What Does It Take To Get Acquired?

0:05 Okay, as folks are coming to the room, I'll say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. Thank you so much for joining me for a discussion today on what it takes to get acquired. The CEOs who are going to be joining me for today's discussion are Jeff Ackard from Cascade Copper, James Cross of ePower Resources, and Ian Bliss of Northern Shield Resources. Gentlemen, how are you today? Very good. Nice to see you, Romeo. Awesome. Very good, Romeo. Nice to see you again. Yeah, good to see you guys. Good to be here. Here's how today's going to work for the folks that are in the room live. I'm going to go through some prepared questions for everybody, just to keep the conversation moving. And then I do want this to be an interactive event, so if you do have questions, please just shoot them into the chat in your bottom right-hand corner of the screen. If they're really off-topic or specific to 1 company that's presenting here today. I will probably give it to them afterwards, but if it's on topic or can fit into the conversation, I'm really eager to either blend it in or deal with it towards the end. I'll also say just in terms of housekeeping that today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay probably end of day Eastern time or just after 5 Eastern time. It'll pop right in your inbox and you're welcome to share it at that point. It'll also be available on both Six.com and Six's YouTube channel. But okay, it's enough from housekeeping. I do want to get right into the conversation today.

1:16 And really, again, this is about, and people have asked us for this, investors have written in, is what it takes to get acquired and the logistics and details around what points in a company's journey that that makes sense for shareholders. So my first question is, what specific project milestones, whether that's, you know, resource definition, PEA, permits, et cetera, Create the optimal acquisition window in today's market. And I'm going to ask each of you, because you represent companies with different resource focuses, so I'll ask your opinion broadly, but then specific to your resource. And Ian, I'm actually gonna start with you here. And I'd be curious if you could speak to both gold, but everything else that Northern Shields, a root and cellar has. Yeah, well, I guess it also depends a lot on your jurisdiction, first and foremost. I mean, if you're in an area where permitting has a bad reputation or concern, then permitting may be one of the more focuses to kick off an acquisition.

2:09 Whereas otherwise, typically you have the other end member where it's resource definition. But over the years, specifically in gold, but also nickel, You've seen more and more examples recently where companies are being bought out without a resource definition in place. And this is basically because all the big companies are doing their own resource calculations

2:31 behind the scenes. And it's perhaps more specific to projects that for whatever reason stand out as being a little bit more unique. I mean, a few years ago, obviously, you had a great bear buyout by Kim Ross in 2022. I think it was that was not published resource calculation. I think another one not in the gold space but in the nickel space in Australia, Noble Bollinger bought up by Independence Group back in 2015. And that was again without a resource calculation. That was going from initial discovery hole in 2012 to being bought out 3 years later at $1.8Bn. Again, without a resource calculation, based on the uniqueness of that project, the first time a new nickel discovery had happened in the Fraser Belt there. And so there looked like there was a lot of blue sky in that. But then you also have another opportunity or another example from Australia, where there was a resource calculation, you know, you've got gold rose, gold rose resources, which actually made a discovery in 9 months later, they were actually producing their own, I think it was a 3 or 4 million ounce resource calculation within 9 months. I think it's only like 38,000 meters of building at $6 million.

3:46 So you know, I think the takeaway from this is, if you are in one of those projects

3:53 and once you start to dig into the Gold or whatever you are looking for, the minimization, drill around the clock. Drill fast and efficiently because that's where seeing is whether you have a resource calculation or not, the takeovers are coming in fairly quickly. A rillion,

4:12 and some are competing, comparing root and cellar to, that was again a resource calculation was in place, but it happened very, very quickly within within a few years. And I think what all these have in common is very fast and effective drilling, which is drilling around the block. And that just puts pressure on those looking for quieter projects to step up quickly. Drill baby drill, I like that for sure. Jeff, I'll throw it to you to speak to both your perspective, but also what you're seeing in Copper Market right now for acquisitions. Yeah, thanks. Good question. And really, for us, because we have a number of projects, and each one of them, I think, could be a company maker,

4:56 that in our respect, we'd probably look at an acquisition, 2 styles of acquisition, 1 at the project stage and then 1 at the company stage. And we would entertain either one of them. But I think the milestones for us are just doing enough work to attract the attention of someone to come in the door.

5:21 And in some cases it could be 1 drill hole, but the problem these days is there are a lot of projects out there and there's lots of really good projects. So the companies that wanna come in and acquire are looking to find the last riskiest acquisition that they can find. So I think the reality is that whether you're looking at a project level or a company level, you're going to have to do a fair amount of drilling to get the attention and to get the companies, the acquirers, to really decide that this is the project for them. So I think at the end of the day, as I said initially, you just do enough to really, you know, to get the attention of these bigger companies.

6:10 No, appreciate that. James, I know graphite sits a bit separately, I think, or at least has some unique pieces to it. So I'm curious for your take on this. Yeah, I guess it is a little bit different for us. You know, we're in graphite, but specifically North American graphite, because

6:27 the graphite market for several years has been beginning to separate. There's a Chinese market and then there's a rest of the world market. And 75 or 80 percent of graphite produced comes from China. So, and there hasn't really been much development work done in any North American graphite projects in about 70 years, save a few. And at the moment, there are only 10 projects. So

6:56 while ideally, it would be great to have all those steps already completed, a potential acquirers of graphite while it still sits in the ground, which we think for the most part will be industrial players or possibly a Glencore type company. Company. Beggars can't be choosers. Really. There are only 10 projects in North America and you probably need about 40 for North America to be industrially self-sufficient and there just aren't enough to go around. So you might have to go buy a car that still needs tires or buy another one that needs to be

7:37 painted. And yeah, that's where we sit in graphite today. It's beggars can't be choosers and the industrial players are gonna have to pick it up while it still sits in the ground, really outside China. Right. So you think that acquisition window is a bit earlier for graphite and other commodities for that reason? Yeah, just by default, really.

7:57 Yeah, that makes sense. And James, I'm actually going to stick with you for this one. And this is a question we get a lot that was actually emailed in for this event, is how do you determine the right balance between further development to increase valuation versus selling early to maximize or to minimize risk? Because I know investors are curious about this and Some feel very differently. You see after what I think are very good acquisitions, some shareholders are kind of pissed. So I'm curious to your perspective. Yeah, well, I guess going back to, you know, that there are only 10 and North America probably needs 40 and North America could even help supply Europe, which has virtually none. It has 2, really.

8:36 And they're not that big. And so, yeah, the fact that there are only 10 changes things. And

8:46 I'm sorry, Romeo, could you quickly just give me a little bit more of that question? I lost my train of thought there. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. It's really the balancing act between developing more to increase that valuation and selling early for less. Yeah, sorry. But yeah, with, you know, for us, dilution is always an issue. Are we going to put, if there are only 10, are we going to put more lipstick on it, knowing that industry needs about 40 of them? We always have to balance that against dilution. And as those 10, really, we think will probably all be acquired. You know, they might not all be in the end successful, but they'll probably all be acquired. You know, do you want to go first or do you want to go last? You know, it's, you know, like if there's a hurricane coming or a storm and they're selling batteries in the shop and there are a hundred batteries and, you know, when there are a hundred left, it's okay. You don't really worry so much and the price isn't so high. But when there are only 6 left,

9:48 it becomes a more emergency situation. So ideally you wanna sell at the end and be the last, but that means we have to successfully finance all that time. Sure. And that's risk. So I'd kind of like to go earlier rather than later just to mitigate that risk. That makes sense. Jeff, I'll throw it to you next for how you approach this balancing act and how you see the market approaching it right now. Yeah, I think it's

10:18 certainly a balance for sure. And do you go out and drill 1 hole and hope that the guys come in and acquire you, but that's not gonna happen. So I think what you do is, because we've got a number of projects that we're working on, is that we sort of prioritize which one we wanna work on, which one we have to spend the money on. And ideally you throw in a couple of drill holes and with copper, especially the porphyry systems, at the end of the day, you need a lot of drilling to really find the resource that you wanna make the decision whether you're gonna mine it or not. So I think for us, It's sort of, we'd work away on 1 or 2 of our projects, bring them up to a stage, maybe to the PEA stage that would allow us to put some numbers on things. And that does 2 things.

11:15 It shines it up. I mean, we do put a little bit of lipstick on it for sure, as James said, but it also gives you a bit of a valuation for the company. So on one hand, you're kind of bringing up to a stage where you might wanna have somebody come in and be a partner or take it on, but you're also putting some value into the company. So it's one of those things that, try to do your shareholders a good service by exploring and creating value in the company while you get to that point where one or more of your projects end up going out the door to some other suitor.

11:53 So that's kind of where we're thinking right now. Appreciate that. Ian, I'll throw it to you for any kind of last thoughts on this topic. Yeah, As Jeff indicated, it's a difficult balancing act. I think more and more in today's climate, you've got to err a little bit on the side of protecting that risk. Money is coming hard and hard to come by, especially for the early-stage juniors, and it's getting more costly. So there's a dilution problem there that you have to balance, as James said as well. And then you simply look at, for instance, Gold prices go now, we're looking for Gold. You look at jittery, the markets skip when, As we just said, the Gold prices dropped 2%. I think the bottom is dropping out. So again, if you cannot time a sale of a project or a company,

12:41 it's a daily fluctuation of Gold prices on top of everything else. You also want to leave a bit of blue sky there. I think going back to the double volunteer example in Nickel Australia years ago, one of the reasons why the valuation was so high was because they thought there's a lot of other opportunities for Nickel deposits within that project site. Nothing's come up to us as far as I know to date from that, but you wanna leave some blue sky

13:12 for that potential buyer as well. So It's a difficult balancing act. I think you've got to look after your shareholder interest. But I think in these very dynamic environment that we're in right now, you probably have to err a little bit more on the side of containing risks and being too greedy. I think we're still a bit more fear than greed at this stage of the market cycle, for sure. There was one question from the chat that I actually think is really interesting that I hadn't thought about. I want to throw to you guys before I get the next thing I want to talk about is Wesley asks, and it kind of raises an interesting question. When will the market catch up with commodity prices and make acquisitions, not bargains? So I'll kind of flip the question of this webinar into more, how do you avoid getting acquired when you still think you're too cheap?

14:00 Or when do you think the market's gonna catch up and kind of correct that cap? James, I'll throw it to you first, if you don't mind. Yeah, I guess that's always

14:09 a thing on our minds. Our stock is at 5 cents, like many stocks. And yeah, a lot of times people look at your equity value. Okay, your market cap is call it 3 and a half million. We'll offer you 6. Look at that, you've got an 80% premium. Fantastic. No, we didn't get into this for 8 or 9 cents. So yeah, those we have to leave on the table. And also we have to, at least in graphite, and really probably in everything, disregard the equity price. How much do you need this project? You know, and

14:52 what would still be an insignificant price for you to pay for it? Right?

14:59 You know, value the project, especially for the potential acquirer, rather than compare it to what, you know, what kind of premium you get to your current equity price. Yeah, that makes sense. I see that sometimes you see in the headline with the premium is but if you're at 2 cents, that can be very misleading. Jeff, I'll throw that to you for a defense against acquisitions, kind of the flip of what this webinar is about. Yeah, it'd be a great dilemma to have, you know, to say that somebody wants to come and buy you out, but you say, jeez, you know, I'm not sure if I'm ready for it. Yeah, it'd be a difficult situation at the time. But one of the things we've done or we'd like to do is do the acquisition at the project stage.

15:51 And maybe it wouldn't be a full 100% right up front. And we can use maybe Amark as an example. They were successful in attracting Freeport, I believe it was, as a partner,

16:05 Freeport spent some money and they created value in the company. And then it got them up to a reasonable market cap that reflected the asset value. So ideally, that's kind of what we would, we would like to see is getting a partner in helping to increase the value of the company, and then maybe have that partner or someone else come and say, geez, you know, we'd really like to buy you out now or buy out the entire project or the entire company at that elevated level. So that's kind of what we would like to see ideally. And I think that's in the reality, that's probably what would trigger sort of an acquisition

16:46 situation was when you've got the success, then you've got the increase in value of the company. And then you can say, sure, we'll take that money now because it makes sense. All right. You know, I'll give you kind of a halfway version of this question, which is really what the question in the chat directly was, which is when do you think miners are going to catch up with commodity prices? When do you think that gap is going to shift up? I mean, I know you had some fun movement in your stock the end of last week, but I'm curious when you think the sector will move along with commodity prices. Well, we all hope very soon, but we've been hoping that for some years now, so it's difficult to keep guessing. But I think it's to make the project stand out and also make management stand out. I mean, if management is required for the project to move forward successfully, then you might as well, you might also be able to push an unwanted acquisition

17:43 around, but just a little way, a little bit from a commodity price, one of the fundamental ways is to, you know, to fight off a takeover forces is to have the right paperwork in place, have your shareholder right, have your standstill agreements written into your, any equity with corporations. So that's at least buys you some time, if not a full way out. But we'll see when the gap changes. We've been waiting for some time. There's looks like there's a little bit of optimism right now, specifically the way our stock's been moving and interest in the projects. And it's, I think, just make the project and or management stand out. Great. And Sve, I'll throw it back to you, Ian, right here. Let's get into your project. I'm curious what unique competitive advantages, intellectual property, et cetera, has Northern Shield developed that makes you particularly valuable to potential acquirers?

18:38 Well, there's 2 big things in root and cellar. Number 1, we really have first mover status. I mean, almost no work has gone on in the Avalon, particularly the beer, and the peninsula of the beer, and it's the least underscored part of all the Newfoundland from what I can see, yet it's accessible. But we have that first mover status, so we obviously know the project site and the geology and the fundamentals behind the formation of the epithermal and the Copper poultry there. We think that expands the whole context. We have that first mover status where

19:13 we know the land very well. We have very good connections with our prospectors and the locals. So, first mover status in this case, but also location. I mean, when you think specifically about epithermal Gold deposits, they're either up a mountain in South America, up a mountain in DC, or they're in a jungle in Central America

19:33 and this thing is you know a 10-minute ride in a 1990 Datsun from infrastructure and on deep water port right and it really doesn't get better than that when you're looking for large scale epithermal system and it's on the Atlantic seaboard most other epithermals and core freezers are on the Pacific Rim you know this is on the on the Atlantic seaboard so again initial access to Europe

19:58 is another sort of highlighting factor of the moving solar project. So location is one of them. I say it's, You don't really think of Newfoundland when you think about every tunnel, but we certainly have one that looks quite large and it's extremely accessible. You can pick up your coffee at Tim Hortons and it's still hot when you get to the drill. And you know, we don't find many locations like that. And that course, right away, we're seeing that in our drilling cost that, you know, basically $200 a meter hauling cost. And you assume that will affect any future expiration and development costs. So getting that close to infrastructure and a deep water port is really, I'd say,

20:39 an eye-catching factor of Ubuntu. I appreciate that. Good insight into what the mid-size you're looking for. Sorry, Ian, I'm gonna ask if you mute actually, there's a bunch of feedback, just in between what we're talking. James, I'll throw it to you next. Tell us about EPOWER, what you guys have cooking that you think will be interesting to potential acquirers. Yeah, well, I think one thing is geography, where the project sits. We're about a little over 3 hours driving north of Bay Como, Quebec

21:09 and that is a port on the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. So it's easy maritime access to Europe and also the point at which barge traffic going into the interior of the continent switches over to ocean-going vessels, depending on which way you want to go. So it's a perfectly positioned port and around infrastructure that has been serving the electric or hydroelectric power industry and forestry industry for a very long time. So you can literally drive to the property and not see a house for maybe the last 2 hours of that or something like that. So you have the combination of great infrastructure and no people.

21:55 And you know you so you're not going to wake up the neighbors with a drill or anything like that. And this is the highest grade known graphite district in all North America. And we have the largest land package there, so in that district. So, and we sit immediately adjacent to what is probably the best known graphite deposit in North America.

22:21 So it's unique in that sense, and it's a land package that today we would never be able to put together without years of doing deals and consolidations. And, you know, we were able to get almost all of it through staking and the original 54 claims of the now 270

22:43 or so, We bought some from some local prospectors. So another thing about, you mentioned intellectual property. Many of our remaining graphite peers in North America, and there aren't many,

23:00 have diversified into intellectual type property things, or in other words, tried to go down the supply chain downstream into both inventing cool materials you can make with graphite or into the manufacturing business, like battery anode material manufacturing, because a battery anode is basically about 95% graphite. And

23:30 it is all the time. With cathodes, you see the metals move around between different batteries, but it's always graphite on the anode side. So yeah, we've seen, you know, we've tried to streamline the company and keep it our entire business is just, you know, graphite in the ground and we intend to sell it before it's ever pulled out. I like that clarity of purpose for sure. Jeff, I'll throw it to you. Tell us what's new and hot at Cascade Copper that acquirers might be interested in. Yeah, so the, I guess I can play off of the geography as Ian and James had said. You know, we can get a Starbucks in Vancouver or Pemberton and get to one of our or 2 of our sites pretty quickly. So that's useful.

24:20 So drivability or accessibility to the site certainly sets us apart from some of the other projects in northern parts of British Columbia. So I think we have that advantage.

24:32 The other advantage, and I think a lot of people are doing this now, but seeing it in motion and seeing a lot of promotion, we don't really see it that much. And what I'm referring to is putting all of our data into proper databases and put them into three-dimensional

24:53 viewing systems so that we can layer on all of our project data, you know, from the geochemistry, geophysics, and do three-dimensional inversion modeling and all that kind of stuff, which is pretty high tech. And I think it's really come on board and the availability of this kind of software has come on board over the last 3 or 4 years. So we've really adopted that. And we put all of our projects into that type of software.

25:21 And it really helps. I mean, in the olden days, and Ian and James, you'd probably laugh at this, but you'd put layers of Mylar down on your desk and there's the geochemistry and you'd kind of flip it back and forth. So it's the same idea, only it's much, much easier to manage. So I think using that on all of our projects has really given us the advantage to cut through the chaff and get down to the really detailed parts that we need to go and follow up with further exploration. And then one of the other things that we've latched on to just recently,

25:57 and everybody's been talking about AI and how that can really help in many different things. But what we've done is taken it down to the data acquisition level. So in other words, we have our equipment in the field, whether it's an XRF or a hyperspectral

26:19 analysis machine or even a magnetic susceptibility, any kind of data that we can gather in the field, we can shoot it up to the cloud into what basically is a three-dimensional database. It assimilates the data, it compares it to what we've had before, and it does some predictive modeling on where should we go next. So it's pretty high tech, but it seems to be coming more and more common. But what we're able to do is actually react quickly in the field. So instead of waiting a month and a half for results, humming and hawing and looking at it back in the office, we can actually make that decision in the field so that we can go and react and follow up with that in the next day or 2. So it increases the chance of exploration discovery. So we really like that ability. And I think it's gonna become more and more common, But I think we're on the sort of the leading edge of that using a having an affiliation with another party, a third party that's helping us develop that. So I think that could be quite an advantage down the road.

27:27 Great. No, appreciate all your perspectives on that. And I think it's interesting, helpful context, folks who might not know every every company. There's one question on the chat that I actually want to jump into right away because I think it's interesting and I haven't thought about it before and that's do acquirers care about the current composition of your shareholder base? Are they looking for a bunch of retail? Are they scared by retail? Are they looking for institutions or insiders? Or is that not really part of their thinking? They're just looking at kind of project fundamentals. I'll throw out to kind of anybody who's got a first instinct on this. It's also fine if you guys disagree because I don't hear this question asked very much. Yeah, maybe I'll start off since I just spoke. But yeah, I think, you know, when you're at a sort of a newer company or a smaller market cap company, you don't really have a lot of opportunity to attract institutional investors.

28:14 So it's kind of a non-question for someone with a market cap that's probably in the, you know, 125 or even 10 million, you know, dollars. Once you get above that 10 million threshold, then institutions seem to have a little bit more ability to do that. And of course, it depends on, you know, what kind of assets you have and so on. But for us, it's mostly retail and insiders at this stage. So that's my 2 cents worth. Yeah, for us, they don't really care about the shareholders, except one thing, how fast can you get shareholder approval for an acquisition? And I say, what I generally say is, you could fit more than 50% of the shares in an airport shuttle van You know, there are only a few people who own the vast, you know, not the vast majority but more than half the stock and You know, we were a private company for several years before we went public, and just a little over 2 years ago.

29:24 And the people who funded us back then still contribute a lot to funding us now. So you know, in addition to about 70 17% insider ownership, you know, there's probably another 70%, which are those core shareholders who funded us with while private. Sorry to get into too much company specific stuff. But yeah, generally, they don't care. They just want speed of transaction.

29:58 I told you I was gonna do this at least once this webinar. I cursed myself right before I walked in. Ian, I'll throw it to you for any last feelings on the subject. Yeah, I think it's as James says, it's like it doesn't matter what your shareholder structure really is. Presumably, they're after the asset and the asset stands out, they find a way to acquire it And yeah, most of us are strongly retail based. And here's an old shield. It's fairly tightly held too. So if we need to, we can get

30:27 those approval fairly quickly. But the bottom line is that the assets speak to the acquirers. Makes sense. Jumping into one thing I wanted to talk about, and James, I'll start here with you, is how have any recent industry consolidation trends, so things you see, and we talked about this a bit earlier, but I just want to be specific about it. How have they affected your strategic positioning and approach to being an acquisition target? Really, I guess that's really always been our plan.

30:58 If I were on a gold project, I'd probably just want to build the project and that's what attracts the acquisition. And you know, we, when we started this company, it was really expecting that pretty soon manufacturers would have to acquire assets while they're still sitting in the ground because there just wouldn't be enough to go around. Now it took a little bit longer than we thought but so our business really has always been about monetizing it while it's still there And I think the only thing that's changed is, we've now seen that, you know, there, I mentioned the 10 projects,

31:39 we've actually seen the first 2 get taken out, not 100% directly, but Nouveau Monde Graphite is the biggest, you could call it the biggest North American graphite player, I guess. They have 2 of those projects. And about about 15 months ago, General Motors, Panasonic and Mitsui all working together, took a just about controlling interest in nouveau moms. So now those 2 are off the table, and there are 8 left. And so there's a little more excitement around the whole thing. But industry seems to know governments seem to know, but retail has no idea. We're at 5 cents and so is everybody else really. So it's, yeah, it's not there yet. And yeah, I mean, just one more thing about that. You know, if retail investors

32:34 jump into things like that, they're front running the industrial players who ultimately have to own it, but it just hasn't caught on yet. Right. Jeff, I'll throw it to you for what you're seeing in copper consolidation and how it's impacting what Cascade gets up to. Yeah, I think the consolidation is happening sort of at the higher end. You know, I think we're seeing companies, you know, in the triangle, sort of the golden triangle and up through the Tudogon and so on, where people are making discoveries and then they're developing, they're putting in maybe not quite to the resource stage, but that seems to be where the amalgamations are happening.

33:25 So I think at our stage, it's probably not gonna happen until we hit a certain critical size. I think, again, the best thing for our market, at least in the copper business, is when you see the major companies and the mid-tier companies coming in and making commitments to help exploration and help develop. And I think that's really the kind of thing that we're looking for at this point is, investment from a third party that brings the projects up to a certain level without having to dilute the company. We're losing a bit of dilution on the project scale, but I think that's really what would drive us going forward is that level of investment from mid-tier to major companies.

34:22 I appreciate that. I know you spoke to this kind of at the beginning of the webinar, but just if you have any last thoughts on what you're seeing in consolidation, how it impacts Northern Shield. Yeah, Not so much on the consolidation, but at least a trend in exploration. In Newfoundland, you're seeing a lot of Australian mid-tiers, even majors over there, a handful of Canadians, but a lot of Australian mid-tiers. Newfoundland has not been on the map, the exposure map for some time. Newfound Gold Discovery started putting that on there, but you see some of these plus-billion mid-tiers that have done their homework and have gone in there and either like firefly, got up a Copper deposit up and running very efficiently, increased the resources in a very short period of time. You see Calibre and Valentine Lake, you see Omega there, Junior. And so that sort of opens the door, broadens our market to go to try to attract not just Canadians who you think would be more attuned to what's going on in Newfoundland, but it's opening these trade and market both in financing and equity financing.

35:28 And as potential partners, they certainly seem to understand, a lot of us in the mid-tier seem to understand what's going on in Newfoundland and the opportunities there are a lot better than some of the Canadian counterparts. So it's not just a consolidation trend, but it's a trend in exploration that others around the world have recognized the opportunity and I think we can feed off of that. I appreciate that. One thing, and I'll start with you on this one, is what we've obviously talked about how resource impacts what acquirers are looking for. What other financial metrics beyond the resource are acquirers prioritizing when they evaluate targets? Well, I think the security of the asset, which I think all 3 of us here share that same sort of benefit. I mean, you're seeing a lot more majors and mid-tiers, you know, looking for political security of the asset and certainly Canada and Newfoundland, I mean, sometimes run into a few problems here and there, but you know, you don't lose your asset overnight.

36:30 And we're hearing that more and more from the majors is they want that security of asset and in an area that's also going to be socially acceptable to build these mines. But political risk, more and more we hear about as being a major factor. I have seen, especially in the last couple of years in some countries, the rubber has hit the road on political risk. And you do notice. James, I'll throw it to you on what the financial metrics beyond the resource you think folks are looking for. Yeah, I guess financial metrics beyond the resource for sure. Political risk is a big one. You know, as the graphite market splits into 2 markets, you know, the Chinese market and, you know, North American, you could say or rest of the world.

37:18 But it's, yeah, you know, other than financial metrics related to the project, it, you can almost turn it upside down and graphite. It's like, what, you know, if I'm a manufacturer, what do I lose if I don't get one of these remaining 8? And that could be my entire production base, like, because you need graphite for a lot of things, like, you know, it's essential to defense, you know, batteries, you know, steelmaking, all kinds of, you know, artificial intelligence, you need graphite for. So if you're a manufacturer, you've got to almost turn it upside down and say, what do I lose if I don't get this? Imagine you're that manufacturer. An analogy is you've got this fleet of fighter jets, all costing $35 million each. And there's a screw that we always got from China without it, it can't fly.

38:15 And that costs $10 normally. But now that just got shut off, it's gone. You can't get it anymore. Maybe we should make these screws nearby, you know? And what if you can only make the screw for $150? So, well, I'm taking it because I've got 35 million at stake and our airspace is undefended without it. So, yeah, I mean, the economics almost don't matter. It's the economics of not having it. Interesting. That's a different perspective. I appreciate that. Jeff, I'll throw it to you before I take a kind of fun question from the chat. Yeah, I think both Ian and James have sort of covered what would be important. And certainly the jurisdiction is important.

39:03 And that's why we've decided as Cascade to continue to explore and develop in Canada. And the other one I guess is the commodity and what are the fundamentals for that commodity? I mean, Gold, it's kind of all over the map and it's emotional and so on. And James has got a very small market, but an asset that is necessary. But you know, when we look at Copper, we see copper fundamentals, you know, remaining the way they are. And in fact, you know, like high demand, low supply, probably for another decade or more. So, you know, those are the things that I think are important for anybody that's looking at acquisition is that that food chain of feeding the big companies with their production and where they're going to get their resources for 10 years away. So they have to come and see us. So that's kind of what we see.

40:05 No, that's great. Okay, fun question from the chat. And this is, I know I've talked about it with some of you separately. It's why is the ASX more successful at raising money than the TSX has been in the last few years. I know it's easy to make fun of the ASX for having 10 trillion shares out for some companies, but they do actually have succeeded in raising some money in recent years. So throw it to whoever has an instinctive answer, but why do you think the Australians or those involved in those markets see something that Canadians and Americans don't? Well, I mean, I think overall, the more aggressive on the retail side, and as I've just mentioned, the juniors and the mid-tiers, but they also, for instance, they don't have a four-month hold on when issuing new equity. We do in the TSX. What reason? I don't know. But there's no hold period, for instance.

40:54 But overall, these fundamentally seem to be more aggressive and recognize the opportunities and in early stage exploration, we all forget why we invested in mining and engineers 20 years ago because of that upside. But they still hold true to that and are overall much more aggressive. Sure. I probably agree. James, do you have any additional thoughts on just things you noticed? Maybe 2 things. I don't really have experience with the big board TSX, but the TSX-V I have years ago, and it was a great idea when it started you know it's a an exchange for junior companies. But these days, I don't think it is anymore. Really.

41:42 The CSE still is, and hopefully won't drift into yet another TSXV, you know, where it's almost working against issuers rather than for. So I think that's hurt it. Also, the naked shorting issue that you see out there, which doesn't appear to occur in Australia. It happens here. And we're, you know, so we're all diluting, you know, more than we normally would without that stuff, you know, and, and, yeah, so and investors don't really see, you know, you know, like, you know, gold's gone up tremendously recently, and a lot of the gold, you know, solid exploration stories are, you know, going from 7 cents to 9 cents, and that's it. You know, So I think that's contributed a lot. People just haven't seen returns in a very long time.

42:40 Sure. Jeff, don't know if you got any additional thoughts either making fun of or approving of the Aussies. Yeah, just a couple of quick things. I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with the SX listed companies, but I do know that they do see value. I mean, when we were at the PDAC this year and last year, the number of Australian groups that were coming by and basically shopping was extraordinary. That was something that I hadn't seen before. So whatever the mixture is in Australia, they seem to be able to raise money. They seem to have an idea of that there's assets in Canada that are undervalued and they're worth acquiring.

43:26 So it could be a good situation as long as you don't mind working with Australians. Which I have everywhere, I guess. James, I got one question just for you. I know with your previous success selling Canadian gold resources to Colibri and now you're developing that we've talked about it today, the Tidabasica Graphite property with the global graphite constraints. What lessons from that previous acquisition experience are you applying differently or the same in positioning ePower? Yeah, I guess this one's been a little bit different. Now first, just to temper everybody's expectations, that acquisition you could call a success, but we probably got 60% more than we put into it back after a few years of capital at work, but did ultimately manage to sell it at a time when liquidity wasn't easy to get.

44:23 But this one is a whole lot different. It's more based on the macro picture rather than the micro picture. We were a gold exploration company and we're trying to develop a gold property. And so it was the merit and it's in an it was in an area in Sonora, Mexico, where there's a lot of activity and majors nearby. So it was, you know, blessed with being in the right place, but it was really all about how much gold is where. And the graphite one is much more about the macro picture around it. And really if we hadn't been able to put together our land package when we started creating it in 2019, there would only be 9 graphite projects rather than 10. This would be a hodgepodge of little things in the hands of prospectors and probably several years away from consolidation if it ever happened, because maybe nobody would know there's enough there to be interesting.

45:31 And so yeah, it's much more about the macro picture. And yeah, we're not necessarily looking to spend tremendous amounts of exploration capital unless someone else is providing it like in a large option agreement or something like that. It was really, again, much more we're trying to take advantage of that macro picture we saw developing back in 2019 and 18. Great. I appreciate that extra context. Thanks, Elvis, for folks who aren't familiar with the last setup. Jeff, I'm going to ask you 1. I know your recent high-resolution drone survey at Centerfire identified 5 kilometers of magnetic anomalies with coincident EM conductors.

46:18 Here's my question, but that is a guide. How do you balance investing and further defining these potentially valuable targets, versus, this is where it gets a bit weird, preserving them as exploration upside for your acquirer? Yeah. What did they say that drilling is the killing? You drill it by drilling. But at the end of the day, you can't really evaluate something without doing some drilling. So it's important to before the drill turns, to make sure that you've got the best targets. So, you know, what we would consider that long strike length of area that we've identified at Centerfire, is that, you know, we're gonna have to do some boots on the ground exploration, sampling, soil sampling, some trenching, maybe that kind of thing. So all of that, I mean, it does cost money, but it's not huge.

47:11 So that would be my answer is that you can spend relatively small amount of money to increase the value at least to the drilling stage. And then for sure you would set your drill up on your most compelling target and hope a couple of Hail Marys and say, this is the one we want to drill. And maybe it gives you the response that makes the market turn and gives the attention you need. So I think at the end of the day, you do need to drill. You don't have to spend a lot of money on drilling right off the bat. If you do hit a couple of good holes, then that will increase your value, you bring some money to the table, and then slowly, slowly kind of work your way up with more and more drilling. So it's always a balance and certainly you wouldn't go in there with a 10,000 meter program right off the bat.

48:09 Sure. You know, you would start off with maybe 2000 meters and say, what do we have a scout drilling program? So conserve capital, but still, you know, try to add some value to the project. No, appreciate that. Ian, I'll throw it to you. I know you just returned from visiting Root & Cellar ahead of the June jewel program. I'm curious, this is kind of one of those odd questions, but what specific on the ground observations or insights you gather that might influence how you position the project's value to acquirers compared to what's just evident from rocking through technical reports? Well, I guess it's really 3 big things. There's ease of access, which I talked about, I'll mention a bit more about other opportunities in the area and a very welcoming population. And so the technical aspects, we have a lot in our presentation to talk for themselves, but it's the ease of access. And I think ultimately that will help sway a potential acquisition because it really just doesn't get much better than that. And obviously everybody's looking at cheaper ways of getting deposits into production.

49:12 So ease of access, you know, very welcoming population. 2 examples say I was down there partly looking for a facility to log on board, and then we went to 1 warehouse facility, and they said, no, sorry, you can't rent it, but I have some other ideas, and within 2 hours, the owner of that building called me back and said, here, call these people. They may have something. And they did. Everybody you meet is trying to help you reach your goal when they when they when you talk about your exploring, they want you to find it. The job opportunities in the community, the prospector that we optioned it from, you know, they want him to succeed. And so they're, they bend over backwards to help you reach your goal. And very, very welcoming, very, very practical people. Another example is on the ATV trail travelling to somebody who happens to own a cottage that's within the property boundaries. And again, he was very supportive of our ventures. And when I said, well, it comes to mine development and I build a mine across the street from your cottage, how are you going to like us then? He says, oh, that's no problem at all. It just means I don't have to take a bus to go to work. And so it's just very refreshing to have that sort of welcoming feedback and response. I mean, I'm sure there's a little bit of red tape down the road during that way, but It's a very, very welcoming place to work.

50:34 And the other thing is the opportunities around. I was briefly on the Root & Seller property too, just looking over the drill pass, but the prospector was showing me some of his data and rocks from his other targets in the area. I was looking at these rocks and where they came from and it's the other opportunities that are surrounding Root & Sellow that have not been touched. Just like Root & Sellow wasn't touched prior to Nolan Shields' involvement, There's a lot of good-looking rocks around with plenty of other opportunities as, again, as first mover status that we have in our back pocket, which will be attractive, again, down the road when possible, or any potential acquisition. Great. Yeah, one thing I've always found about Newfoundlanders is if you can understand what they're saying, it is the nicest group of people.

51:25 It takes a few seconds of translation to get your ears ready for it. So we are coming towards the end of the hour. I think this was a great discussion, but what I wanted to do before we jet is give everybody 30 seconds just to basically pitch your stock to the folks in the room and are watching on replay. Be as shameless or as humble as you'd like. It's entirely up to you. But James, I'll start with you for a 30 second pitch for ePower. Okay. Yeah. We're ePower Resources. We're a company focused on graphite in Quebec and we have one of the 10 significant North American projects that could really be useful at all to eliminating the supply deficit North America has in graphite. Our market cap is currently only about 3 or 3 and a half million dollars.

52:13 And if you're a retail investor watching this, you have the opportunity to front run the industrial players who are going to have to own the project. I appreciate it right on time. Jeff, I'll throw it to you. 30 seconds. Tell us why you should be interested in Cascade. Okay, thanks very much. So Cascade Copper Corp, we've got 5 projects in Canada, 4 of them are in British Columbia, 1 is in Ontario. The 3 of the projects in BC are porphyry systems. So big tonnage, big opportunity, big size, and that's what we think will attract a major, mid-tier major in British Columbia. Our Ontario project is VMS style, And it is in a pretty hot area.

53:01 It's around the Dryden Sioux Lookout. A couple of major companies working in that area, including Sentara. They've invested in Dryden Gold. So there's lots of activity going on there. And Basically, we've got projects in areas where there's Copper being produced. And I think that's a real feather in our cap. Great. And Ian, wrap us up today with why people should get involved in Northern Shield. Yes. Now, Northern Shield Resources is focused on a root and cellar property in the Bureau of Pinsta, Newfoundland. We recently discovered a large-scale epithermal Gold system associated with Tellurium, which is not only a critical metal, so you get the benefits of Gold leveraged by critical metals, but Tellurium is often an indicator of the very large epithermal systems. And so we'll be drilling this very, very shortly. You'll see an announcement of that later on this week. We closed 1 financing last month. We'll be closing another one very shortly, but moving forward, it's a very pivotal drill project on the conquest zone at Root & Cellar. Conquest is the largest of the zones, but it's only 1 of 5 gold targets on the property. And also we have a very large copper fork, which we really haven't touched yet at all. So lots more to come and looking forward to a drill program next month.

54:18 Awesome. Ian, James, Jeff, this is a great conversation. Appreciate your time very much. And all the folks who joined us, thank you