Junior Mining companies from all over the world. Looking forward to that and airing those conversations with you in the weeks to come. Just a reminder miningstockdaily.com is now live and we are starting to upload more content into the archives from previous shows and that includes transcripts and the audio recordings from those podcasts so please be sure to go to miningstockdaily.com and also subscribe to the podcast if you have not yet done so.

[00:00:50] Before we get to my conversation with Peter Bojtos, I want to thank our sponsors. That's Integra Resources, Pacific Empire Minerals, Minera Alamos and Western Copper and Gold. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast and I'm very much looking forward to catching up with all of you in the next few weeks.

[00:01:08] So my interview with Peter Bojtos, you may not recognize the name but you might recognize the face or vice versa. But Peter has 40 years of experience--he's done it all from exploration geology to mine engineering, to mergers and acquisitions and directors of many boards, so it was a great conversation. I was really humbled to be speaking with Peter has we've known each other for a number of years but haven't necessarily done an interview for the podcast. It's a pretty meaningful conversation. How do you wrap up 40 years of experience into one 30 minute interview? I hope you get a lot of value out of it as I did too--we actually get a little philosophical about the industry and bring it down to earth for a little bit which is nice. So without further ado, I'm going to start my conversation with Peter. Thank you so much for tuning in have a great weekend and look forward to seeing as many of you in the weeks to come. Thank you so much.

[00:02:11] Hey, welcome everybody. This is Trevor Hall your host of Mining Stock Daily. Today is Friday and we usually do our in-depth interview. Today I've got a great person sitting in well with my makeshift studio which also is my office and spare bedroom in my own basement. Hey we've all got to start somewhere.

Peter Bojtos [00:02:29] Absolutely.

Trevor Hall [00:02:29] So with me now is Peter Bojtos. He is, I would say, a very well-known person throughout the Junior Mining Industry. You may not--you may recognize the name but not the face or recognize the face but not the name. But the fact is Peter has over 40 years of experience in the mining industry, strong background in corporate management anywhere from exploration to feasibility study stage and mining construction operations, decommissioning. Peter, my first question for you--Is there anything in this industry you have not done?

Peter Bojtos [00:03:02] Oh, (laughs) it's a very good question. There's probably lots of things I haven't done but there's a million things that I've touched or broached on. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades rather than a master of one particular group. I started out as a geologist and then changed to mining engineering and then slowly it all came together when I got going. But within the Noranda Group doing mergers and acquisitions--it's a great way to get to know every part of the industry. But at the same time I kept in touch with operations--getting them going, closing them down and working with them. So production is the--is my preference, although in this industry you get into the exploration and the promotional side of the business as well.

Trevor Hall [00:03:52] So was geology is something that you had interest in at a young age? You went to school and your undergraduate university in Geology. Correct?

Peter Bojtos [00:04:01] Correct.

Trevor Hall [00:04:02] And was that in Leicester?

Peter Bojtos [00:04:03] AIn Leicester, in England.

Trevor Hall [00:04:04] Yes. So tell me what it took you to Leicester.

Peter Bojtos [00:04:09] Well I was born and brought up in Yorkshire.

Trevor Hall [00:04:11] OK.

Peter Bojtos [00:04:11] And in England, I started collecting rocks when I was about ten years old. Started to go caving--spelunking for North Americans--and then deeper and deeper into mountain climbing and stuff like that. But caving was my main sport throughout my teenage years. I'm very comfortable in underground situations. I started to do geology at high school, at grammar school and I continued on to university. I finished university in 1972 and went straight to overseas to Africa and worked at a mine.

Trevor Hall [00:04:51] And what was your first job on the mine in Africa?

Peter Bojtos [00:04:55] It was mine ]geologist in Sierra Leone.

Trevor Hall [00:05:00] So I'm a I'm a huge Premier League soccer fan so I can't talk to somebody from the UK without asking them about it. So were you a Leicester Foxes fan?

Peter Bojtos [00:05:08] No, not really. I was brought up as a Leeds United fan.

Trevor Hall [00:05:11] Oh really? Oh how interesting. So when they made the 5000:1 run a couple of years ago you really did care.

Peter Bojtos [00:05:17] Well that's true. Yes. But, no, I was proud of Leicester when they won.

Trevor Hall [00:05:22] Okay. Very good very good. All right well back to business. One of the things--

Peter Bojtos [00:05:27] Don't forget they had in my town when I was at university, the goalie at Leicester was a goalie for England as well.

Trevor Hall [00:05:32] Oh who's that?

Peter Bojtos [00:05:33] I'm trying to think of his name now. Oh--mental block.

Trevor Hall [00:05:39] We'll get back to it. We'll get back to it. OK back to business here. I was just kind of curious--so you said you transitioned from geology into mine engineering. Was that on purpose--something that you pursued academically or was it something you were thrown into?

Peter Bojtos [00:05:54] No, I guess my first job the person that took me under the wing and acted as a mentor, was the chief engineer and he showed me the error of my ways of staying in geology. You know he taught me mine production and how to make money at the business, which unfortunately is not something they teach at universities--how to make money at the business. I really thought I was going to spend my life mapping geological formations.

Trevor Hall [00:06:22] You know, I know a mutual friend Mickey Fulp  had this had an essay  last winter that we aired on the show but it was--he called it, I think was The Trouble with Geologists and basically the assumption was that there's not enough economic foundation.

Peter Bojtos [00:06:36] That's absolutely correct. And I read that thesis of his.

Trevor Hall [00:06:39] Yeah. So you completely agree.

Peter Bojtos [00:06:41] I completely agree.

Trevor Hall [00:06:42] How difficult was it for you to pick up the economics of the business coming from a science and geology background?

Peter Bojtos [00:06:51] It wasn't difficult at all. I mean I've always been interested in making money. So it wasn't an alien concept and the fact that I could do something that I enjoyed, which is collecting rocks and looking at rocks and actually make money out of it--A, was a revelation and then it was a great interest.

Trevor Hall [00:07:11] OK. All right. During the course of your career in your bio I read, you visited and evaluated properties in over 70 countries carrying out approximately 20 significant corporate acquisitions mergers and sales. And so I wanted to ask you about M&A right now. Last year during the Newmont and Gold Corp mergers and the Barrick and Rand Gold mergers, all we heard about was how "M&A is heating up, M&A is heating up". Now we're going to see a bunch of it coming down. And I had this conversation with David Erfle last week interview on the show and I think it's kind of coming a little bit maybe it's about a by surprise that I don't think there's been as much M&A in the sector as we kind of expected to see a year ago and I just kind of curious what are your thoughts on that. Is this a is it going to be a slow process? Is M&A a given? Or you know, given your experience and background where are we at in this cycle?

Peter Bojtos [00:08:07] Yeah. Yeah, it's a very interesting and complicated question. First of all, and I sometimes have a problem with understanding why people do a particular M&A. Are they doing it because they're constrained to having immediate growth or are they really trying to build a business. I'm a business person and I like to do things to build the business as opposed to making a quick buck or flipping it or promoting it or having more ounces than anybody else or having more mines than the other person. I have been a bit dismayed over the years how the financial industry has been pushing the business side the mining people to do mergers just for the heck of growth and showing growth just so the stock could go up. I don't think--and there's been periods of time when that's been quite concentrated and it's been bad for the business because when it crumbles, then you throw away all the people that you've trained, you get this lag in people of a certain age or a generation of mining people. So the industry flounders if that's the reason for doing the M&As.

Trevor Hall [00:09:21] So do you think that's more of a--you take more of a traditional, maybe romantic view of the industry like you know kind of -- we don't -- you're more or less are sticking with the people on boots on the ground rather than the people up in the corporate offices in Toronto or New York that want these mergers.

Peter Bojtos [00:09:39] I would tend to agree with that. You can't ignore any aspect of the industry. You do need the top guys, the promoters, the drivers. You do need the financing. You do need new equity coming into the system, but you also need new blood down at the bottom making the work happen. You can't just make a spreadsheet and say "I'm gonna make money". Somebody's actually got to do the work and that's where the two sometimes don't jive with each other.

Trevor Hall [00:10:06] Was there anything that happened in your career that maybe set that mentality of yours and felt that you know what I'm seeing or witnessing now I don't agree with and has maybe formed that opinion?

Peter Bojtos [00:10:18] Yeah, I won't say it's now, I think it's something I've recognized over a whole career. But it changes in style and character a lot as you go along. It tends to be driven by the commodity cycles. And if you look at commodity cycles--go back to 1900. The wave length and the amplitude of these commodity cycles, be it gold or copper or whatever, it started off nice and slow and then like a wave coming to shore, they get steeper and bigger. And where--I don't know what happens when it becomes vertical, you have infinity loss or infinity gain I guess, but you have a tsunami effect arriving down at the bottom. But the industry down at the ground level goes with that, obviously. If a company can't make money on the downside, it goes out of business, you lay off all your people, they go off and do other things, they never come back to your industry. But the M&A part of it also tends to go with it. When you're on a bull cycle everybody wants to become bigger and better and the bankers and the brokers in the financial industry and the investors are encouraging this and it gets overheated. And that's a problem whenever you overheat, that's when eventually it crashes and you end up with a problem.

Trevor Hall [00:11:46] Is that what happened years ago--you know--we were chatting--I was chatting with somebody a couple weeks ago about you know, Majors have been known to make mistakes in their acquisitions and spending too much money and kind of getting over their heads. Is that kind of where, when you're talking about here where it's getting overly heated and people over-valuating projects that they're acquiring--do you think that some of the Majors that maybe are looking at projects for acquisition are going to make the same mistakes or do you think that that's maybe behind them again?

Peter Bojtos [00:12:19] Never behind--again it goes with the cycles. Things get very heated up and the competition gets quite fierce and people start offering bigger premiums for the sake of giving a premium. If you're paying a premium because you can see something better in the geology or the future of the mine or you can do something quite differently and make a lot of money that you're just not disclosing to the seller, then fine, pay a premium. But don't pay the premium just because there's more ounces in the ground that you'll never know if you're ever gonna get them out of there.

Trevor Hall [00:12:51] Yeah, well actually that's a good question I won't ask you because I've always wondered about premiums itself. So during an acquisition, and let's use the Atlantic Gold/St. Barbara's acquisition that happened a couple months ago. You know I haven't been involved in business long enough to understand what a good valued premium is on an acquisition. But I've seen things from 20% to 40% over the last year and a half and I've always--nothing's really struck me as an investor that says "that is a good premium for my dollar" and I'm just kind of curious like what is a good premium? Is it 40%? Is 30% enough? Is it higher than 40%? I guess what is an investor--a typical retail investor playing in this sector, what does a good premium look like?

Peter Bojtos [00:13:40] I don't think there's an answer to that question quite honestly. I think a lot of people--Well the question you are asking basically comes to comparables. And how do you compare with other people in the industry. And yes, it tends especially in good contents to run around 30 odd percent as a premium--somewhere between 20 to 40, although it sometimes goes outside of it. But just paying a premium because everybody else is paying a premium or it looks like they're paying a premium is not a correct way of valuing things.

Trevor Hall [00:14:15] OK.

Peter Bojtos [00:14:16] If they're paying the premium like I suggested, because they can do something better or they can they see how they are going to earn that premium as opposed to just hoping that the price of the metal will go up at some future date or some promoter will pay an even higher promoted amount to them--those are bad reasons for doing it, but if you have an internal business reason for doing it then fine go ahead and pay it.

Trevor Hall [00:14:41] OK. I want to ask you about financings actually. So in your recent endeavor, you were with Pembridge working with the Minto Mine and you have worked with them through the financing with I believe  it was a Sumitomo?

Peter Bojtos [00:14:53] There's a portion of it that works with Sumitomo. There's also a large portion of private equity involved.

Trevor Hall [00:14:59] OK. So that's not necessarily my question, but my question is kind of an overarching look at where we are with financings right now. We've seen a lot of money coming in. I mean, I think Eric Sprott's put over $120 million of his money that he profited from Kirkland Lake into many Junior Resource Sectors. The hope is that we're going to see more smart money coming back from their vacations and you know next week in Beaver Creek Precious Metals decide where they're going to allocate some of that money. In your mind, it is financing now for projects gonna get easier with this new cycle or are we still going to be struggling to raise capital for exploration projects moving forward?

Peter Bojtos [00:15:41] I don't quite know how that's going to happen. I'd like to think that new money will come in as the price of the metal goes up and specifically gold we're talking about at the moment, although copper has taken a sag at the moment.

Trevor Hall [00:15:54] Right.

Peter Bojtos [00:15:56] But that's a commodity thing more in line with the trade disputes that are going on. But gold has got a good number of reasons to continue going up and I'm very bullish on it and I'm hoping that it will attract other people to come into the into the investment business. We've had a lot of competition over the last few years with cannabis, with crypto currencies. Sometimes it's the real estate market. You name, it money moves where money can make the most money. And lately it hasn't been in the metals business but because it was sagging so much as a lot of upside opportunity saw, I hope people will recognize that and come into it. It tends to be a slow process getting money back into an industry that has kind of failed in the past.

Trevor Hall [00:16:48] Has it always been that way? Because--all I've heard from other industries outside of mining and mineral exploration is that there's so much money available, there's so much venture capital available. Does that just describe the failure of the industry to really put itself in front of new younger money and how do we fix that?

Peter Bojtos [00:17:08] There is a component of that and I do worry about that personally--that young people don't understand or have not been taught where their products come from. They all think that--I shouldn't say they all--many feel thing electricity comes out of the wall and you name it, just suddenly appears.

Trevor Hall [00:17:28] Right.

Peter Bojtos [00:17:29] And the fact that it has to be mined and worked and smelted and produced into whatever they need.

Trevor Hall [00:17:38] Yeah.

Peter Bojtos [00:17:39] Kind of--many people are oblivious to that fact.

Trevor Hall [00:17:42] It's always just racked my brain because it's you know--it almost seems like any programmer or a lot of programmers who have a good idea for an app or software can go approach some venture capital company that has some sort of fund with money to allocate towards these types of things. And there's a lot of avenues to get that program or money to start producing the app and see what happens. It's not a whole lot different than the way financing happens for Junior Mining companies right? But it almost seems that as the industry on the technology side as that approach to capital has expanded in ways that it's almost hard to keep up with anymore but also readily available, the mining and exploration industry has kind of stayed in that little bubble, continue to try to pry money towards the same people that go to PDAC that go to you know precious metals, that type of thing. And we haven't been able to really look outside the box and actually put our necks out there a little bit more and ask new, younger venture capitalists type of people and say hey here's the value we can provide, and here's what kind of return we think we can provide. But we've got to have the capital to get there first. Have you seen anything new on the financing side or capital side that's you know in the last five years or are we still doing the same thing we did 20 years ago?

Peter Bojtos [00:19:08] Well, unfortunately you've hit the nail on the head. The new IT systems and the ones that the young people go for, there's an excitement in them. There's a future to them. They can see or not see something that will happen in the future and it excites people. But I tell you with the mining industry and it's been a great disappointment to me personally over many many years, you do these feasibility studies, you look at them and you finally build the mine and everybody who puts money into it and it tends to be more staid money that comes into it on the large construction side, they want sure-fire tested methods done. When that mine is built, it's already 10 years out of date. That is the big problem. That's why mining is not exciting--because it's old stuff. If we could demonstrate by actually doing that we're going forward and there's an awful lot of IT and IOT that goes on in mines that people aren't fully aware of or it's not being transmitted to the younger generation, but those that do come into it recognize it well this is exciting stuff. But there is still a very very great drive to only do tested things that have been done before and not get into real exciting future things.

Trevor Hall [00:20:35] Do you think part of the issue was that mining's actually, we know this is without the scientific and engineering foundation, it makes some of those studies and those technical reports really difficult to judge what's going to work and what's what's not. And I think a perfect example is yesterday, Rio 2's pre-feasibility study. I mean, the response online was this is a very good PFS, there's nothing out of the ordinary that's actually maybe more conservative than they needed to be but they also paid the price. Stock wise, it really moved down pretty hard because I think people worried about water. They were going to be trucking in water. You know that's just a brief snapshot of what happened yesterday. But I was one that actually, you know I read the PFS and say that's pretty good. It's actually--there's no major red flags here. Maybe the water's a red flag, but it doesn't seem like it's anything too out of the ordinary. But the market didn't appreciate it. You know, is there a way to simplify the process in some of these reports to make i--and I don't want to say laming--I don't want oversimplify because that's when you really get in trouble, right? But at least make it approachable for more people to comprehend what the process is going to be.

Peter Bojtos [00:21:56] Wouldn't that be nice. 43-101 when it was put in place, was supposed to be a good readable summary document and it's turned into a very complex, almost incomprehensible document.

Trevor Hall [00:22:13] Yeah, who wants to read it--it's 2000 pages sometimes.

Peter Bojtos [00:22:17] Exactly. Exactly. That was not the original intent to 43-101 when it was put in place but that's the way it has gone. And sure enough the mining analysts and people will read that and comment on it but that's just their comment. You want the actual person with the money who is going to invest to read it and say, Whoa I like the sound of this, because I understand it and I can see the problems they're facing or the lack of problems they are facing and I'll go along with it. I think that's been detrimental to our industry. Putting discipline into what's needed for a feasibility study or a 43-101 or anything, that's all very good but you've got to translate it into readable form as well.

Trevor Hall [00:23:05] OK. That's actually a good lead way into my next question as you talked about discipline and I want to ask you about mentality. You've had a long career in this industry, longer than a lot of other people maybe started out in mining and then either went to services or even just left the industry altogether. What kind of mentality does it take to have a long successful career in mining and exploration?

Peter Bojtos [00:23:33] (laughter) A bit of a massacre. You need financial staying power. That's for sure.

Trevor Hall [00:23:44] What do you mean by that?

Peter Bojtos [00:23:45] Well depending on where you are at what level in your career-- can you put up with a layoff? Can you put up with a reduction in your pay and still keep your manner of living? So you have to be kind of diversified in how you're getting in money. That's one recommendation I have for young people coming into this particular industry. Don't just rely on that paycheck coming every Friday afternoon. Have some investments that are doing OK. Get into the whole scheme of things. So you're actually making some money maybe in some other way so that if things go bad you can hang on without having a break into your IRAs and RRSPs and all the rest of it, which is very detrimental to your later in life future. So that's one thing. You got to have some kind of staying power. You've also got to be very willing to run around the world, go where you can go. Now the world is getting more complicated politically. There's a lot of strife around the place. Immigration's got much more complex in countries way. Years ago there was no real immigration problem and that was part of the excitement and the lure of the mining industry to go work in Thailand or in parts of West Africa or whatever and stay alive. Now you're not guaranteed of that. Either somebody with a machine gun or somebody carrying a disease can come up to you and put you away very quickly.

Trevor Hall [00:25:18] Yeah.

Peter Bojtos [00:25:22] I find a lot of young people today with their--I don't want a blanket every young person and say they have this instant gratification feeling but it is a very strong feeling at the moment and they like to live in the cities and not go out of their comfort zone, if you may. Just living a nice steady or enjoyable life, you can't do that in the mining industry.

Trevor Hall [00:25:50] I want to ask you about cycles. You said you have to persevere through a number of cycles ups and downs and be ready for it. You've gone through a number of cycles not just industry wise but personally with your health. Cancer survivor and  still working towards that you're still kicking obviously and that's something I didn't know about you until I actually we just pressed record. So I mean--I actually just, I don't want to ask you about cancer but I want to ask you about how have you  continued to work and fought the good fight against cancer and what--you know. How has it changed the way you approach the business, on a personal level?

Peter Bojtos [00:26:37] That's a very very interesting question. I was fortunate in that I was already working for myself. I have worked for myself for over 25 years, so when I was diagnosed with that, it wasn't a case of "Oh I'm losing my income. What do I do now?" I'd already well established myself being direct to various companies and having other sources of income. So I was in a position that I could slow down. I work for myself so I just told my boss to take it easy on me a little bit. I didn't have to stray far from home. I could get the necessary treatment that I needed at the same time, still being involved. I remember being in a hospital bed for quite a while and doing conference calls, board meetings and what have you. And it actually kept my strength up doing that as opposed to depleting my step. It gave me energy to-- that I my mind was still working on many other things. But when I came out of it and after you've gone through all the things that you go through with cancer--the periods of anger and the periods of depression and all the rest of it you come back to your new normalcy that you kind of attain. I found myself a lot more forgiving, a lot calmer than before. I could put up with other people's problems, indiscretions, you name it. Not totally--to a larger extent put it that way. A lot more peaceful. Things will get done. Don't worry. Just stick to your knitting, look forward and keep going. And I also had a much greater appreciation for the younger people now. Before the cancer it would just you know--"get out of my way. I'm coming with my torpedoes". Now it's just, "OK, relax here. Young people come on in, see what he can do. Show me what he can do."  And live with it.

 Trevor Hall [00:28:52] And I think that's really important because I want to share with you a little bit about kindness and gratitude. I know it may be getting a little philosophical but it still pertains to the industry a little bit. And I think one of the things that I always remember meeting you for the first couple times and shaking hands was like, "That is a really nice guy."

Peter Bojtos [00:29:17] Thank you.

Trevor Hall [00:29:17] And and in in an industry to where-- you know, the hustle and bustle can get to us like where a lot of people are always on the move or always trying to make that big discovery or always trying to make the big financing and appease the shareholders and and be the talk of the town. You know, it's stereotypically there's an ego that comes with it right?

Peter Bojtos [00:29:42] Absolutely.

Trevor Hall [00:29:43] That's what I think like talking about gratitude and kindness and love for lack of a better word, is maybe underappreciated in this industry. And do we need to get back to actually just like supporting each other as an industry as a whole? Or you know, in calling out the red flags where we see them. Or is it always going to be me and my company against everybody else?

Peter Bojtos [00:30:16] Again, these are some of the problems of the industry. I'm glad you recognize all of those things because they are very very important. It is ego driven especially at the finance end, at the top end. Again, driven a lot by people who never get out of town. They just have their checkbook and they say you know, "I want my money back in a short period of time with X and a return", without thinking of all the hundreds of people that go into building these things and making them work on a daily basis. That's where my love of the industry really is. I look more upon the money as a necessity that yeah, we've got to conform and we've got to provide for them. But that's not the be all and end all of the whole thing. It's providing paychecks to a myriad of people as a percentage of a country even, who are working on these things and providing for the GDP of the country even or a state or province or whatever. But also there's been a dramatic change in the whole politics of life over the last few decades giving more lands to First Nations and others. But my first involvement of that was in Alaska with the well they created the Indian corporations up there. And I worked on lands that were administered through the [Doyon and I found that a very pleasing accomplishment, put it that way. I at first -- you know everyone said "Oh you know we can't give all this land up and all the rest of it. And how are we going to do our business if we have to share it with everybody?" But that's the whole point of doing these things--sharing. With the metal and the copper mine up in Yukon where, that's on First Nations Settlement Land. We have to accept that it's not just us grabbing as much of the money and running with it as we can and giving it back to the people. We have to share it with everybody around us as well. And the same goes with whether it's here in Indonesia or in Western Africa or wherever. Now they're all at different levels. I recognize that but we can't just kind of think with a big tough mind or we're going to go down there and rape and pillage as much as we can.

Trevor Hall [00:32:40] Right. I'm actually speaking on a panel discussion in Nebraska in a couple of weeks of all places, about resources and one of the questions that I know is going to be answered is land use. And one of the things I have been kind of thinking about and spoke with them online just brief, was the differences between how the U.S. uses First Nation Lands for resource compared to Canada. And I said-- I just kind of spoke out loud and I said, "You know both countries aren't perfect. But on the book it almost seems like Canada does it better." That may not be a popular idea of mine but it definitely seems that way. I know working in the Yukon and working both in Canada and the United States. Is that--do you feel the same way or does the U.S. do things better than Canada does?

Peter Bojtos [00:33:37] I am a Canadian, I've got to tell you. Oh yes, I have Canadian citizenship. I'm very proud of it. Things like this where human interaction is required. Canada does seem to be doing a better job.

Trevor Hall [00:33:54] But it's not perfect.

Peter Bojtos [00:33:55] But it's not perfect. No. But also the people have to recognize it as well. Now if you're just trying to compare the very simplistic parts of American versus Canadian politics, America is very polarized. You see what's going on right now. The progressive left and does the far right as well, with the politics down here is just getting extremely polarized but the same goes for everything else in daily life in America. Some of it's driven by me too some of it's driven by just the way it's gone. Canada is much gentler society when it comes to the politics of it. But at the same time the people also have to recognize--so there's been Settlement Lands to the First Nations. I know there's a lot of people say "Oh we've given up too much", but that's not the point. The government of Canada, was elected by the people, said this is what we're going to do. So I accept it. Work with it. Don't try and fight it in any way. Don't try and--your duty to negotiate. Don't try to short circuit that or not give enough information. You've got to work with everybody around you. That's been decreed by the government that was elected by the Canadian people. Like it or not. So go with it.

Trevor Hall [00:35:19] Yeah. We have spoken to a lot of things about--things that the industry have maybe struggled with and failed in the past. But I do want to spend some time talking about what the industry has done really well. And one of the things that I think that the industry has done well actually is going to take place here in Denver and that's both the Precious Metal Summit and Denver Gold Forum. And we are lucky enough to both live in Denver--you actually live down the street from us. We didn't realize until about a year ago. But it is a really good time to welcome everybody to the United States that maybe doesn't get a whole lot of all of the exploration and mining highlights in the news. You know Canada and many parts of South America and Africa have better maybe have more established mining industries. That's the perception of most people. But Denver is really a big hub in the United States for this. And so once a year, the global industry embarks to Denver and the mountains to do this. What are some of the things that you are looking forward to in conversations you're looking forward to have. While many of our friends come here and you know tell their stories.

Peter Bojtos [00:36:41] Right. Yeah. No no, Denver is a great place. I came here 27 years ago. It was a kind of the tail end of Denver being the mining capital of the U.S. It's now spread out a little bit--bit of it in Reno and various other places as well, but there's still quite a number of significant people here in town. It tends not to have the financing part as well as say Toronto. Toronto has the consultants, the companies and the financing all in one place. It's lacking in Denver. But on the finance side. So a lot of finance people come here and we get caught up with what's going on in the finance. But it also lets the finance people see a little bit of Denver and what the--what nature is.

Trevor Hall [00:37:30] A little slower, a little slower pace of life.

Peter Bojtos [00:37:32] That's right. Yeah. More enjoyable, nice scenery and all the rest of it. But no seriously. There's a lot of new ideas constantly coming out. And it's good to hear the CEOs of companies expressing the way they see the future of their companies. I enjoy going to listen to the talks and talking to the individual CEOs and senior management and see what's turning them on about that particular property as opposed to just reading about it and trying to produce it myself. That's very very important. But you also want to know the financial health of the company. And again you can sometimes miss that. With all the promotion that goes on. You really want to quiz the CEOs how much money have you got left. How much are you raising? How's your structure--your financial structure in the corporation? And in a more social-like setting you'd get a far far better feel than just reading a presentation or looking up at the charts out there. So that's what I'm looking for. But I'm also constantly looking for and I'll advertise myself, new board positions on companies that I like--I might even put some seed capital up for it. I've done some of my best investments have started off with private seed capitals. Not enormous amounts but they turned out to be very successful. And then I might like to go on the board if I share the vision with the CEO. And so I spend a lot of time seeing is there a vision that I just happen to share out there at the moment.

Trevor Hall [00:39:08] Are there any companies out there right now that you're really excited about? You don't mind sharing the idea with.

Peter Bojtos [00:39:13] Well I am a director of Avino. Avino Silver Mines that's run by David Wolfin. And and I'm very proud to be a director. I've been director for a little over a year on that. Mining silver in Mexico. Boy, we've got a very exciting rejuvenation of a famous old mine in British Columbia. The Bralorne Mine, where there's been new geological ideas put in and it's starting to get results. We're not quite there yet. We've been putting out the news releases and anybody could read that but it hasn't been structured yet to say you know we've got a mine for the future guaranteed--we're not quite there yet. There's the silver mines in Mexico are doing OK with the price of silver going up. It's a bit of a relief and I rather say because we are all in--AISC is all in sustaining cost somewhere around the $13   silver equivalent an ounce. So when it was at $15, we're a little tight. But at $19, we're making a few extra dollars.

Trevor Hall [00:40:21] How has the share price performed in the last couple of weeks?

Peter Bojtos [00:40:23] It's obviously come up from earlier in the year when we sagged down to about $0.60, in the kind of the dog days of the silver price. Right now we're hovering around the $0.90, I think its $0.89 today. And the market cap is somewhere on the $60 million mark.

Trevor Hall [00:40:41] What's the ticker symbol for--?

Peter Bojtos [00:40:43] ASM.

Trevor Hall [00:40:44] ASM traded on--

Peter Bojtos [00:40:45] On Toronto and New York.

Trevor Hall [00:40:47] OK.

Peter Bojtos [00:40:48] Avino Silver Mines. ASM.

Trevor Hall [00:40:50] Alright, there you go. Peter, thank you so much. I really appreciate you and appreciate your time and this was a very thoughtful conversation. One that I've been wanting to have a few for quite some time so I'm glad we could finally make it happen a few days before a lot of our friends come and join us here in Colorado. So I look forward to seeing you at work both in Beaver Creek and the Denver Gold. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:41:22] Thanks Trevor, it's been fun.

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