Money flow from insiders, in a junior mining sector that continues to be mired in a years-long bear market -- despite US$2600 gold and voracious global demand for metals of all kinds. Here's a quick look at insider buying of note as 2024 winds to a close:
"Chomp Chomp" for the Chairman
I wrote about chairman and CEO Jim Paterson's innovative purchases of ValOre Metals (VO-V) shares in the October 17 article, Junior Mining Darwinism: Innovate or Die. Paterson has stepped up his buying again, spending about $112,000 in December buying VO shares at 8-10 cents in the public market. He now owns 42.34 million shares, an 18.5% stake.
Paterson is a principal (along with John Robins) of the Discovery Group, a Vancouver-based alliance of exploration companies -- that included Great Bear Resources until its acquisition by Kinross Gold for $1.8 billion. ValOre is advancing the Pedra Branca PGE project in northeastern Brazil, which hosts an Inferred resource of 2.2M oz 2PGE+Au.
Price: 0.075
Shares out: 229 million
Market cap: $17.18 million
A Golden Finn-ish?
Aurion Resources (AU-V) chairman Dave Lotan has appeared regularly in this space as a prolific buyer of Aurion shares. That continued in December, ahead of what could be a pivotal year for the company in the emerging Central Lapland Greenstone Belt (CLGB) of Finland, where the company has a 75,000-hectare land position.
Lotan spent $121,950 this month after putting $93,295 into Aurion during the last half of November. He is Aurion's largest shareholder with 15.46 million shares, a 10.38% stake. Kinross Gold (K-T) owns 9.98% of Aurion and is earning in to a 70% interest in Aurion's Launi East property.
Aurion has been drilling targets at its 100% owned Kaaresselka area on the Risti property, where hits announced in September included 29.1 g/t gold over 3.1 metres and 3.35 g/t over 9.85 metres. Much of the focus, however, has been on Aurion's 30% owned JV with B2Gold (BTO-T), which is adjacent to Rupert Resources' (RUP-T) 4M-oz Ikkari discovery.
Rupert has parlayed its remarkable Ikkari gold discovery to a $900-million market cap and is advancing to a prefeasibility study, scheduled for release in Q1 2025. There's one problem: Rupert's proposed open pit has a straight line on one edge. That's where the Aurion-B2Gold JV boundary lies, and the Ikkari mineralization runs to the property boundary and almost certainly beyond, onto the JV ground.
Rupert announced on Dec. 12 it was in the "final stages" of completing the Ikkari PFS -- which will be sub-optimal if Rupert can't get a deal done on the neighbouring JV ground. Ikkari is planned as an open pit/underground operation.
On March 11/24, Rupert offered B2Gold RUP shares worth $102.8 million for their 70% share of the JV. Aurion passed on its right-of-first-refusal for 70% of the JV but the Rupert-B2Gold deal did not close. On October 14, Rupert brought in new CEO Graham Crew, an engineer and operations guy. My guess is that he's highly motivated to make Ikkari a great mine, which would require locking up the JV ground.
Rupert's offer to B2Gold implies a value of $44 million for Aurion's 30%, with a US$2100 gold price. Gold now trades $500 higher and the clock is ticking on Rupert's economic studies. Another major involved in the district is Agnico Eagle (AEM-T), which operates the Kittila gold mine to the north and owns 13.3% of Rupert shares (but did not participate in RUP's last financing). 2025 should be an interesting year for Aurion shareholders. In the past Lotan has kept himself in the dark on drill results and other material news, so his latest buys may not necessarily mean that there are no JV-ground negotiations occurring.
Price: .65
Shares out: 148.9 million
Market cap: $96.8 million
Fair-weather hedge friend
On November 15, with Mayfair Gold (MFG-V) shares at $1.91, I wrote about Muddy Waters loading up on the stock. Muddy Waters and associates took control of Mayfair and its Fenn-Gib gold deposit in the Timmins gold camp last year. The hedge fund run by Carson Block closed out 2023 by adding even more Mayfair shares.
Muddy Waters - and a Golden Opportunity?
The stock has since dropped to $1.72 and Muddy Waters continues to vacuum up shares. Between November 15 and year-end 2024, the hedge fund bought an additional 136,700 shares at prices ranging from $1.73 to $1.95, spending a further $257,000. According to SEDI filings, various Muddy Waters funds own a combined 17.54 million Mayfair shares, a 16% stake.
Mayfair is working on a PFS for its Fenn-Gibb gold project after releasing an updated mineral resource on Sept. 10 that shows 4.3 million open-pittable ounces (Indicated) at average grades of 0.74 g/t Au (at a 0.3 g/t cut-off). Lake Shore Gold bought Fenn-Gibb from Barrick Gold back in 2011. Lake Shore Gold was taken over by Tahoe Resources in 2016 and the deposit got stranded in Tahoe and later Pan American Silver, Tahoe's acquirer.
Muddy Waters is better known for its short bets but also went long on GT Gold (GTT-V), which worked out well when that company was bought by Newmont for $400 million in 2021. On Oct. 28 of last year, Mayfair hired a vice-president of corporate development, Nicholas Campbell. With gold holding above US$2600/oz, will 2025 be the year that Mayfair gets snapped up by an acquisitive producer?
Price: $1.72
Shares out: 109.3 million
Market cap: $188 million
An "Au-sisko" Year
Mining M&A ramped up significantly in 2024 and Osisko companies played a key role. South Africa-based Gold Fields bought Osisko Mining (OSK-T) and its high-grade Windfall gold project in northern Quebec for $2.16 billion ($4.90/share) in August. On December 12, Agnico Eagle offered $204 million ($1.67/share) for O3 Mining (OIII-V), an Osisko-backed exploreco with the Marban Alliance property adjacent to Agnico's Canadian Malartic, Canada's largest gold mine. Both were all-cash deals.
That made it a banner year for John Burzynski, who is executive chairman of Osisko Mining and chairman of 03 Mining. Burzynski, one of three co-founders of Osisko Gold Royalties, owns or controls 1,293,300 Osisko Mining shares and a further 3.25 million options and rights restricted share units. Burzynski also owns 47,300 O3 Mining shares and a combined 446,217 options and rights deferred share units.
Burzynski's payday for the Osisko Mining takeover was roughly $22 million and he'll collect another $825,000 once the O3 deal closes.
Lately the mining industry veteran has been putting his capital to work buying shares of Osisko Metals (OM-V). Burzynski came in as executive chairman in November and purchased $1.56 million worth of 26-cent units in OM's recent financing, which raised $107.4 million. Burzynski then spent a further $517,000 in December buying Osisko Metals stock at prices ranging from 28 to 33 cents. He owns or controls a total of 7.66 million shares, a 1.26% stake.
"Chairman of the Booth" Robert Wares, CEO of Osisko Metals, also participated in the November financing, putting in $500,000. That takes his stake in Osisko Metals to 44.14 million shares, or 7.29% of the company.
Osisko Metals is advancing two brownfields projects -- the Pine Point zinc-lead joint venture (74.7%) in Northwest Territories and the Gaspé copper project in Quebec. Osisko acquired Gaspé from Glencore in 2022.
Price: 0.36
Shares out: 608.9 million
Market cap: $219.2 million
Wild Rose Moves
Tourmaline Oil (TOU-T) CEO Mike Rose closed out 2024 with about $465,000 worth of TOU purchases between Dec. 12 and 17, at prices from $60.75 to $62.90. The oilpatch power player also transferred 250,000 shares worth $15.7 million from his personal holdings to his Rose Foundation.
Rose owns 8.04 million shares personally and controls a further 1.45 million through the Rose Foundation and other accounts. It adds up to about 9.5 million shares, a 2.54% stake worth about $630 million.
Rose sold his first two companies, Berkley Petroleum and Duvernay Oil, to majors for a combined $7.2 billion. His wife, Sue Riddell Rose, is CEO of Rubellite Energy (RBY-T) and the daughter of deceased oilpatch billionaire Clayton Riddell.
Tourmaline is Canada's largest natural gas producer. The stock looks perky here after a couple years of sideways movement.
Price: $66.00
Shares out: 373.4 million
Market cap: $24.6 billion
Brussa Bulks Up
Part of oilpatch veteran John Brussa's Christmas shopping included purchases of Cardinal Energy (CJ-T). The Cardinal CEO spent about $480,000 adding to his Cardinal stake, at prices from $6.09 to $6.15. He owns or controls about 4.3 million shares, a 2.7% stake.
Brussa, a lawyer, wasn't the only insider adding to his stake. Cardinal director John Festival spent $465,000 buying CJ shares at $6.20. Festival was CEO of oil producer Blackrock Ventures when it sold for $2.4 billion to Shell Canada. Cardinal CEO Scott Ratushny also added 10,000 shares at $6.12 in December, taking his stake across various accounts to 4.13 million (2.6%).
Cardinal is a heavy oil producer with operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The company's largest shareholder is oilpatch billionaire Murray Edwards, who owns about 16% of the stock.
Price: $6.43
Shares out: 159.7 million
Market cap: $1.03 billion
Disclosure: I own shares of Aurion Resources, Mayfair Gold, Tourmaline Oil and Cardinal Energy and have no business relationship with any company mentioned. This article is for information purposes and all investors need to do their own due diligence.
