[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Ross Bey, chair of Equinox Gold and chairmeritus at Pan-American Silver. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Happy to be here again, Charlotte. >> Yes, of course. I think we we catch up pretty much every year here at VR. So, really good to have you back. >> My annual, you know, Charlotte Mloud fix. Yes. Yes. And and the same for you as well for me. So I I took some time to look back at our conversation last year


just to remember where we were at at that time >> and you were telling us it was it was hard not to be bullish on the precious metals, >> but as a contrarian it was worrying because everyone else was bullish as well. So >> how are you feeling now with the metals at these higher prices? >> Yeah. Well, I mean I've always been a bit of a contrarian. You know, I try to start companies when uh the cycle's low. I did that with, you know, Pan-American Silver. I did it with all my copper


companies in the Luminina Group. And of course, we started Equinox Gold in 2017, the end of 2017 when gold was 1350. And I was very bullish on gold then. Uh I was extremely uh optimistic it would it would hit $2,000. And of course, it did that after about five years. Uh and then, you know, it sort of bounced around that price for quite a while and even came down a bit and everybody said, "Well, the party's over." But I was still very bullish and every single year since we began Equinox, you know,


starting in 2018, I've been here at this this investment show and I've been uh really I've been beating the drum about gold. I mean, the macro fundamentals are so good that the the uh the demand and the supply side are very very bullish and and yet as a contrarian, inherently contrarian, I like to go against the flow, but I really can't see anything that's uh in the way of gold. Even though gold is blowing through $5,000 today, it's just, you know, just amazing. I almost said ridiculous. And


and it is ridiculous because in my career, I never expected to see $5,000 gold or silver is even more insane. It's $16 today. It's blew through $100 on Friday. You know, those numbers are just uh really truly bubble territory. And so I have to say even though on the gold side, I'm still pretty bullish. I think the fundamentals are so strong and we really are in a different world today uh fundamentally about the uh global view about the US dollar uh that is so bullish for gold. It's very hard to take


a contrarian view on gold but it's rather easy on silver because silver is industrial metal and and this price will definitely hit demand and cause a buyer strike and I think a significant correction when it comes. Even if it comes and has what it is today, you're looking at $50 silver, which is still phenomenal for the silver producers. It's just great. But, you know, the problem is the higher the price, the more, you know, demand destruction will happen. And that's not so good long


term, >> I think. Silver. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we've got we've got two different pathways to kind of unpack here. And maybe I'll continue with gold for a little bit. So, gold in that bubble territory, but you're feeling bullish still. And I think I think when people hear bubble, they get a little bit nervous. >> Yeah, they should be nervous. And and in fact, if people are are long gold or long gold stocks, they should be thinking about taking some money off the table. The market has run in a


phenomenal way, it's just a smart thing to do, but is definitely not a sort of sell everything uh market right now. We're really in, you know, I think it's it's been stimulated by both the election of President Trump, some of his actions, but even prior to that with the uh the Russian war in Ukraine and of course the extraordinary uh profleacy of the US government in terms of its uh indebtedness and increasing indebtedness, just an impossible uh fiscal regime in in in the United


States. Those are such long-term trends that I just can't see people uh investors and governments moving away from the tendency to go off the dollar into other things. And one of the other things of course is gold. So that's why that trend is I think long and strong. It's why gold is having such a performance right now. And very often these cycles they tend to feed on themselves. In other words, uh you could say the gold price is inelastic or it is um is inversely proportional to the


price. As as the price goes higher, it brings in more buying and um and that causes even higher prices and more rapid rises. We saw this in spades actually in the late two late 1970s when gold hit record highs along with like oil and and silver. It went to $50. Uh but today, you know, the then it was a very different reason. Today, um boy, I I just I have a hard time seeing this slowing down anytime soon. >> Yeah, I think that people are always looking for analoges of the current time to the past. And so would you say that


the 70s lines up most closely or or are we in just uncharted territory? >> We're in uncharted territory. We are in uncharted. This is a new you could say secular event. Secular meaning long-term uh fundamental driven. And I think of course things could things could change tomorrow. The world has a habit. Black swans happen and and and all of a sudden the things are different. And of course we'll wake up at that time and think, "Oh my goodness, that bull market's over. Uh it's too late for me to sell."


And usually it is because when the party's over, things correct pretty quickly and everybody's going, "Oh man, I wish I'd sold." So that's that's the world we live in. >> Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. And let's let's take a closer look at silver as well. So case for gold, long and strong like you mentioned, but silver more volatility coming. Can you can you explain what you mean? >> Yeah, so silver silver is a much thinner market than gold. It's about a tenth the


size of the gold market. >> Uh therefore it's a lot more volatile. A little money in drives the price higher. A little money out drives the price lower more quickly. It has elements of precious metal, money like gold. It's entirely gold's uh world right now, but it's mostly an industrial metal mostly because silver is the most widely used of all metals. It has more different uses than any other metal. So, it's a remarkable metal. Uh I could just go on for hours on on the incredible uses of


silver. It's an absolutely beautiful metal, the most conductive for electricity, the most conductive for heat, the most reflective, and so on. So um you know but out of nowhere the biggest demand element for silver today is photovotayic cells for solar energy. I mean it's gone from maybe 10 million ounces a year to 220 million ounces a year which is about 22% of silver's total demand. I mean it's just an incredible engine of that of that uh demand growth. Uh so fundamental demand


is industrial. On the margin you have speculative demand and speculative demand into silver by investors and gurus who have said silver's market is poised to blow up. Silver is a much better metal than gold. That has brought some money into the speculative market for silver which is really pushing this this bubble that we're seeing right now. Prices that have gone from $35 or so which are fundamentally valued up to over $100 an ounce. That's just that little extra bit of money that's that's making the the


margin uh and and and boosting the price. So in a very thin market. So what's happening at $100 an ounce now? Uh you've got a buyer strike. The the Indians which have been a very very large swing buyer for decades if not centuries because they love silver for for wealth. A lot of the poor Indians wear wear it around their necks and around their ankles and and so on and they treat it as as as money for for them. They don't buy it. They're very price sensitive and so they're stopping


uh buying silver for that purpose. They'll come back at some point, but they're they're it's just gone too high for them. Um people are starting to thrift. For example, in photovotayic cells, they're starting to use less silver per cell. And in other elements where silver is used in electronics, they're going to use less. They're they're working hard because it's very expensive now. Uh silver is used so widely in so many electronic products. But there are places you can actually


substitute for silver. Not many, but some. And that is where you're going to see at the margin you're going to see silver demand reduced. Um, and of course the other side of the equation that very few pundits ever think about, but as a geologist I think about and as a minor I think about is the supply side. Well, you know, it's the same with gold. I mean, gold has been supply almost flat for the last 12 years. It's amazing because you've had gold, you know, go up fivefold. Um, but you're going to see a


large amount of new gold production coming on stream in the next, you know, this year, next year, the year after. there's a lot of new supply coming in, but silver is even more uh important because the new supply that's coming in on the silver side is um is going to affect a smaller market. And so more supply, less demand, you're going to see a correction in silver. Uh you know, I don't know where it's going to correct to. And I don't know exactly when. It's whenever this frothy uh speculative


market kind of unwinds or comes to an end. You're going to see a pretty rapid price uh drop. And you saw that, you know, the the best example for that would be 19 uh 1980 uh 8081 when you know the Hunt brothers tried to corner silver went to $50 an ounce. The the uh it unwound and it unwound like almost overnight to $20. Huge huge drop and ultimately down to a low of $4. So you know >> Yeah. I think and again a few points to pick up here on silver. So you mentioned people in the east, the Indians, they


are price sensitive. They don't want to buy at these levels. I do sometimes hear when it comes to western investors when the price goes up that's when people over here wake up. So any thoughts on that? >> Yeah. Well, it's exactly what I said with gold. It's almost the higher the price the more people get into it. And for sure that's the case for speculative buying. That's what's driven the price where it is right now. And interesting enough, I was looking at some stats on


uh on silver just just a couple days ago. Actually India last year had record demand. So you know I mean this this story about Indian price sensitivity is is is maybe an old story. I don't know. It's been the case for decades. I mean I've watched silver you know for I mean I've been a very very deep student of silver since 1994 when I started Pan-American Silver as the world you know the focus was to build the world's preeminent silver mining company. So I've been really a student


of silver and maybe things are different today. I haven't seen that, but I I actually saw some stats in India which which defied exactly what I just said. So, we'll see. Yeah. >> And on the industrial side, I also wanted to ask about these headlines that have been coming up about substitution of silver in the solar panels with copper being used instead. So, you ran through how how important and useful silver is. So, is there is that feasible? >> Well, silver is still the best


conductor, but copper is a pretty good conductor. Silver has other aspects that are that make it a useful electronic metal um which is fundamentally as a conductor of electricity that is is used in photovotayic cells. Um you know it's it's the usual story when the price of something goes way up which which silver has done. Silver's gone up fivefold in the last uh two years. So not bad. Um but that really hurts industrial producers. Now, in most industrial products that use silver, particularly


electronics, the amount of silver in that product is rather small. Silver's in your in your in your in your iPad there. I presume it's an iPad and or phones, all digital phones, most cameras today. I mean, it's it's it's widely widely used in electronics, but very much um a small amount less silver per product reduces the cost of that a lot. Um, you know, silver's become very expensive and that hits the cost of all of these electronic products to some degree. It didn't when silver was $20 or $30 an


ounce. It didn't really matter if it went up three or $4, but it's tripled since those prices. So, yeah, it's it's definitely causing them to start looking at how much are we using? Do we need to use all that? Is there something we could use that's that's almost as efficient but way way cheaper? And and actually in the copper market it's exactly the same thing is happening. Copper is being subsided for aluminum >> because copper is expensive too right now. Yeah.


>> But it's okay. It's it works in transmission lines and things. So yeah. >> Okay. This is really interesting. So where where would you place us in this precious metals bull market because typically the narrative I hear is gold moves first and then silver follows. But it sounds like you're laying out a scenario where gold kind of keeps going and silver Yeah. >> Yeah. I am. Okay. >> Yeah, I am. I'm you know. >> So it's a little different than usual.


Who knows if it's going to happen short. I'm just this is just my view. I mean I'm not a pundit particularly, but it's just where I see things going and take it or leave it. >> Yeah. No, no, it's it's just interesting. So I want to make sure that I understand. And >> talking a little bit more about the silver stocks. So I think a a topic at this event for sure has been well the silver price has moved so much so fast. When will the silver equities start to outperform as a group? Not to say that


they haven't been moving already. So yeah, well you know a year ago I was whining about the fact that and two years ago even more that you had this great run in gold and to some degree silver but the equities hadn't really moved and there was this disconnect and it was a weird one and I you know was saying it's either going to revert the metal prices are going to come down or the equity prices are going to go up because it's an it's it's a it's a situation that hasn't existed for 50


years. It defies 50-year trends, which is which is uh irrational. And lo and behold, this year, boom, you had this great correction in the equities. So, things have corrected pretty well. The the silver equities are trading at very good values. The gold equities are trading at very good prices. Huge move in all these metals today. Uh and I don't know that there's, you know, I mean, there's going to be a continuing run if the metal prices keep going, but you know, the things are pretty frothy


out there. I would say we are in the you know we could have a potential correction coming and it could be quite significant quite violent but at the end of the day there's still great value in the silver equities and even if we have a big correction in the price you know and even some of the equities there's still going to be traded at a pretty good price and the ability for them to finance is strong right now there's a lot of money in the system and there there's a lot of people chasing the


silver names and that's going to keep valuations at a pretty good level I think >> well and let's use this as a leadin to talk about what's going on at Equinox Gold. So, when we spoke this time last year, I think you told us we were heading into a transformational year for the company. I believe you had record projection in 2025 and I wonder if you can share what's coming next and how does the company's operations change in this type of gold market? >> Yeah, we had a pretty good year in in


2025, you know, Charlotte, we uh we merged with Caliber. Um that added another big Canadian mine and some production from Nicaragua. Uh it also made us more of a North American play, particularly Canadian play. We have half a million ounces now a year coming from Canada. It improved our quality of of gold production and it brought a really really great team of of individuals particularly Darren Hall who is now CEO and he's just a super strong individual who's really really driving value in the


company. Uh so it was a very transformative year. At the end of the year, we announced selling our Brazilian assets for a billion dollars. We got that, uh, that money last Thursday. And so, uh, we're a little bit slimmed down from the million a year producer. We were just nudging a million ounces in 2025. Uh, I had originally, you know, tried to build the company quickly uh, at scale because I thought scale really mattered and I think in this market that's been proven to be the case. But,


um, at the end of the day, uh, we had a lot of debt. We had$1.5 billion dollars of debt just a few months ago. We expect that debt's going to be gone, completely gone. We'll be net debt free by the end of Q1, which is a pretty big shift in just a few months. And that was made possible as much as anything by that sale of our Brazil assets. So that was why we did it. Uh just to clean up our balance sheet and uh and and position us for for stronger production in better jurisdictions, easier to manage. It's we


still have seven mines. We had 11 mines and and that was just it was a management burden. The Brazil mines were higher cost and uh and more challenging to manage. Great mines. I mean, I just love Brazil. I'm I'm personally very sorry we sold those vines. I really have sellers remorse. But, you know, it's the right thing to do for the company. So, now we're producing 700 800,000 ounces a year, lower cost, easier to manage, longerterm production, mostly in Canada, great jurisdiction, two brand new mines


with long life, lots of upside potential. It's a really nice portfolio right now. And then we have all this growth coming up behind that. We have growth in our Valentine mine in Newf Finland. We have growth 200,000 a year producer that we're planning to we should be permitted by the end of this year in California at the Castle Mountain Mine. We have Los Filos, which is a Mexican mine that's been put on standby while we try to resolve a community issue with one of the communities that we work around there.


We hope that'll be resolved soon. that should be back at about a 200,000 os a year production base uh relatively soon. So um full of growth and uh it's it's North American growth principally. That'll take us about another 500,000 ounces a year of production. So we should be around 1.2 1.3 million ounces a year in a few years. And uh and we're pretty happy with that. So yeah, at lower cost by the way and more making more free cash flow and you know ultimately kicking out a dividend as


soon as we can. So pretty happy story. Well, I think you answered the questions I had because I was wondering about the Brazil operations sale because we've talked a lot about how scale was important, but you've explained that. And so, I guess are you happy with the size of the company now? You mentioned there's all this growth coming internally at this point. >> Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I'm one of these sort of deal junkies. I have to admit, I love building a company bigger and


bigger and bigger and quickly. you know, it takes a lot of time to actually discover and and build something these days, get it permitted and financed and and and constructed, but um there's still opportunity for uh us getting much much bigger. We're not looking at anything else right now. We're actually just focusing internally trying to improve the quality of what we already have, but it's a very nice uh growth story with or without any new M&A. Uh the at the end of the day though, scale


matters. I I have maintained that mantra for eight years now of the company's existence. it does matter. You definitely have higher valuations, higher multiples as you get bigger. Uh and uh and at the end of the day, I'm really trying to build a a senior producer, not an intermediate producer. So, we're on the way there. Uh we might have got there with Brazil, but actually we have an easier chance, I'd say, of getting there long term with the assets we have right now. Well, and on the note


of jurisdiction, I'll give you a question that we got from our audience, which is whether the US is a safe jurisdiction still. And I think this is coming from kind of an international relations perspective, but at the same time, of course, there's all these initiatives to make mining easier at this point. So, >> yeah, I mean, I have to say one of the positive things President Trump's done is he's made it easier to permit uh mines in the US. But even without that, uh I have to say permitting is a


challenge anywhere. It's a challenge in the US, particularly in California, but I've actually successfully permitted three mines in California. And once you get your permit, there is no I mean, the US is the best possible place. Whoops. The best place to build a mine anywhere. It's just great. There's contractors all over the place. There's people living. Infrastructure is fabulous. I I just, you know, I've operated mines in the US for 30 years and and actually 40 years almost. And it's just I mean, I


obviously have nothing bad to say about operating in the US. operating permitting is more challenging but once you get your permits as long as you fill all the you know dot the ice cross the tees um you you are in a good place to to to build and California is no exception California I had American grow mine Zenda property I mean uh there's a handful of mines in California that I've been working on castle mountain mess we operate mskuit right now it's been going for I think it's been going for 35 years


it's produced over 5 million ounces still running, good future. I mean, it's a good place to be. >> Well, good to hear from somebody who's done it. And I I'll let you go. I know I have to get you back out onto the show floor, but anything else you would leave the audience with? I know that we always talk about mining, but you've got many things going on beyond the mining industry. >> Yeah, I mean, my my actually, you know, Charlotte, my my world is is sort of shrinking in that I am trying to exit


the mining business. Uh, Equinox is my last company. I've been clear in saying that. Um, I've got a Polish project, uh, which we've been working on in the Luminina group for the last, um, 13 years, I think, and we're going to try to take that public this year at some point, probably Q2. Uh, it's got a huge copper silver endowment. And, uh, very exciting project, but, you know, that's really the that's a heritage thing for me. And it's going to be, I think, uh, that's something I'm heading for the


exit on the same way I was a year ago with Luminina Gold. If you might remember, I had this junior in Ecuador and I kept saying to everybody, "We're trying to sell it. We're trying to sell it. You know, we think this is going to be the year." And sure enough, last May, we sold it. And so, we had a happy ending from a Chinese buyer. Uh, but uh really it's it's l it's Equinox gold. That is my swansong. And it's still something I'm very much a work in progress. I'm very happy with uh the


market response in 2025 to what we have built so far. The stock market, you know, the stock was the best performing gold stock in Canada last year. Um we, you know, we have a I think today we went through $18 billion uh valuation market cap. So, I'm pretty happy about that. Aluminina metals, we'll see what happens to that in in our Polish deal. And uh and for me that's the mining side. So yeah, I'm doing a lot of environmental philanthropy still. Very very active in that. Chair of the BC Parks Foundation


where we're trying to work on a huge huge uh number of initiatives to help British Columbombians with biodiversity production, health, human health, getting people out into parks and uh and a myriad of other projects we've got going. So yeah, I'm very busy on that side. A lot of philanthropy and uh basically having fun personally. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you for sharing. And we'll wrap it up there. This was great. Thank you so much. >> My pleasure. Thank you.


>> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Ross Speedy. [music]