This is the Investing News Network and I'm Georgia Williams. We are here in Toronto at the PDAC conference. Joining me today is Kevin Kio, CEO and director of Orta Metals. Thanks for joining me today, Kevin. >> Oh, very nice to be here, Georgia. I was wondering if you could tell us um your ticker symbol and what exchange your shares trade on. >> Yeah, we trade on the TSX Venture and the ticker symbol is OTMC. >> Fabulous. >> Or Terra. >> Um it's the first day of PDAC. How has


it been so far? >> Oh, it's a good show and always a good show. This year I think it's busier than normal. >> A good turnout. >> Oh, yeah. Um, Orta is focused on gold and copper exploration in BC, Nevada and Ontario. Can you tell me a little bit about your preference for proferies? >> Yes, pfer is a principal focus for us and for those of your viewers who may not be familiar with them, uh, they are typically very large bodies and they contain a lot of copper, gold, and


silver. So they are much sought after by major mining companies because if you're lucky enough to find one, they can offer potential for a long life mine. So that's what we're focused on is finding them. And um I've personally been involved in the discovery of these sorts of bodies before and subsequently sold them off. So, we believe that we are on the trail that we have are close probably to finding another one on our Trek South property in British Columbia. >> Lovely. And those previous ones you


discovered were NBC as well. >> They were. Yeah, it was one in particular, pardon me, called uh Saddle North for GT Gold, which was a company that I had found and it's in the Golden Triangle as well. And uh yes, we had a very successful discovery there. and um sold the whole company as a result of it to pneumont. >> Lovely. Um over the past year, Orta has gone through a major restructuring. Can you walk us through what changed and how the process unlocked value and what the market in what the market may be


overlooking? >> Sure. Well, you know, uh Orta and its predecessor, not really predecessor company, but it was known previously as Romeo's Gold, right? And it had been around many years. So it developed some issues simply because it had been around all those years but it had some exceptionally fine assets. I knew about those. Um but there was an opportunity last year to get involved with the company and I really jumped at that opportunity because they have a particular asset. this trek south


porefree copper gold prospect that in my view is the best uh prospect of its kind that I've ever seen in my career and for that reason I got involved in the restructuring of uh Romeos and that was a whole series of steps involved since June last year it culminated in the emergence of well not that company but Ora metals on February 2nd and a major financing as well. So, as of tomorrow morning, you'll see that we're all ready to go, fully financed for what's to come this summer, which is the


uh first ever discovery drilling of the Trek South prospect. And it should be very exciting. >> Yeah. And you've described as a case study in turning around a struggling company with strong underlying assets. What should investors look for when trying to spot that kind of hidden value opportunity? Well, firstly they should look for assets buried within these companies that the market may be overlooking and it does help if you have a technical background to recognize those assets. I am a geologist by


training, studied some engineering too and uh so I had an advantage that way. But I guess the point I'd make to investors is that there are very real assets in some of these companies that have been overlooked and it is worthwhile um taking on the task of um fixing those companies for those assets if it if they are particularly fine assets which Trex South is. It's an exceptionally fine asset and it's made all that work worthwhile and the market agrees with us because the market has given us a lot of


money the last little bit to go do the work. They're excited by it. So, you know, to those of your viewers who might be looking for a near-term discovery prospect with a lot of upside, that's what Orta offers. That's what Trek South offers. What were the highlights and what are your next steps there? >> Well, we yes, we delivered a technical report at Tre for Trek South on just January 22nd, so just a month ago really. And um we did that basically to provide the investor community out there


with confidence in the property, right, that it was a real deal. And any of your people, any of your viewers that have an interest in this sector, the mining space should look at it because they'll see the merits of the TRE property and the Trek South prospect in particular. And in that technical report, we've been very explicit. We've laid out the drill program, the first ever drill program for this coming summer. It's in there in detail. you can see the holes, you can see where they're going to go, and you


can see our approach to this thing. So, um, we just tried to be forthright with investors, uh, educate them on the merits of the opportunity and make them aware of why we think it is such a good target to spend some money on, >> right? And it's sort of, you know, um, coming at the time when commodities prices are doing really well. Yeah. So, what do you know a higher gold price and a higher copper price mean for your project? >> Well, it certainly helps turn on investor interest. Admittedly, over the


last number of years, it's been very tough for those of us that are in the pre-discovery space. We don't have anything yet. You know, in our in our business, the only thing the market cares about are drill results. and you need a real discovery, one that could become a mine in order to really attract investor interest. But yeah, um you can sometimes have that kind of discovery, but if the wider market is not receptive, and it's not been receptive for many years, it's not been receptive.


You could deliver terrific results and they just blow it off as nothing. Now, it is like the lights have been turned back on. maybe two months ago they came back on, right? You're seeing it at this show, right? Everybody turns out a lot of people who weren't here in previous years. So those people, if we can deliver a discovery in this environment, the opportunity to make a lot of money from capital gains on these companies is really significant. Whereas maybe a discovery a few years ago of the style


we're looking for, you might have ended up at three or four bucks. In the current market, a discovery of this nature could drive us, pardon me, could drive us to uh $40. >> Yeah. And you know, um we hear a lot about major sort of looking to pick up assets because they need to expand their resource base. And as somebody that sold a project before, you know, it puts you in a really good position. Um would you look for that in the future? Yeah, you know, we we have a business model and the model is uh find


prove you've got discovery, advance it, quantify it with drilling, prove what's there, and once you've done that, maybe sell it, right? Because we are not miners, we're explorers. And so the the opportunity and the benefit that we could potentially offer our shareholders are capital gains associated with discovery and uh but it's always a volatile game. It's risky but yes and we several years ago had tremendous success with GT Gold where we had a major discovery and we ultimately sold the


whole company and that discovery to Pneumont. Um but it was not a straight run up right it was very volatile so you have to be >> it helps to understand the industry and know that it can be very volatile even on the way to a major success so I expect it probably be similar this time we deliver a big discovery this summer our stock is still going to be volatile at least till we've further advanced it and that'll take a couple of years work probably >> and you had mentioned the drill program.


What's next for Orta? >> Well, that's the total focus right now is that drill program, right? I mean, the total focus of the last few weeks has been raising money, right? >> And by the way, it's been enormously successful raise. We had to we had to lift the lid on the financing several times, which is unheard of. That's simply because there was so much interest in what we're proposing, we couldn't beat it down. Honestly, we couldn't. It was not a marketing ploy


raising. It was because the interest after a single day of marketing we were blown away by the response investor response. So we we took on more of that interest by increasing the size of the financing and the benefit of that is that now we are totally financed completely financed for the phases of initial phases of work that we've described in the technical report. That's all there. People can can participate in in Ortara now knowing that we have all the money we need to achieve a discovery this summer at Trek


South. And that's the real opportunity. No, they don't need to worry about dilution in the near term. They just need to worry about us putting the drills in the ground and getting some great results. So, >> absolutely. Well, congratulations on your successful capital raising. Well, thanks very much >> and it was a pleasure speaking with you. >> Likewise. Thanks very much. >> I'm Georgia Williams and that was Kevin Kio, CEO and president of Raera.