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Frank Curzio 00:11

How’s it going out there? It’s Wednesday, May 27th. I’m Frank Curzio, host of Wall Street Unplugged podcast where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets.

Frank Curzio 00:25

So I have an awesome interview for you today with one of the smartest, most respected CEOs in the mining industry, also a good friend. And his name is Ivan Bebek. Ivan is a co-founder and CEO of Coppernico Mines. That symbol is C-P-P-M-F-O-T-C. Uh, if you’re looking on the TSX, it’s C-O-P-R.

Frank Curzio 00:47

And Ivan is a superstar in this industry. I mean, he’s made money for investors time and time again. Keegan Resources, this is from 2008, 2010, when the market was horrible. You guys all know the market was horrible during that period. Uh, 18X returns. Then with Cadence Resources in 2014, he had 5X returns in the year that he ran the company,

Frank Curzio 01:08

which he sold for over $200 million to Agnico Eagle. So that was 2014. You might be asking, what has he been doing for the past 10 years or so? And he’s been building a project in Peru called Sombrero that could end up being the biggest copper discovery in the world.

Frank Curzio 01:28

I know it sounds crazy until you do your homework on Ivan, because Ivan, with his methodology, he goes big or he goes home. And that’s what you want when you’re investing in this highly speculative industry, which is junior miners. Uh, you’re looking at the largest investors in his new company, Coppernico.

Frank Curzio 01:47

And I say new because newly discovered, that you know, he’s been with this company for 10 years, building this, going through the whole process. You’re going to see why it’s taken him so long. Uh, and one of his investors are Tech, huge company, nearly 10% holder. Newmont, very familiar with that. You guys should be familiar with it. Over 5% holder. Ross Beatty, one of the legends in the industry, who I’ve interviewed several times,

Frank Curzio 02:07

actually went to him to see his hydro projects and took a helicopter with him. And Maren Katusa, just a great guy. Ross Beatty is an investor in this company as well. And these guys do not just invest in a company. They’re investing in this company because they see the potential this project could bring, where if Ivan’s right,

Frank Curzio 02:27

and a lot has to go right, it’s not this, don’t put all your money in it and you’re going to be a billionaire. Put speculative money into this name, because if he’s right, you’re not looking at a stock that’s going to go up 3X or 5X. This has the potential to be a 50X to 100X return for you, which is absolutely life-changing. I know what you’re thinking, Frank, you taught us.

Frank Curzio 02:47

Anyone that tells you something like that 50, 100 times, ignore them. They’re full of shit. It’s garbage. I get it. It’s probably nonsense. But you know what? Listen to this interview first, and then you can decide for yourself.

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Frank Curzio 05:03

Here’s my interview with Ivan Bebek. Ivan, thanks so much for joining us on Wall Street Unplugged. How’s it going?

Ivan Bebek 05:10

It’s going awesome. Great to be here.

Frank Curzio 05:12

You know, it’s been a while since I interviewed you. Everyone’s asking, what’s Ivan’s next project? What is he doing out there? What’s going on? And finally, we have something really exciting to talk about. Before we do, I would love our podcast goes out to over 130 countries. So, so we have a lot of young listeners out there. And to see you 10 years ago and getting that introduction,

Frank Curzio 05:32

I think, from Maren Katusa and, you know, seeing where your career went and how you where you are now in that stage, could you tell me, or tell the audience out there, even the young investors? I mean, the difficulty, because you’re in a really tough industry, there’s a lot of stuff that is, you know, I don’t want to point figures, but it’s a very tough industry where a lot of shadiness goes on,

Frank Curzio 05:53

kind of like crypto. And you’ve built this amazing reputation. Talk about that and talk about your methodology, which is kind of like go big or go home and how that, you know, came to be and where you are right now. I think it’s important for a lot of listeners out there to see that journey, because everyone just sees this person, hey, look, this is successful, but you know, that journey is really hard. Talk about that and let’s start off there.

Ivan Bebek 06:13

Yeah, well, I’ll go back a bit. I’ve been in the business for 25 years. Before I got in the business, my dad was one of Robert Friedland’s friends when Friedland first came to Vancouver. Robert Friedland’s one of the most successful mining entrepreneurs in the world, multi, multi-billionaire. Had an incredible talent for the marketing and financing and going for major discoveries.

Ivan Bebek 06:35

I saw that early on and I adapted same energy towards going for discoveries and got a very lucky finding a 5 million ounce gold mine in Africa back in 2005, 2006. Company went from a million dollar valuation to a billion dollar valuation, about $9 per share from 49 cents per share.

Ivan Bebek 06:52

And it tastes the first bit of success that you can have when you find a mine. You know, it seemed easy at the time, but the odds are one in 10,000 to find a mine that would actually make it to production. And we did it on the first deal.

Ivan Bebek 07:05

Once that company got to the $8, $9 range and it started going to development, which is not my passion, it’s finding the mine for that 50 cents to $9 rate of return for the investor. I went and spearheaded Cadence and went down to Mexico to try and repeat the same success of another 5 million ounce discovery. We drilled 100 holes. And in 2015,

Ivan Bebek 07:25

at the bottom of the last cycle, when things were low, we went from we drilled 100 holes, went from 67 cents, sold the company at 360 per share. And Agnico Eagle bought it for $200 million. And Agnico has gone up about seven times since then. And we took Agnico shares. So tremendous success.

Ivan Bebek 07:43

And not only having found a mine and was responsible for funding the building of that first mine, but also finding and selling it. And when you talk about success in this industry, there’s a lot of people that will attribute, you know, a one-hit wonder, luck as your reason. And we think luck’s 70% of the battle. But once you start doing it more than once, you realize there’s a bit of talent.

Ivan Bebek 08:05

And my talent’s been being a strategist and the ability to attract really good quality geoscientists that want to go and explore for major mines. Finding a 5 million ounce mine in Ghana or selling Cadence to Agnico Eagle, it just made me more greedy to be really succinct about it. I wanted something bigger. In any career, in any business as an entrepreneur,

Ivan Bebek 08:25

you want to build something that has global impact, and not just from social footprints, but from mining scale, something that would be a top 10 in the world. And so that started back in 2015. Spana, there’s a company called Oren, which is the last time I think we got on a podcast together. Then we got on at about $1.30 and it went to $3 and change.

Ivan Bebek 08:44

And we paused waiting for this project that we’re going to talk about today to come online. And it didn’t quite make it through at the time. It took a few more years to get access to the project. But, you know, that was the company that we went after, copper, gold, and silver assets, and raised and spent $100 million from 2015 to 2020, looking for mines in those categories that would make the top 10 in the world.

Ivan Bebek 09:06

After COVID, where we had this initial false start to the mining sector, I decided that separating the company by commodity was much better than mixing all three in one. You don’t get paid for multiple different commodities as much in one company as an explorer. And so I split the company into three. For the first quarter of 2021, two of the companies traded higher than Oren’s highest share price,

Ivan Bebek 09:28

which was great. And then we went into the demise of the lowest part of the cycle in history for mining junior equities. And, you know, there’s always a counterbalance, so bull market to a bear market or dips and peaks in these markets. And that’s, you know, where we were patient, hung onto the assets. Each company’s active today exploring those assets.

Ivan Bebek 09:47

But Sombrero, the main project that was carrying the $300 million market cap at $3 per share in Oren, is one that I chose to be CEO of and go chase. And we’ll talk about why, but probability scale, and it’s gotten a lot better in that decade.

Ivan Bebek 10:03

And as we sit here and talk today, this is about to go into that exciting 18 months of drilling and seeing if we have a top 10 copper mine in the world.

Frank Curzio 10:11

I didn’t even know that, that this is an asset inside a former company that you decided to take over, which is amazing. I didn’t even know that part of the story, which is awesome. I know the story very well. Let’s get into it, which is, you know, people are going to say Coppernico or Coppernico. I had to listen to a couple of interviews first. But I believe it’s Coppernico Metals. Talk about this company,

Frank Curzio 10:30

how you formed it, and what’s so special about it.

Ivan Bebek 10:33

Yeah, so Coppernico is named after Copernicus. And I’ll be real honest about it. Robert Friedland took Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe Mines is a very successful company. My name is Ivan. I would have taken that if I had the chance to. Ivanhoe was a great discoverer. And so I looked for who is another major discoverer in history that discovered something significant.

Ivan Bebek 10:53

And Copernicus was a gentleman who discovered that the planets go around the sun. The sun don’t go around the planet. So a legendary discoverer in time. And thinking Copernicus, copper, Coppernico, that’s how the name was formed. And we’re going after something that would be legendary in terms of discovery in the copper market. And so that’s how it came about. From the company’s perspective, we’re in year 10.

Ivan Bebek 11:14

We’ve spent $50 million to get to this conversation right now today. And what drove us is exactly what you have here is that second point. It’s an analog to Las Bombas. Part of this project is an analog to Las Bombas, which is the ninth or eleventh largest mine in the world. I believe Grasberg is on hold till 2028. So it’s probably number nine right now.

Ivan Bebek 11:33

And so this was a very appealing aspect of what could we find, right? When looking for a mine, there’s two things you have to look at. One, you have to look at the commodity and the value of the commodity and where we are in that commodity cycle. And the other one, you have to look for analogs. Where am I going to spend 10 years of my life trying to unlock a major discovery and create a tremendous amount of wealth?

Ivan Bebek 11:55

For me, it was Peru. Some of the largest mines in the world are there. And seeing the analog early on to Las Bombas was a company that sold for $11 billion, or sorry, $5.8 billion metal value back in 2014, when copper was 325 a pound. So copper is almost doubled.

Ivan Bebek 12:12

Yes, we are trying to replicate a similar scale sale in the next few years. If we could sell Coppernico for five or four or $5 billion, that would be a tremendous achievement of the goal that we’ve set out to do. On this chart here, you saw Cerro Verde, you saw a few others, and Tamina as well.

Ivan Bebek 12:30

These are three of the largest mines in the world out of the top 10 or 11 mines are in Peru. And this just gives you a chance to understand the scale. Peru is a unique country. It’s very stable from a mining perspective. It has had a lot of transition at the presidential level. There’s been nine presidents in the last 10 years.

Ivan Bebek 12:49

And the only point I’ll make, besides me being very comfortable with Peru, is they’ve never, ever impacted the mining code, the mining law. It’s been always stable because that’s the largest portion of their GDP. And they’ve recognized that the value of their country is based off mining. So the presidents change often, but the mining stays the same.

Frank Curzio 13:08

And that’s one of the questions I think people ask, right? It’s a geopolitical risk. And explain how important that is to you, because when you deal with people who’ve been there and done that, you know political risk, and you know the risk you’re taking more than anything. And I think that’s where the behind-the-scenes picture of what you need to do is incredible.

Frank Curzio 13:28

It’s not just, oh, okay, we’re okay with the government and we’re okay with the community. You know, talk about, I mean, this is a long-term project where you have to pay a lot of attention to show them how committed you are. And I think even for a lot of great people in the mining industry, that story is never told of what you need to do to get in good with a certain country, because that process isn’t easy, is it?

Ivan Bebek 13:49

Oh, no, not at all. And I had a luxury of having some experience in Mongolia, my first venture, where I found and sold an asset to a major mining company privately. And then the second one was in Ghana, West Africa, where we navigated for six years, president, changes in mining codes and taxes and all of the above. It was intense experiences that I had before I came over to Peru.

Ivan Bebek 14:10

But the biggest experience that I think gave us the weapon of perseverance and the ability to unlock an opportunity was communities. And in Ghana, West Africa, we affected 13,000 people that are still benefiting today from the mine we found there. So coming into Peru, the best discoveries or the new discoveries to come,

Ivan Bebek 14:29

and they’re very hard to find, are either going to come behind geopolitical major risk or social challenges. And this project has social challenges. The communities are absolutely key. In the 1980s, there was a massacre here by a terrorist group in Peru called the Shining Path. And this kept the area very difficult for foreigners to enter.

Ivan Bebek 14:49

It was a bad massacre at the time. And the communities were not open to foreigners coming through. As we got into the 2000s, a steel company came through here. And they were exploring for iron ore. This is how the initial discovery of Sombrero was made. They drilled eight holes. And there was visual copper in all of these holes. And once they saw that, copper does affect the extraction of iron.

Ivan Bebek 15:09

You can’t extract iron if copper is present. So they stopped. But they were in the area kind of breaking the ice initially. And we came along. And being somebody that’s a man of the people, as reputation goes, and someone that’s very community-forward, and with enough experience to understand that if you’re going to find a major mine anywhere or a mine,

Ivan Bebek 15:28

it’s going to be the people that are going to be the most important key, not just to get it up and running, to explore it, but also to build it one day and to get a premium if you end up selling it from a major mining company. So we took this real serious. And we met some great people that were able to lead a really good path. They created something called AGRADIAS. AGRADIAS is a partnership between the governments, the communities, and ourselves.

Ivan Bebek 15:50

And if you follow this business, the biggest thing in these Second World countries, or any countries, to be honest, is governments don’t trust the communities to spend the money. Communities don’t trust the governments to share the money. So we bridged that gap. And we were able to write grants to the government to get agriculture in the region. This is critical because this part of Peru had an iron deficiency.

Ivan Bebek 16:11

It’s about 3,900 meters elevation, about the top of Vail if you’re an American, to understand the height. And so there was a big iron deficiency. So we started bringing in sheep, cattle, and then eventually fish farms, weaving programs for the women as well to be part of the social impact, where they could make clothing. And they created a not only did they get agriculture,

Ivan Bebek 16:32

they created a subculture for themselves, a sub-economy. So now the communities benefited. And we lived in these communities for the 10 years we’ve been there. We’ve had three people living in these communities. And the big misconception you get as an entrepreneur or as a financier is money seems to seem like it solves everything. It doesn’t.

Ivan Bebek 16:52

It’s listening to the people, seeing what they need. We didn’t know they needed agriculture initially. We can go and be good humanitarians and build hospitals and different things. But we were very focused on listening and seeing what they needed. Besides providing jobs, we wanted to have a very sustainable footprint, whether we find a mine or not.

Ivan Bebek 17:10

So now the community is benefiting from these programs. We have several more that we’re bringing in. We’ve done about a million dollars in total, which has had a huge impact locally. It’s spreading in the region. A lot of other communities want to be part of these programs as well. And that we do in exchange for access to go and explore their projects. But we did it the slow way.

Ivan Bebek 17:30

And we did it the right way. And that’s one of the biggest strengths right now of the project is our social presence.

Frank Curzio 17:36

Okay, let’s get to the project now, because you said a couple of things that I’m going to rehash. Well, you’re saying that Las Bombas, this is very similar in geology, in a similar area. And you’re saying that this could be just like it. Now, you mentioned this quickly. I want to bring this back up, because this mine was sold for nearly $6 billion all the way back in 2014.

Frank Curzio 17:57

And if you look back then, like you said, copper prices were half of what they were now. So just say conservatively, it was a $10 billion project, right? And you’re looking at this project being one of the biggest when you look at right here, which we talked about.

Frank Curzio 18:11

So are you saying this project, Sombrero, has the potential to be, because this is one of the biggest cop projects in the world you’re talking about, right? And this has been sold for, again, we’re looking at the price that it’s sold for, which is almost $6 billion. And this is where cop prices were half. So we’re looking at something that is, when you’re looking at the numbers and what’s your current market cap now,

Frank Curzio 18:31

just to bring that up, is you’re looking at something that’s a blockbuster, right? Like I said, it’s go big or go home, right? So talk about, let’s get to Sombrero project, why you think it’s this big, because the numbers you’re throwing out there are pretty insane. And people are going to be like, does it have, even if it’s 10% of what you’re saying or 5% of what you’re saying, you’re looking at massive returns as investors, aren’t you?

Ivan Bebek 18:52

Yes. So great comment and great introduction to Sombrero. First off, we have about a $70 million market cap to give you context of what kind of returns could be achieved. We will raise money and dilute over the next few years as we explore it. But as we start to make the discovery, the share price should perform, and that would be modest. But the chance to have a 20,

Ivan Bebek 19:12

30x return is really the minimum that we’re looking for here to make this worthwhile with the weight and what the geology is telling us could be there. We have 12 individual substantial targets. Each one of those 12 could be standalone mines. Three out of the 12 make up the comparison to Las Bombas. So looking at this slide here, very important slide.

Ivan Bebek 19:33

On this mining trend, on the right-hand side, you see all of those mines with the circles with the hammers in them. You see Las Bombas there in the middle. So what happened here historically was a volcano erupted. And in green, it covered the western side of this mining trend. Everybody focused on the eastern side because all these mines were sticking out of the ground. And that’s how they were discovered.

Ivan Bebek 19:52

And not only Las Bombas, but Tintayo at one time was BHP’s most profitable mine. It’s now owned by Glencore. Costancia is operating. It’s owned by HUD Bay. Haquira is operating, owned by First Quantum. A lot of these mines are actually in operation. And again, if you don’t know much about Peru, and you don’t know much about mining in Peru, this is a region where mines are actually producing.

Ivan Bebek 20:12

So not only can you find it, you can build it. What happened in this region was a gentleman by the name of Miguel Cardozo who found Yanacocha, a 61 million ounce gold mine. It’s now owned by Newmont in Peru. He came over here and he saw a little bit of erosion, some areas where we could see through the volcanic cover. Erosion did its part, exposed a few areas.

Ivan Bebek 20:34

And you’re basically walking on copper for a kilometer or a mile, and you’re seeing a bunch of copper. And he looked at the rocks initially and he said, you know what? I think these rocks at Sombrero are the same as the rocks as all these mines next door. And other major mining companies had been here back in the early 2000s, 25 years ago.

Ivan Bebek 20:53

And they saw some rich grade. They saw the challenge in the communities. And they saw the volcano that covered it. So it was really hidden. It’s a concealed target with very limited outcrop. So they thought, maybe there’s just a little bit of narrow copper and stuff like that. And then quickly we got on there. We started sampling hundreds of meters of over half a percent copper on surface.

Ivan Bebek 21:13

And we started to show the thesis that this is replicating not only the copper grades, but also the potential for a world-class copper discovery here. The last key, which is critical for mining geosciences, is the age of when the rocks were formed. All the mines that you saw there on the right-hand side of the page,

Ivan Bebek 21:32

they were all formed about 35 to 40 million years ago. That’s the Eocene era by label. At 35, 40 million years ago, the Earth, not only in Peru, around the entire world, was creating major mines. And that’s what was the knock on Sombrero. The government had come and done a survey here and said it was much younger, about 20 million years old.

Ivan Bebek 21:52

So it didn’t fit that threshold. We took two age dates and major mining companies who saw some of our results and were super intrigued by our project. They took over 24 additional age dates of different areas. And we are exactly the same era as the mines next door. So that was a huge one. It wasn’t necessary. If you have copper over a mile in surface,

Ivan Bebek 22:13

that’s a good indicator you might have a copper mine. But when you see that it was formed the same time as all these and several other major mines in the world, that’s where you get really excited and you start to feel like, wow, this could really carry.

Frank Curzio 22:26

Yeah, and that’s incredible, because you said something interesting too, where it’s not just one area that you’re drilling. It is, you look at, I believe it’s like around the size of Chicago, your area. That’s how big it is. Just put it in perspective. It’s 57,000 hectares. And I love to put things in perspective because people like hectares in the US. They’re like, what is that?

Frank Curzio 22:45

But talk about the area where it’s just not just one small area where you said something interesting, that this has the ability to have several big mines, right? So several huge or whatever it was, seven or talk about that, because a lot of people think, okay, just one area we’re going to drill is a positive.

Frank Curzio 23:04

It’s not. This could be much, much bigger than what you’re just talking about here.

Ivan Bebek 23:09

Yeah, so that’s a great comment. And if you look at this region, first off, we have 57,000 hectares. We sampled 800,000 hectares to get this land position. And we picked the best areas with copper and gold that was in soils or creeks draining from the rocks nearby. And that’s how we put this map together.

Ivan Bebek 23:28

We’re trying to actually replicate the entire trend on the western side. We use Las Bombas as an analog because there are some obvious targets that have very strong parallels to it. But we’re trying to replicate the entire trend. And so we went out and sampled the whole area, the whole entire western half of this trend to see where these deposits could occur.

Ivan Bebek 23:48

Most of it is covered, but there are clever geoscientific things you can do to try and get the best areas which would have the most low-hanging fruit. So what you’re looking at here is our 12 individual targets. Each one of these dots and names could be a standalone $1 to $2 billion company. That is the potential. But remembering what I said earlier, Frank,

Ivan Bebek 24:07

in the beginning, one in 10,000 will become a mine that goes into production, or one in 1,000 will become a deposit. Here, we’re focused in on this area in the middle of the page where there’s the most dots located. You see Escondida South. You see Tipicancha. You see Aceros option claim in the middle there.

Ivan Bebek 24:25

This area here has seven distinct targets, two that are outcropping with incredible grades on surface, one with drilling in it, and then five that are slightly hidden. And when I say slightly buried, they’ve got five meters to 40 meters of dirt on top of the rocks, to be real succinct about it. And we don’t know.

Ivan Bebek 24:44

It’s what lies beneath. But we can use electrical currents, magnetic currents. We can measure the rock density from surface and look at the mineralization where there’s copper and gold on surface and try to estimate where there could be a big footprint or a big ore body beneath the surface. And until you drill it, you don’t know. So that’s the most exciting part of drilling.

Ivan Bebek 25:03

This project has expanding discovery at a target called Fieraso, where there’s past drilling. That’s where we’re going to drill next to expand a really good discovery that has started. And then it has an area called NEOC. And there’s another slide in my presentation that really shows it. But NEOC has been channel sampling or trenching on surface. We’ve been getting tens of meters over 1% copper,

Ivan Bebek 25:24

over 150 meters over half a percent copper. What does that mean to the average investor? The average grade, the richness of the average copper mine in the world is half a percent of copper in a ton of rock. So NEOC, if you look at this slide here, you can see on top of the surface, we’ve highlighted some of those trenches there. You’re seeing double that grade in a lot of these areas.

Ivan Bebek 25:45

You got a small window of where erosion took place. And then you have a lot of volcanic cover. So imagine visually the tip of an iceberg sticking through the surface. Iceberg would be potentially a big copper ore body, copper-gold ore body underneath. There’s a huge amount of gold here as well, which is very good. And then those red signals and purple signals you see right below the image there,

Ivan Bebek 26:05

that’s what happens when you put electrical currents in the ground. Or we also have a survey with magnetic currents and rock density. And the biggest takeaway there is the more red you see, the better. And we see a lot of it. On surface, there’s a ton of copper and gold. We think, our speculation, and we’ll find out soon, that the actual big blob underneath is coming from what’s on surface.

Ivan Bebek 26:26

It goes down for over 700 meters in depth. A big, major open-pit mine is usually 300 meters down in depth, so more than double that. And then if you look at it from a bird’s-eye perspective, that one target, and we’re just talking about one, goes for about three kilometers long. To have a major mine, you need one kilometer.

Ivan Bebek 26:45

That’s it in this kind of environment with this kind of grades that we’re seeing. So we don’t know if it’s continuous for three kilometers yet. But if we start finding that and seeing that half a percent to over 1% copper on surface, it’s going to be truly spectacular as a discovery with tremendous value. The richer the mine you find and the more value of copper there is right on surface,

Ivan Bebek 27:06

like we’re showing in that image, the more profitability, the cheaper it is to pay back, the more inexpensive it is to build and mine. And so it becomes one of the more coveted mines in the world.

Frank Curzio 27:16

I’m glad you said that, because for non-geologists out there, what is the grade that you’re looking at, which is very, very positive? What’s the average grade out there, just for the number? Because you just came out with good drilling results too, which we want to talk about, which is amazing, right? And this is just the confirmation of what you’re doing here, right? So what is average? What’s good?

Frank Curzio 27:34

And what are you looking to get in terms of this way investors who are non-geologists can understand it better?

Ivan Bebek 27:40

Yeah. So we actually took a channel sample. We took a saw. There were some rocks sticking out of the surface. And we cut with a saw for 100 meters of rock. It’s like drilling horizontally before you drill vertically. That’s basically what we just announced a few days ago. We sampled 70 meters of 0.93% copper,

Ivan Bebek 27:59

almost 1% copper, but also about 0.3 grams gold, which is combining the two or 0.25 grams gold, you would be well over 1% copper-gold equivalent, probably closer to 1.5. I don’t know the exact number. But as far as it goes, the copper number is the key number here. The gold credit is very high.

Ivan Bebek 28:18

But 70 meters of that grade would be one of the best surface results globally right now on an undrilled vertically project. So put that into context. There are several areas around this area that show similar grades. Some are over 1% over great widths. Some are over half a percent. The average grade of the average mine is half a percent copper.

Ivan Bebek 28:39

So we’re well above that, which makes this really, really unique. So when you see grade like this and several other companies can put together news like this, you want to see where they did it, what’s the environment, what’s the analog. And again, we covered it quite well in the beginning of the talk. The analog is Las Bombas. We’re seeing incredible grade.

Ivan Bebek 28:58

There’s been over 4,000 or 5,000 samples taken across our targets that are exposed to date. And I think the average grade is about 0.7, 0.8 of all 4,000 samples, which is incredible because Las Bombas is 0.6% copper average grade. But this is showing us that we have grade. The next thing you got to really focus on,

Ivan Bebek 29:18

because grade is number one, but it’s infrastructure. Where is this located? How do you access it? Is there power, water, roads? And this is the best infrastructure I’ve seen ever. There’s power lines that were built over top of the project. You hear them buzzing as you’re drilling. That’s going to be mine power. It’s already there. That was built by the government in the red line there.

Ivan Bebek 29:39

You drive in on that beautiful paved road to the project. You can actually drive right up to where you’re drilling on that top image on the left. And then you have two towns, the green squares that are nearby but not near any of our targets. They’re actually down the hill topographically, so they don’t stare at where the mine could occur. And then you have multiple water sources.

Ivan Bebek 29:59

And water, we all understand, is incredibly valuable, not just in Peru, but all over the world. So this is the perfect setup. It’s 3,900 meters elevation. There’s mines operating over 5,000 meters. So it’s an area that you could not only mine physically, but you could mine extremely profitably. If you go back to the grade conversation we had,

Ivan Bebek 30:19

half a percent copper is the average grade. A lot of those mines are not set up like this or those projects. They don’t have this kind of infrastructure, which makes this even better as an opportunity. So the grade is going to be worth a lot more here than it would in most places because that infrastructure is outstanding.

Frank Curzio 30:36

I want to make something clear to the audience out there. And I’ve interviewed so many people in the mining industry, from the Mercantuses to the Ross Beaties to Eric Spratz, Rick Rules, Doug Casey’s. What I learned, and it’s a learning process because you get your ass kicked in this industry a lot because you don’t realize it. And you say, oh, okay, this is a great project. That’s near something else.

Frank Curzio 30:56

And someone always tried to sell you on something big. You just talked about the odds of becoming a real mining company producer of one in 10,000. The things that you’re talking about are very, very important to every project. We talked about geography, right? Peru, great things that you’ve done in the government. You talk about infrastructure. People don’t realize you could have a great project that says, all right,

Frank Curzio 31:15

we have $2 billion in resources, but it’s in the middle of Antarctica, and it’s $3 billion to get it out, right? Nobody even talks about that, right? Then you’re talking about just the grade of it, right? Then the scalability of this project, hitting on all those levels that you need. And one of the most important things is a management team, which they’re getting to know you maybe the first time, or they know you already.

Frank Curzio 31:34

Talk about your management team because it really is incredible. And these people have followed you. I feel like just your reputation, when you say you’re going to do something this, people that want to sign up and work for you immediately because you know your reputation, how important is that management team that you talked about earlier was able to discover this and say, hey, this project is like the other similar projects.

Frank Curzio 31:54

So this should be valued similarly at this stage.

Ivan Bebek 31:58

Yeah, so great question. And truly, it falls on management every time. Track record is the best way to evaluate a management team. Having been to $9 per share and found a gold mine that’s in production, having sold a company, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of some tremendous successes.

Ivan Bebek 32:18

And I’m advertising that we could have another major success here, so I’ve done it. I’m going to start with my CFO, Stacey Aroa. What you talked on earlier about doing business in Peru, it is complicated. And it’s not complicated because it’s a challenging country. It’s complicated because you have to learn all the people and everybody behind the company.

Ivan Bebek 32:37

And if you don’t have a good CFO, you will spend over a million dollars a year extra capital that you don’t need to spend. So efficiency has been outstanding. The comfort of property ownership and titles and everything has been very solid. Christian Rios, he’s our SVP of corporate development. He worked with David Lowell, the late David Lowell. David Lowell found, I think, 50 mines around the world.

Ivan Bebek 32:59

He’s the number one discoverer of all mines in history. And so Christian worked with him. Christian’s a geologist. But he’s been an absolute weapon with us with the Agridias, the agricultural programs, lobbying for permits, permits we’ve gotten so far. He’s got them ahead of schedule. He’s been outstanding for us. And he’s driven a really, really professional camp for us when we’re operating in the country.

Ivan Bebek 33:20

Tim Kingsley, my VP of exploration. I mean, there was a few geologists before Tim. Great projects that take time. That’s the biggest vice of going after a big one. They can outlast a few people. Tim is the third geologist to come onto the project, but he’s done the most with it. He’s had a chance to do brilliant things technically. Tim’s demeanor is conservative.

Ivan Bebek 33:41

He’s prudent. And when you look for mines, you’re looking for a brain surgeon. And he’s somebody that is extremely thorough, very conservative. He takes very, very, very calculated steps in taking the risk, which is great because the hardest thing when you’re looking for a mine and you start seeing copper everywhere, gold everywhere, is to get that gold fever, that copper fever.

Ivan Bebek 34:02

You’re like, “Oh my God.” And you start painting ahead of you, get ahead of yourself. Tim’s been very leveling. And so that’s been tremendous. And then you go to the board level. And Tony Aribas on our board, he was VP of geosciences for BHP and Newmont. Those are two some major mining companies. His role there was quality control of exploration.

Ivan Bebek 34:22

His depth of knowledge over 40 years now in the business is incredible. And Antonio is working, collaborating with Tim and Christian when they do programs. They’re making sure that we’re doing the smartest things we can do. And he’s a wealth of a sounding board for Tim. There’s no one individual geologist that good. It’s always a team. So he’s a big part of it. MJ McQuaid,

Ivan Bebek 34:41

who we met when she was with BHP, she’s now building mines for Anglo, another major mining company. She is paramount from the major mining perspective because she comes out with the knowledge of where can you build a mine or not? Is it feasible to build a mine here? When you see a landscape and you think, “Oh, we could just put a big hole in the ground over there,” it’s certainly not that easy.

Ivan Bebek 35:02

There’s so many factors, some social engineering aspects. And she’s doing it for one of the largest mining companies in the world. So we got an early checkmark from her that we could actually build this. We could actually be very profitable with it. It’s actually feasible to build if we find it. So this is critical. So we have experience in delivering share price value to shareholders.

Ivan Bebek 35:23

We have experience in financing and building a mine. We have experience in selling a discovery, which is the goal here, what we’re going to do. And we have some of the best geoscientists we could find in the world, which is drawn by reputation, but also drawn by the project. It’s very easy to attract very smart people to this project.

Frank Curzio 35:41

Yeah. If you’re listening to this, obviously, you can watch it on YouTube. You watch it on iTunes now. They have a feature and also Spotify. But if you’re not, just know that you mentioned nine people. Not one of them has less than 19 years of experience in this industry, which is incredible. The last thing I wanted to talk about, which is so important, is your investors. Whenever you start a project, especially you and your reputation, you get a lot of big investors.

Frank Curzio 36:02

Talk about that part because the investors that are at, they have to be real happy, not just with the project, but the recent news, the recent grade, just this constant confirmation saying, “Wow, this could be a huge mine.” Talk about some of your largest investors and companies because you have to have a good reputation. You have to not just understand the geology and be a great CEO.

Frank Curzio 36:22

You have to understand financing, right? Which is very, like you said, having a CFO is one of the biggest things in the world. Understand the financing part and getting these guys in. They have to be happy. Talk about how you got some of these big investors. And who are they that are in this company right now?

Ivan Bebek 36:36

Yeah. So that’s the most important part. Shareholders are our biggest strength. And why? Because shareholders, when they buy and sell, they determine the price and the performance of your company. Our job is to educate our shareholders intently well. But let’s start off with the two largest ones. Beside myself there is Newmont and Tech. The most recent major mining company is Tech.

Ivan Bebek 36:57

Tech is now merging with a company called Anglo. They’re now about an $80 billion mining company focused primarily in base metals. Newmont is one of the largest gold companies in the world. We know who they are. I talked about with you this podcast about we might find this huge mine. It could go for billions of dollars, all of the above. I’m obviously going to have a natural bias.

Ivan Bebek 37:17

And I’m also obviously closest to the project. But having them as shareholders, as investors, is pure third-party validation. So don’t take my word for it. Take the fact that Tech’s invested into it, that Newmont’s a shareholder who have way more geologists than we have, way more experience. They operate mines in-country.

Ivan Bebek 37:35

And seeing them as shareholders is the best way that you could quantify the risk is worth the potential reward. And he’s not talking ahead of his skis. He actually has a shot at finding something big. My position as a CEO, I’ve always invested alongside shareholders. I’ve invested recently. But between Oren, where we spun this company out of,

Ivan Bebek 37:53

and here, I’ve put in about $6 million so far of my working capital. I hate to say this, that it’s nominal compared to the time I’ve spent, the 10 years to bring this project to the state because you can’t buy time, right? That’s the one thing you can’t buy. You can only spend it. And so the investment’s substantial. It would change my career, my life, and everything if this works out.

Ivan Bebek 38:15

But I have skin in the game. And I have skin in the game at all prices. And my reputation is that I follow and I invest at all levels with shareholders. If I’m going on podcasts, if I’m going to market my company, if I’m going to tell everybody we might find this big mine, I’m going to be investing alongside investors the whole time. Outside of that, Ross Beaty has been a great shareholder.

Ivan Bebek 38:34

He found and sold 14 or mines or sold 14 companies. They call him the broken slot machine, a very successful mining entrepreneur, a billionaire in our space. There’s a few other people of that caliber in the registry, one from Europe, a couple from the US. And why is that important, Frank?

Ivan Bebek 38:50

Because if you find an asset and the company could be worth $5 or $6 billion and it’s worth $70 million today, it’s those shareholders that will elevate the performance and have the networks to buy and double down as the mine’s getting found. So they all have starter positions. Everyone’s watching closely. 10 years is a long time.

Ivan Bebek 39:10

I know a lot of people want to trade in 10 days. But if you want to have a shot at 50 or 30 or 50x return, it’s going to take time. We’ve spent that time. And we’re now at the exact flexion point, meaning the next 60 days or so, we’re going to start drilling. And in those 18 months, we’re going to test 7 of those 12 major targets that we have.

Ivan Bebek 39:30

We’re going to have 7 shots at finding major mines. And 3 of those could replicate the Los Bombas in scale. This is the most exciting stage of my last decade on this project. I’m going to quote Tim Kingsley, my VP of exploration, the head geologist. He said it’s the discovery year. He’s done enough work on the targets. He’s put enough layers of science on them.

Ivan Bebek 39:51

And the interesting thing, Frank, is when we got involved on this company in the beginning, not only did the targets get more and more confident for us, they got better, but we found more targets over the last 10 years. So we didn’t just sit here waiting to drill one target or two. We now have 12. So we’ve expanded that. And then if you look at Keegan’s mine that we found, Assasse is the name of the mine.

Ivan Bebek 40:12

Or if you look at Cadence Project Barcano that sold Tecnico Eagle when we sold it, the same one common theme I’ve seen in both of those, and I see it here, is every new layer of data we take, it’s better and better and better. So all of these cool geoscientific studies, they have progressively made it better. And that’s not very common because sometimes you have a great expression on surface,

Ivan Bebek 40:33

but there’s no undersurface signature. Or you have an undersurface signature, but there’s no mineralization on surface. But in this project, everything keeps stacking. And the probability in some of these areas, to us, we believe, is incredible. We believe we’re going to get it.

Frank Curzio 40:48

Yeah. It’s really exciting times. So as an investor, what could they expect? Because I feel like it’s, hey, it’s almost like, “Where’s Waldo? Where’s Ivan Bebek?” And now it’s 10 years of building this up. I see you on the circuits now. I see what you’re doing. I see you’re on podcasts now. And you’re a guy that’s not there when you’re not building this thing up. It’s when you actually have something that you’re really excited about.

Frank Curzio 41:08

What are the next steps? Obviously, you’re going to have to raise money. You have great investors. It’s not going to be a problem for you because of your reputation. But what are some of the next steps, next catalysts that people look for? Because you do have drilling results. You said you’re going to be drilling. This could confirm not just one, but several major discoveries. What are some of the things that investors could look forward to in the next 6 months, the next 18 months?

Frank Curzio 41:28

Because that’s usually it used to be a few years, but it’s a little less than that now with the TikTok age and everyone swipes every one second. But what are some of the things they could get really excited about over the next 6 months to 18 months?

Ivan Bebek 41:40

So there’s four huge catalysts that are on the deck right now. The most important one is we’re about to get a massive drill permit. We have a drill permit. We’re expanding it. That drill permit is in the final weeks of completing. We’re at the very advanced stages of it. And that will set off the big drill program. We’re going to start drilling, likely start drilling in July.

Ivan Bebek 41:59

And once we start drilling, we’re drilling beside holes that have hit to expand a discovery that’s there to start. So we’re going to come out of the gate with a ton of momentum going into the fall. And then we’re going to test those 7 major targets. So the first catalyst is going to be drilling. Yes, there’ll be a financing in between now and then. That’s something that we’ve got several very, very high-quality investors interested in.

Ivan Bebek 42:20

It’ll go to very few. We’re going to be very strategic on how we do that raise, meaning we want somebody influential if we do make a success that sees the vision that we have. But there’s no shortage of capital for very good copper projects like this in the world. This stands alone, in my view, as one of the best undrilled copper projects out there. The next phase will be drilling results.

Ivan Bebek 42:39

And those will likely start, I’m going to say conservatively, maybe sooner, but September, as the market really picks up steam in the second half of the year. And they’ll be continuous for 18 months. We need to drill 65 holes, must-drill holes, just to do the first tests across these 7 projects. And to put that into context,

Ivan Bebek 42:59

if I went to Keegan, we had 3 or 4 must-drill holes. If I went to Caden, we had maybe 5 or 6 must-drill holes. We have 65 must-drill holes because there’s 7, not one target here, before we go and decide how many more holes we’ll drill beyond that. And that’s huge. Each one of those holes that we drill has the potential to add tremendous value,

Ivan Bebek 43:20

confirm our thesis that we’re onto these big discoveries. Some of these targets are all over the surface. You can walk across the copper. There’s some drilling already there. Other ones are hidden, but they continue from the ones that are exposed. They continue underneath the surface. And so it’s tricky to find it. But the proposition now is that we’ve de-risked this tremendously.

Ivan Bebek 43:41

And now it’s the discovery phase. One other thing, and we haven’t talked too much about this, and this is something that I’m just an experienced entrepreneur in. And again, I mentioned earlier I was greedy. I wanted to go after big things. We’ve been looking in the US for a second asset for some time. We saw a current administration come into the office,

Ivan Bebek 44:00

went very, very pro-mining, critical metals, and all of the above. We found something that’s as compelling as Sombrero. And we are pursuing it to try and acquire it. It would be a very, very big complement to what we’re doing in Peru. And our measure of what we would acquire, it has to have the same upside potential as Sombrero.

Ivan Bebek 44:20

I’m not worried about how risky it is. I’m worried about having that caliber asset. Why do I want that today? Two reasons. One is the opportunity to go find a mine in the US now is the best it’s ever been in history because of the need and demand of metals, right? That’s number one. Number two is, for those of you worried about Peru, if I have an asset in the US,

Ivan Bebek 44:39

that’s going to really mitigate that risk and create a much bigger premium. But three, and most importantly, we found something as good. So there’s potential we add that acquisition into the company. We do not need it. We have plenty with Sombrero. But I’m a shareholder first before I’m a CEO. I make money when the share price goes up a lot and gets bought by a major mining company.

Ivan Bebek 45:00

So for me, I’ve had a dream, a vision for this company to be US-Peru-based so I could mitigate any kind of unperceived risk or perceived risk that’s there. And we found something good, so we’re pursuing it. There’s no guarantee we’ll get it, but we are going to have a very active year. I just started getting back on the airwaves, as you said.

Ivan Bebek 45:18

If I don’t see a reason for the stock price to perform and if I’m waiting and I’m building and I’m developing, I don’t waste company money by getting out on the planes and impatient. But now this is the beginning with you here and a few other roadshows I’ve done. And I plan to be on the road basically every second week for the next 18 months, introducing the company to several investors around the world.

Ivan Bebek 45:39

We are undervalued, in my view, because of the quality of the assets, the opportunity they represent from a probability perspective, and also the timing of the copper market. And we’ve all seen copper go to $6 a pound. No one’s finding major mines anymore for the last 10 years. Mines have become very scarce, which means something like this could be worth a tremendous amount.

Ivan Bebek 46:00

And I live for that exploration discovery curve. I want to have that 20x return or better for my shareholders and myself. This chart’s amazing. So if you look at when we acquired Sombrero, we had a vision that not only would copper demand go up with electrification – I think everybody on the planet understands that – but we had a vision that mines were hard to find.

Ivan Bebek 46:19

We’ve looked at over 300 projects since we acquired Sombrero. And we finally found something that meets our threshold, but we haven’t been able to find projects like this. And if you look at the bar chart, look at how few mines have been found in the last it’s absolutely crazy.

Frank Curzio 46:34

And you can’t see this chart. This is basically 2015. There’s been nobody who discovers it in copper since 2015. I mean, they’ve just cut back tremendously. And now we’re seeing prices rise because there’s dire need for copper, AI, everything, your normal stuff. But now AI is taking off as well and $1.7 trillion market, which is incredible.

Frank Curzio 46:53

But just to see the huge discoveries in the 1990s, even 2000s, even 2008, the last one looked like it was in, what, 2011, a couple of decent ones, ’12, ’13. But like 2015, you got to see the bar chart. There’s nothing. There’s like one tiny one. That’s it. It’s crazy.

Ivan Bebek 47:10

Well, that’s a telling chart. And then if you look at the copper demand chart to what you just said about electrification and everything that’s going on with the planet, it’s absolutely crazy. I think the price of copper is going to double in the next few years. You look at some of the major mines – and I have a different presentation which has the four largest mines in the world – and just Google it when you have a chance.

Ivan Bebek 47:31

Grasberg is one. Escondida is another. And you look at these mines. Cerro Verde is one. You look at how deep the pits are getting on these old mines. And what does that mean? It means way more expensive to mine the copper. The deeper you go, the trucks have to go deeper down. But those are big holes in the ground. They’re not the start.

Ivan Bebek 47:49

They’re near the end or the middle towards the end of their mine life as copper demand is skyrocketing. Copper has been the boring commodity for a long time. It flows with the economy. It used to be Dr. Copper. It’s had its waves in time. When I entered the business, Frank, it was 60 cents a pound. And 25 years later, now it’s $6 a pound.

Ivan Bebek 48:08

That’s incredible where it’s going. But now copper, for me, is becoming as interesting as gold is. And this is a copper-gold project. Gold is incredible. It’s an emotional metal. It can outperform a lot of things in a short period of time. But copper is so sensitive that the other day, copper was around 5.50 a pound. One of the big mines in the world,

Ivan Bebek 48:28

Grasberg, they had some issues with a pit wall collapse. And they won’t be able to go back into production until 2028. Copper price shot up to 6.50 per share basically overnight. The tightness of this copper market is incredible. If any more mines go down, it’s going to be a massive crisis. Speaking with every major mining company in the world, the top 10 have all been to this project.

Ivan Bebek 48:48

They’re all following our project. A couple of them are invested into it. Listening to them and seeing the challenge they have, which is growth of quality copper, to make one last point really clear, there is no shortage of copper. It’s the most common element. But copper above half a percent or more per ton is so scarce and hard to find. And this is an area where you can build a mine.

Ivan Bebek 49:08

So it’s a perfect storm. That is absolutely the case. Perfect storm. If you’re looking at us or listening to this podcast for the first time today, you just saved 10 years of getting this project ready for the big discovery, 18 months, which is in front of us.

Frank Curzio 49:20

It isn’t crazy. So Coppernico, COPR on TSX. Also, if you’re a US investor like most of these stocks, that is what, C? You can trade on over-the-count.

Ivan Bebek 49:33

EPMF. Yeah.

Frank Curzio 49:34

Yeah. Right. Okay. Cool. Which is right here, Coppernico Metals. And look, what I love about this, it’s a $70 million market cap. And you’re looking at a company that even if you take just the one part of it and saying that this could be 6 or 7, I mean, you see a similar mine that’s been bought for 6 billion. Of course, you’re a long way from that point in terms of developing it and stuff like that.

Frank Curzio 49:54

And this is half the copper prices. What I see is just so if you get this right, the potential is absolutely life-changing. Obviously, for you, you’re a big investor in it. And that’s what you want in this industry, right? That’s why you’re investing in this industry, to get those gains. And people invest to lose all their money or not saying you would do that in this stock, to generate 2x returns to 3x.

Frank Curzio 50:13

This is a 50x, 100x, even plus that with a great management team and checked off all the boxes, which we talked about. So that’s what’s exciting. These are the ideas that we look for. And consider in 10 years, you built this. And right now, everyone can get in at this level where things are exciting. Just had great news. It’s really exciting. And I’m wishing you the best. I know how great you are. I followed you for a long time.

Frank Curzio 50:32

I’m really excited you came on this podcast. Give us this idea. And good luck with everything, man. I really appreciate it.

Ivan Bebek 50:37

Thank you so much. It couldn’t be a better time podcast with what’s going on in the company. And looking very forward for the next 18 months.

Frank Curzio 50:42

All right. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks, buddy.

Ivan Bebek 50:44

Thank you.

Frank Curzio 50:46

Really exciting stuff. Ask some tough questions as well. It wasn’t just layups, right? They are going to look to raise money. If you like this company, I would not take a full position. Take a half position. That’s what we’ve done for our investors. They’re up a little bit. I always do that where, again, our paid subscribers are going to get stocks first compared to free. But they are going to raise money.

Frank Curzio 51:07

You heard the results. It just came out. And that’s a great thing. When this company raises money, it’s not raising money because they’re looking at it and going, “Oh my God, the stock’s going to come down.” It’s, “What are you raising money for?” So people, I think, when they look at dilution, they think it’s bad all the time. Microsoft diluted. Apple diluted. Netflix diluted. All these companies raise money.

Frank Curzio 51:26

It’s why you’re diluting. If you’re looking to raise money because you have a great idea, if you’re looking to raise money because you’re drilling projects, what could be the biggest find in the history of copper? That’s a great thing. If you’re raising money to pay your bills, if you’re paying the money to pay lawsuits, which we saw with Northern Dynasty, right, constantly raising money for the lawsuit to just pay all you’re not going into drilling results, right?

Frank Curzio 51:47

So there’s reasons to raise money that are good and reasons to raise money that are bad. When you’re growing, small companies, that’s what you do. I’ve covered them for 30 years. You have to raise money and maybe see the company come down a little bit, but they regain that right away. So if I was going to go into this position right now, I would tell you to buy a half position, don’t buy a full. They are going to raise money. He made it clear. They’re going to drill 60-something wells, right? It’s going to be incredible.

Frank Curzio 52:07

And that’s what I love, right? When you’re investing in speculative names, you want them to get money and spend that money to drill to see what you find. And if it’s not good, then it’s not good. Okay. Fine. Then you lost some of your speculative money. You should be fine with that. But if you’re going to invest money and say a couple thousand dollars in something, you want the opportunity to make that 50 grand, 100 grand, right? That’s what you want when you invest in speculation.

Frank Curzio 52:28

You don’t want to go all in on something that’s going to give you a 2x return or 3x return because you could have did that with Google, with a lot less risk. You could have did that with almost any hyperscaler, with a lot less risk. A lot of AI companies that are big, Micron, with a lot less risk. So when you’re taking on risk, you want to make sure that risk, that return is going to be worth the risk. That’s what I love about this company. That’s why I love the investment behind Ivan.

Frank Curzio 52:47

Again, he’s been a friend. I’ve had him on a podcast a long time ago. I mentioned that during the interview. And I’m like, “Dude, where have you been?” And you’ve seen where we’ve been. So just in Peru, getting all this stuff done, going through the whole process and everything, and just seeing it and hearing it, right? I mean, it might be a little too much in an interview format. For me, as a research analyst, I’m like, “Okay.

Frank Curzio 53:06

Why did it take too long? What do you need to do in Peru?” It’s not just like saying, “Hey, we’re here. We want to be your friend.” You got to show it for like eight years. Be part of the government. Be part of the community, right? It’s a huge process, right, when you’re doing this stuff, right? That’s why it’s risky when you’re looking. You check those boxes. Yes, he has infrastructure. Yes, he’s going to have cash to do it. Yes, he has a great management team.

Frank Curzio 53:26

He has everything in place to build this thing. But the geopolitics of it and being in the right geography is very, very important. And he’s taken care of that part, right, which is really cool. So when I look at Coppernico Metals, look, COPR on the TSX or CPPMF on the OTC, which is normal for Canadian companies.

Frank Curzio 53:45

They want to have that liquidity for the US market. So the TSX, you have to go through similar processes to the NASDAQ or the Russell. You have to report. It’s a huge process. So it’s not just a company trading over-the-counter, right? They have to do that huge process so you know everything’s real, the financials are real. And then they trade at OTC because this way,

Frank Curzio 54:04

it makes it a lot easier for anyone to buy the stock. And now you’re seeing that liquidity increase, right? You’re going to see that liquidity increase in companies like Telescope that we mentioned that just got their listing. Also in BluEnergy is another one that we mentioned. Those are two companies that we work with that are up a lot higher, right, for us. And that’s what they want, that liquidity. And that’s why they get the OTC listings.

Frank Curzio 54:24

So don’t think, “Oh, it’s OTC.” No. They had to go through the listings and the whole entire hard process in Canada first. And this is normal. Ivan’s a superstar. He’s a friend. He’s a great guy. And I’m behind him with this one. I really like the stock. So let me know what you thought of this interview. I’m going to have lots more of these interviews coming up. We took a break a few years ago from interviews.

Frank Curzio 54:43

And now we’re getting back into it because we’re really selective on the people and the companies that we’re bringing to you. We want to bring you really good companies. That’s why we bought you Telescope. That’s why we bought you BluEnergies. That’s why we talked about Vivo, which is up tremendously. That’s why we talked to Michelle with DGXX that’s up tremendously, right? So we have a formula. I have a formula for interviewing these guys. I’m not throwing anyone on in front of you.

Frank Curzio 55:02

These are companies that are really good, that have huge catalysts, that are in the right industries, that have exceptional management teams that have been there and done that, right? A lot of these guys have been there and done it like Ivan, been there and done that. When I’m investing in some young pup that just said, “Hey, I’m in the mining industry, and I want to purchase this and sell it to a big guy.” No, he’s been there and done that, right? That’s why he’s got these big investors behind him.

Frank Curzio 55:21

So really exciting things, really exciting stuff. But let me know what you thought of that interview, frank@curzioresearch.com. And that’s it for me. Let’s go Knicks. Nicely done. It’s going to be a lot harder, right? People say, “Well, he played a bunch of easy teams.” You only play who’s in front of you, and you murdered everyone in front of you, right? So they look really good right now. They have a lot of confidence going in.

Frank Curzio 55:40

It’s good that the other series, any of the sides, is going to be a little difficult. And they’re going to beat each other up a lot. But whoever they play, that’s going to be a real series. A root for the Knicks. It would be really nice because it’s so electric in the garden right now. Really good for them. Nice to see them win. Really, really proud of them. So let’s go Knicks. And I’ll see you tomorrow, Wall Street Unplugged preview. Take care.

Announcer 55:54

Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money, and your responsibility.