Title: The Biggest Canadian Mining IPO Since 2010: Ross Beaty's Secret Copper Play
Show: In the Money with Amber Kanwar
Guest: Jordan Pandoff (CEO, Lumina Metals)
Date: 2026-07-02
URL: https://youtu.be/XGATUmowl-4
Length: ~39 min
Note: Auto-captions cleaned — pure fillers (um/uh/"you know" interjections) removed and stutters/false starts collapsed; stray "[music]" tags and the spelled-out "N minutes, N seconds" duration artifacts at segment starts stripped; obvious ASR proper-noun garbles corrected to the real entities for the excerpts (Luminina/Lumina → Lumina Metals; Ross Bey/Bay → Ross Beaty; Glenor → Glencore; "tech resources" → Teck Resources; Noah Assault → Nowa Sól; Kooper Schiffer → Kupferschiefer; Beimo → BMO; Londin → Lundin; Malay/Riggy → Milei/RIGI). Wording otherwise verbatim; every (m:ss) cue line kept where it is. The guest is a company CEO pitching his own asset — treat Lumina commentary as promotional.

(0:00) the largest copper silver mine in production, third largest silver mine on the planet. This would take Poland from just outside the top
(0:12) 10 in terms of global copper producing countries to inside the top five.
(0:16) Lumina Metals was one of the biggest mining IPOs in Canada since 2010 on a promise to deliver one of the largest copper and silver mines.
(0:23) In the last few years, you have actual government representatives turning up to a mining conference and puts that floor on value.
(0:30) Backed by Ross Beaty, the legendary miner who's had this project in his back pocket since 2011. So Ross just kind of he just opened up his jacket and was like, "Look at
(0:39) what I've got here that nobody knew about." Poland being the first line of defense. With the ongoing issues with Ukraine, how does that seep into
(0:47) your world? There's a classic sort of Ross Beaty playbook which is permit, derisk, sell. Is that the playbook here?
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(2:06) the podcast. Always consult with a qualified financial adviser or professional before making any investment decisions. Hey everyone,
(2:13) welcome to a brand new episode of In the Money with Amber Kanwar. It's kind of a weird week. We've got Canada Day and Independence Day and the markets are
(2:20) closed a bunch. So, instead of doing our usual stock picking episode, we are talking about one company, Lumina Metals. It was the biggest mining IPO
(2:29) since 2010 earlier this year. It's backed by Ross Beaty and it's got mining assets in Poland. We don't talk a lot
(2:37) about Poland when it comes to mining, but did you know that it is just outside the top 10 global producers for copper
(2:45) and the third largest silver producer around the world? Now, it could actually be a lot higher when you think of the
(2:52) copper and the silver in the ground. The thing is, they've had a pretty oppressive tax regime, a 70% effective
(3:00) tax rate. We're going to hear from the CEO of Lumina Metals, Jordan Pandoff, who thinks change is in the air. Those
(3:07) taxes could come down and more production could be unlocked. It's kind of funny. This is an asset that Ross Beaty
(3:16) has just been sitting on for the last 12 years. Maybe because prices are at a record high, he now thinks it's time to
(3:23) bring it to the market. Whether Lumina is the one who ultimately produces the metal is another thing, but slowly this
(3:31) project is being derisked. Let's get into it.
(3:40) Jordan Pandoff, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Thank you, Amber. Nice to be here.
(3:44) It's a great opportunity to learn about what was it it was the biggest mining IPO in Canada since 2010, I think.
(3:53) Right. And the second largest mining development IPO in history. That's crazy.
(3:59) Yeah, because we think about Toronto as like, oh, of course, we've got mining all the time. But maybe it speaks to
(4:06) it's been a few dry years when it comes to IPOs in this country.
(4:10) Yes. And generally for mining, it's been a long decade between basically 2010 and 2020
(4:17) of not a lot of capital available to the mining sector. And since COVID we've really seen governments around the
(4:25) world step up and provide a foundation or a floor for private capital to come into the mining sector as well as I
(4:32) think people have recognized with all the geopolitical events how important these metals are.
(4:37) We're going to talk about what makes the Lumina story so interesting and why this was able to break some records at least that have not been seen for
(4:46) for a few decades. I first want to talk about you though. How did you end up here? Because as I understand, so
(4:55) you're the CEO of Lumina Metals. Before this, you worked at Glencore. So that feels like a leap from a big large
(5:01) established company to now kind of a speculative pre-production mining company in Poland.
(5:08) Yeah. No, exactly. And when you're working at Glencore, it's unique because it's one of the world's largest mining companies. It's one of the world's largest commodity trading houses. And
(5:17) it's really the DHL or the FedEx of commodities. And so the reach the global reach of Glencore through all of
(5:24) the 100 offices all over the world and the trading networks of pretty much every product. And at Glencore we were trading copper all the way to olive
(5:32) oil. And so the networks that you would build, the people that you get to meet in the mines and the places you go get to see were what really made such a
(5:39) valuable learning experience there. And working with some of the best people that have ever built the mining sector. And when I was there, I was always looking for, over the
(5:48) next few years the entrepreneurial drive, the entrepreneurial spirit. And Glencore was founded on that entrepreneurial
(5:56) thinking and that way of operating. And as I advanced my career, I was looking for an asset that I could kind of put my stamp and my fingers
(6:04) onto. And that's how I have a story about how I met Ross Beaty and we got together.
(6:08) This is what the podcast is for, for telling stories. So when I was the last kind of part of my career at Glencore
(6:16) looking all around the world for the next set of generational assets predominantly in copper given we all
(6:22) know the story about copper. I was amazed when I met Ross at a conference about a year ago that he said
(6:31) he's been investing in Poland for over 12 years. He had invested over 60 million of his own money and over 120
(6:38) million of total investment. And I said, I've been at Glencore.
(6:43) I've seen everything. There's not when you're at Glencore, there's nothing you don't see. And Ross said, well, I guarantee you haven't seen what I have.
(6:49) And I thought that was quite unique because Ross and the Lumina team has the ability to stay patient. They were private for 12 years, so nobody knew
(6:57) much about what was going on. So Ross just like kind of he just opened up his jacket and was like, "Yeah, look, look at here. Look at what I've got here that
(7:05) nobody knew about." And that's what Ross does, right?
(7:08) Because he has the people that follow him and his own capital predominantly to make discoveries over 12 years and then sit and waiting for the right time.
(7:18) And the way he got into Poland back in 2011 is he teamed up with a geologist, a famous geologist in Poland who used to
(7:27) work in the government. He used to work for the state mining company and the two of them went to the government
(7:34) and said we'd like to purchase a bunch of data geological data in Poland the the Polish state keeps all of the geological data over
(7:42) the years all the drilling data and they got together and they said there's more discoveries to be made in this country they're just a little
(7:50) bit deeper than the current operating mines and they took all of this data and then they said let's just start putting 2,000 meter holes into the
(7:57) ground out of Ross' pocket and that's how they made the three largest discoveries in Europe since 1957.
(8:04) That's wild. I mean, yeah, that's my next question is like for people who don't know, this is not this is not a small opportunity. Talk about the
(8:13) size and scale of the main project is called Nowa Sól. Did I say that correctly? Yes, correct. Yeah.
(8:18) The size and scale and what it could be compared to major copper or silver assets around the world. So this would
(8:25) be the largest copper silver mine in production. When it's in production, it would be the third largest silver mine
(8:32) on the planet after the existing Polish silver mines. Poland is already the produces over 40 million ounces a year of silver. So they're already the
(8:41) second largest silver mining company. And on a copper basis, this would take Poland from just outside the top 10 in terms of global copper
(8:48) producing countries to inside the top five. And so the scale of what Poland has in the ground, which is so unique, is there is more copper in the ground than any other NATO country.
(8:58) There's more copper in the ground in Poland, than the United States, than Canada. And there's more silver in the ground than any country on this planet.
(9:06) And so the geological anomaly, which we it's termed as the Kupferschiefer, which in German means copper in shale,
(9:15) is something you just don't find anywhere else in the world. And it's literally copper in shale. Bituminous shale. That's that's crazy. And as you said, it's in the ground. So the
(9:23) Lumina promise, Lumina Metals, you're saying we're going to get it out of the ground. And that introduces complications, right? I think you have a
(9:32) lot going for you in that Poland's not a new mining jurisdiction. There's already roads, I assume, going to, you
(9:40) know, there's infrastructure and there's a labor force, right, that are used to. So it's not like you're the only ones there. Isn't there a huge
(9:50) Polish is it state-owned copper operation?
(9:53) Exactly. So, there's 10,000 miners in Poland today mining copper. There's over 70,000 copper and coal miners.
(10:01) A very long-standing history of copper and coal mining in Poland over 60 70 years of history. They're already producing over 500,000 tons
(10:10) of copper and 40 million ounces of silver. And this is all built by Polish expertise, Polish resource. And
(10:19) that's what makes it so unique when you look at other countries around the world that have state-owned mining companies.
(10:25) The other being Chile and there's the scale of these state-owned businesses are very rare to grow that kind of size. State-owned
(10:34) businesses are usually a little bit more inefficient than private businesses. But the Poles have done an incredible job building their copper industry. And we
(10:41) get to benefit from that because roads and rail and power and human capital and smelters, everything's right there. And this is all brand new infrastructure.
(10:50) Since Poland joined the European Union, it's the shining star of the EU. 20 years, no recession and a trillion dollar economy. And that's
(10:58) what's so unique versus trying to build a copper mine somewhere in Africa or in South America.
(11:02) And there hasn't been a lot of supply coming online anywhere, right? So to do a greenfield is that much more rare.
(11:08) Like how many greenfields are there being built right now? There's less than a handful. We need to be building between
(11:16) five and 10 a year and we're building one a year. That's what the world is delivering today.
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(13:27) The trouble with Poland is the tax regime and there's a reason that all that copper has remained in the ground.
(13:37) And what is that reason? The current tax regime in Poland for copper mining is much higher than other countries
(13:45) that produce copper and the reason being there's only one state controlled company and so when the state owns the resource and they're the only company
(13:52) mining it the tax number is kind of irrelevant. State-owned money goes to the state budget it's mined by the state.
(13:59) It's all one kind of left pocket right pocket transfer. In other industries in Poland, whether it's oil and gas or coal, there's a tax rate that is
(14:07) comparable to any other country because you have large international investors, you have large mining companies in in oil and gas and in coal. But in
(14:15) copper, because you have one state controlled business, the current tax regime is not conducive to building new and bigger mines, which is why their production has declined over the last 20 years.
(14:25) So I read that like it's an effective rate of 70%.
(14:29) Yeah. compared to other countries which is like 20 to 50%.
(14:34) Is part of the play a bet that that rate is going to come down?
(14:40) Exactly. You have to believe that the rate is going to come down and we've seen this before and the good example is the Lundin family in Ecuador.
(14:47) Before the Lundin family went into Ecuador to build the very large gold mine which is now Lundin Gold.
(14:55) And if you look at Argentina before the Milei administration and the new RIGI framework, the tax rates in those countries were well over 50 to 60%. And
(15:04) I think resources are areas where investors understand tax risk all over the world and tax opportunity
(15:12) resources are owned by the local state by the local people and the benefits should really accrue to the local people of the country. But to
(15:21) unlock those local benefits, you have to build these mines. And to do that, you need a tax regime that is comparable to other countries.
(15:27) Do you know for certain those taxes are going to come down? It seems like this is the big thing, the big bugaboo is before people want to get excited about
(15:35) Lumina Metals, they want to know that the tax rate's going to go down for sure. And tax takes time and there's always governments that you have to work with. But I think over the
(15:44) last few years, the government of Poland has started to recognize that this investment being the single largest foreign direct investment in Poland's
(15:51) history and all of the job creation, the GDP, and ultimately the tax revenue that this investment would give to the
(15:59) government more than warrants the government to make a change to incentivize this development. And once that we gave to a lot of investors and
(16:08) investors that participated in the IPO is we said if the government reduces the copper tax rate to a level that's comparable to any other country as you
(16:16) said 30 40%. They would have more mines in the country being built and they would ultimately have more tax revenue
(16:24) in their pocket than current with a higher tax rate and significantly less mines. And in addition to doing an IPO
(16:31) in Toronto, you did one in Warsaw which was greeted very well. What is it? Sore like 46% on the first day. That's a nice
(16:38) pop on the first day in Warsaw. But wasn't the prime minister on hand? Yeah, it was great to have. They had a conference at the Warsaw Stock Exchange
(16:46) the same day of our listing called Invest Poland, and we coordinated to be able to show the prime minister and various many ministers of the government
(16:54) how high-profile this project has become and how high-profile this company has become in Poland. But most importantly, this should be owned by Polish people,
(17:03) by Polish investors. And we want this company to be developed for the country of Poland. Number one,
(17:09) now the Toronto IPO, you raised over $400 million, as you said. Some of the biggest that we've seen in in
(17:18) decades for mining. But the stock is now trading below its IPO price.
(17:27) is that just copper prices kind of drifting here or what what have you noticed? It's a big contrast between like the Warsaw greeting and the
(17:35) Toronto greeting. I think it's just a little bit of investor education that we need to do over the next few years. I think that the people that supported
(17:42) this IPO and our largest investor in the IPO was Capital Group the institution based in California out of their London office and so
(17:51) they're one of the world's largest investors and I think European investors and European domiciled investors
(17:58) recognize how strategic these assets are and so they're buying the and they participated in the IPO for the long term. Ultimately, yeah, market has come
(18:06) back, 10 15% since we've listed, but I think this is really a generational opportunity. And case in point, look at what Ross did. He's been
(18:14) in country now for over 15 years. And so these large assets, they take a they take time to see the full value. And
(18:23) they're not things that just pop up overnight. And I don't think that you'll be able to find resources of this scale, both in copper,
(18:30) but in silver. You won't be able to find silver resources of this scale in the next generation, in the next 10 or 20 years.
(18:36) Your anchor investor in this round was from California Capital Group. Yep.
(18:41) Not a Canadian, you know. I'm just surprised by that because that's one of the things that the Canadians sort of we pride ourselves and we're
(18:50) we're a mining country, right? US Australia, so we had over 50% of the demand from the IPO was from the United States. It's generally a bigger market than Canada.
(18:59) We had a lot of Canadians in our IPO as well. But I think there's a long-standing relationship between the US and Poland that goes back to the end
(19:08) of World War II and the US presence in Poland. There's 15,000 US military in Poland near within our projects. And
(19:16) so the geopolitical position that Poland sits in between its neighbors in the west and the east has built a very long relationship.
(19:24) been just naturally I think people that recognize how important Poland is for the European Union, but most importantly how important Poland is for
(19:33) NATO and we've obviously been seeing this playing out in Ukraine. Poland is the first point of call of protection from the NATO standpoint and the
(19:41) support that both Canada and the US and all NATO allies need to be giving to Poland is of the utmost importance.
(19:46) Well, and you mentioned the capital market support, the prime minister, having a day on the same day as the IPO. And I think
(19:54) in Canada, there's a discussion about the robustness of our capital markets and whether we're still there to
(20:02) support these stories. I remember articles when Barrick chose the US as its primary listing. In your
(20:10) experience, are Canadian markets losing their edge when it comes to supporting some of these commodity stories? I think it's mostly a function of size.
(20:18) Maybe 5 10 years ago, while the US markets always been bigger than the Canadian market, the US mining market and the investor base in the US focused
(20:27) on more of the resource development companies, not so much the big mining companies, but the resource development companies, those US larger investors
(20:35) just weren't interested. And it's really been since COVID and since the US has taken a very strong position around critical
(20:43) minerals and the development of critical minerals and we've obviously seen many deals where the US government has supported Canadian companies in the US
(20:51) in a number of projects right and I think I was at a conference back in February and basically five or six representatives of
(20:59) the US government stood on stage and said we are going to be the first line of capital and we are going to be the foundation on which capital goes into
(21:08) building mining projects. We're not going to crowd out private investment, but we are going to be there as the first the first kind of building block
(21:15) of the foundation and then the private capital will kind of come on top.
(21:19) How let's underline that moment. How in your career, how unusual is that level and kind of support?
(21:26) Well, you never see that. I would say 3 four years ago, you started to see the Teslas and the electric vehicle companies turning up to the
(21:34) conference in Florida every year. That was rare. I mean, I started my career at BMO back in 2011 and there
(21:41) was only really gold companies there and you would never see Tesla show up to a mining conference and that really started, after COVID in 21 and 22
(21:51) when supply chains were very tight and these metals weren't very important. But then in the last few years, you have actual government representatives
(21:58) turning up to a mining conference, US government, right?
(22:01) US government, a UAE government. I didn't see any Canadian government that I can recognize, but maybe there was some Canadian government there. But I
(22:09) think the fact that and now you have these agreements that all countries are signing around the development of critical minerals puts, as I said, that
(22:18) floor on value. What are these assets worth? What are these projects worth?
(22:22) Historically, people would say, "Oh, they're not worth very much because they're just a call option on something that may or may not ever get
(22:29) built." Well, when the US government says these projects are going to get built and if you don't build them, we will build them, that puts that
(22:36) floor on value. But then also that attracts broader capital and to give you an example, I was standing at that conference and I saw Steve Wynn and his
(22:44) wife and a number of people come in at a mining conference like from Vegas, Steve investing in mining stocks, right?
(22:49) And so this is just stuff that you never would have seen 5 or 10 years ago.
(22:52) That's wild. And like let's do the 30,000 foot view. What's driving all of that? You mentioned geopolitics, supply chains, but let's put it all together.
(23:00) What's bringing all these people to a sector that, maybe 10 years ago wasn't as interesting.
(23:06) I think number one, COVID really changed things in terms of recognizing the importance of supply chains and security of supply chains. You don't have
(23:14) security of supply chain or you don't have security of energy, you've got nothing. The Gulf War has even enhanced that even further because what happens in the Gulf has a ripple impact on energy prices in the rest of the world.
(23:24) And so one way to reduce your exposure to the Gulf is to produce more renewables and electric energy. And so countries in Europe are
(23:32) seeing this firsthand. But I think also just when governments start to say we will provide the capital
(23:40) or at least most of the capital and that is the biggest point of call and we've seen this in Canada with the Canada growth fund. We've
(23:48) always seen this in the United States and all else. I would say Europe is actually a little bit slower than the other two countries, including
(23:56) the rest of the world. Europe is what it is. But I would expect they'll have to really speed up now because North America has taken such a hard stance on this.
(24:06) Well, I think it's important to understand like the urgency around Europe. You kind of alluded to it already, but Poland being the first line of defense. with the ongoing
(24:16) issues with Ukraine, how does that seep into your world?
(24:20) I think number one, people recognize how important these metals are for military production. So Poland spends over 5% of
(24:27) its GDP on defense and military production. It's the highest spender of any NATO country. That's one of the reasons why the US relationship with
(24:36) Poland is so strong is because they're one of the few countries within NATO that has been meeting that threshold of 5% not out of
(24:44) necessity they have to right some other countries in Europe don't meet that 5% or that even the 2% goal because
(24:51) whether it's Spain or other areas they're just they don't have those risks on their doorstep similar that Poland or
(24:59) the Ukraine or other countries will have. So I think number one they recognize in the country how important these metals are and number two the broader EU recognizes that without
(25:07) Poland the European Union has no domestic copper supply or very limited domestic copper supply. The EU mines a
(25:15) million tons of copper and the EU consumes 4 million tons of copper. So the other 3 million tons they have to
(25:23) import into the European Union. And there's only one place the EU can go to find copper of any scale and that's in Poland. Well,
(25:31) let's talk about bringing all of this back to Lumina and the opportunity.
(25:35) When do you anticipate first production?
(25:38) So, we expect first production mid next decade after we have our mining concession later this decade. 2030.
(25:44) So, mid 2030s. We'll have a mining concession that we'll be applying for 2029 2030. And ultimately once we have
(25:52) that, it's about a 5-year construction to get to first production.
(25:56) There'll be a significant amount of investment that goes into the country obviously before metal comes out of the ground. And this is one of the things we've been educating some Polish
(26:04) investors on is there's value creation in these mining development assets well ahead of actually first mining any
(26:12) commodity. And I think this is actually something that in North America and specifically Canada is very well known.
(26:17) How do you create value for investors before you actually pull metal out of the ground? Oh, and the way you do that is,
(26:24) de-risking the project, tax reform, things like that, advancing the project through technical studies and environmental work. We have an
(26:32) incredible relationships with all our local communities that have been with us for 15 years. And so all of those areas is ultimately and commodity
(26:40) pricing being being another and investor awareness is is how you increase the value of these and then ultimately so it's like every win every permit you
(26:47) get if we there's a tax win there's an ability to benefit from that potentially as a shareholder.
(26:54) Yes. Exactly. And this is over the next 3 to 5 years you'll see all of those catalysts before you get ounces out of the ground. Is it ounces?
(27:03) The silver is the ounces and the tons is copper. Yes.
(27:05) Yeah. That's right. I had like I was like I don't think that's right ounces or tons out of the ground. You will need a lot of
(27:13) money to do that. And you've already raised 400 million, but I've seen you you need over 6 billion to get there. What's the plan?
(27:22) So the money that we've raised will take us all the way through to a mining concession before we actually build the mine. And that's what we're focused on right now. when we get
(27:30) to our mining concession later this decade, we'll be looking at a range of funding options to build this project if we're the ones that build it. We expect many major mining
(27:39) companies will be interested in Poland and interested in this part of the deposits that we have. When you think about the development and what's unique
(27:46) about Poland, these are all underground mines and so they can scale up over time. They're modular. And so we don't
(27:54) have to build one $6 billion project, but rather we're building two $3 billion projects. And the reason why that's
(28:01) important is we start with one and we only have to build one $3 billion investment. And then we can take the cash flow from that $3 billion
(28:09) investment and fund the second $3 billion investment. And that's one of the things investors really liked, about our deal was number one, the infrastructure. We talked about when you
(28:17) think about building any large industrial project anywhere in the world. If you're starting from an infrastructure advantage, roads, rail,
(28:26) power, ports, smelters, labor, you don't have to import or bring any of that stuff. That's number one advantage because it limits your risk in terms
(28:34) of the cost escalation of the project because all the civil infrastructure, it's all built there. But also the
(28:42) modular nature of these deposits in Poland, building one and then over time building the second one is what also
(28:49) reduces the risk of construction. And so you don't have to overcommit yourself to a much larger project versus
(28:57) starting with one smaller project and expanding over time.
(29:00) I'm going to pick up on what you just said. if we are the ones to produce. There's a classic sort of Ross Beaty
(29:07) playbook which is permit derisk sell and is that the playbook here?
(29:14) Ross has a long history as you know with de-risking and selling deposits but he also has a history of building mining companies. He obviously is the founder and built
(29:22) Pan American Silver. He founded and built Equinox Gold. And so he has two playbooks and we never know which playbook we're going to fit into. It's
(29:31) our job to get to the point where we have options and many options to go in either path and that's what we're focused on. But given the scale of
(29:40) what we have in Poland and the grades, we have a copper grade that is much higher than any other large development project around the world and
(29:48) the fact that we have more silver than any other development project in the world and we could stream some of our silver when we talk about financing a
(29:57) project. There's obviously very large silver streaming companies in Canada that would love to buy our silver from us on a forward basis. These are
(30:05) all funding options and optionality we have in our pocket that's not reflected today in the value of our company.
(30:14) Thank you to our partners at ATB Financial. With over 100 billion in assets, ATB Financial is powering possibilities for more than 843,000
(30:21) financial services clients. ATB Coremark Capital Markets is a leading North American investment firm providing holistic corporate and capital markets
(30:29) advice and full-service financial solutions. Visit atb.com/inthemoney for more information. I feel like we should talk to you about how often
(30:37) copper and silver go together, right? In some of these projects never and that's what makes the Kupferschiefer in Germany a geological anomaly
(30:45) that exists nowhere else on this planet that you can get both.
(30:48) Can't get both. You can get copper gold and you can get there's always silver that comes in some small in deposits in South America, but to have a big
(30:57) copper deposit alongside a big silver deposit just doesn't exist anywhere in the world. And to give you an example of what's the ratio of copper to silver in
(31:05) Poland and in these specific deposits in mine today. So historically the ratio of copper to silver and the value of copper
(31:13) relative to the value of silver is about 70% copper 30% silver. Now silver prices obviously moves around quite a bit. Back
(31:20) in January that ratio was 50/50. So it wasn't even a copper mine. It was a copper silver mine. And today that
(31:28) ratio is more about 60/40. But that's what's so unique for both copper investors, but also silver.
(31:33) I mean, we got to talk silver prices. I mean, they they're whacka do, all right? They can really move on you. Copper has touched record
(31:42) highs. And I feel like, I've been following this market for so long.
(31:47) part of that is because it is a supply deficit. And now, what do high prices encourage? They encourage people
(31:54) like you, like Ross, to say, "Okay, now's the time. we can get this stuff out of the ground. How do you think
(32:00) about the long-term value, the long-term price for copper? And are you worried that copper prices themselves are in a bubble?
(32:09) At the end of the day, we focus on the things that are on the table in front of us and that's really advancing what we have at Lumina. When it comes to
(32:18) prices, we're all price takers in this industry. The difference is when you're a price taker, but you only have
(32:24) maybe 5, 10 or 15 years of life to in your pocket versus having 50 or 100 years of life. And to give you an
(32:32) example of the mines in Poland, so they started producing in the late 50s and the early 60s, and they still have another 50 years ahead of them, right?
(32:40) And so when you have that kind of long duration optionality, you don't worry too much about prices because you're going to go through many cycles and
(32:47) you're going to catch many highs and many lows. But it's what differentiates every asset is how long do you have and how many cycles will you be
(32:57) exposed to? And that was one of the biggest things we always dealt with at Glencore whenever the team or really starting with Ivan said I only want to
(33:04) have exposure to really long life investments because I have no idea what the price is going to do over the next 2
(33:11) 3 5 years but I can tell you over 30 50 100 years I'm going to be able to have or capture more than enough cycles to
(33:19) make my investment worthwhile. And that was the biggest thing that Glencore would always focus on is that longer term optionality. yet you must know you've
(33:27) been to the conferences, you have a lot of buddies in the space. what is the energy like right now? There's been
(33:34) some action among some of players. Do you expect more consolidation? where's kind of the chatter
(33:41) right now in terms of excitement around base metals? So I think what's unique is when we think about the excitement for base metals, the
(33:50) general as investors and the equity market investors, they have less and less options to invest in some of these projects. The reason being they're
(33:58) getting taken out left, right, and center by either a Chinese company, a Canadian company, by the US government providing all of the capital. And so
(34:06) there's a very small set of options that a public markets investor has for a big copper, let alone a big silver project.
(34:14) And I would expect that over time there's just going to be more M&A.
(34:17) There's going to be more large, large transactions. But ultimately, it stems from the fact that we've seen borders closed to certain
(34:26) investments. And that's really country by country. So obviously maybe 10, 15 years ago, the Chinese could go to any country and buy anything they wanted.
(34:33) And now those borders have really been shifted and changed. And so they're focusing on areas where governments will allow them to come and buy assets
(34:40) and make investments. so that's number one. But also number two, you've seen private capital and private individuals step in and start to acquire assets and big stakes of assets.
(34:51) And so going forward, it's just going to be a scramble to get people to get their hands on some of these assets.
(34:59) Okay. Before I let you go, I want to ask, do you have any war stories about Glencore? It is a name,
(35:06) as you said, it's huge. It courts controversy. it is such a behemoth in the space. It's tried to do a bunch
(35:14) of stuff in Canada. and people get up in arms about it. what do you think?
(35:20) Is it unfairly maligned? what is the truth about being somebody who worked at Glencore?
(35:26) Well, the best thing I said about being at Glencore is the people you meet and the different types of people you meet.
(35:32) There's the hard charging trader all the way to the very technical focused mining engineer. But one of
(35:39) the unique stories I have with Glencore which was very well covered in the media was when Glencore made an approach a number of times to join with Teck Resources.
(35:49) And this was one of a great part of my career to see how we could put together these two companies. Ultimately
(35:56) Glencore ended up acquiring the coal assets. But we tried a number of times to integrate and merge these two businesses. And I would say what
(36:05) was unique was at the time the Canadian government and the Canadian marketplace was very worried about hollowing out
(36:13) the Canadian mining sector. now there's actually I think Glencore has more employees in Canada than any other mining company and I think Glencore actually has more employees in Canada
(36:22) than Teck does which is ironic. But there was always the kind of the backdoor conversations and the
(36:30) the very unique scenarios of who's going to run this company and who's in charge and when you have a government that
(36:37) comes and tries to stop things it gets it played out all the attitude what was the attitude of Glencore because you're right they were
(36:45) rebuffed so many times. So when we were there, I mean, we were looking at this thing from a total value creation
(36:52) perspective for everyone. and the mo we thought the most amount of value would be created by putting the two companies together because they share a
(37:01) lot of the same commodities, copper and zinc and coal. so there was, side when we looked at the side by side of the two companies, it was all
(37:09) the commodities were the same and so the value that could have been created as well as a lot of the locations and some of the assets that we had were the same.
(37:15) and we were actually in some of the same exact joint ventures as partners. Switzerland to Vancouver was a little bit of a time zone gap. But I
(37:24) think it was just maybe one thing that some of the Canadian investors just didn't fully recognize what that
(37:32) potential was and they were making a decision based on the history of what has happened in Canada before. And it's ironic now that Glencore has the most
(37:41) amount of Canadian employees. and it speaks to your something you were saying earlier about borders are closing around
(37:49) deals. I think increasingly because people are viewing these metals, specifically copper, as
(37:57) strategic assets in a way they weren't when sort of Glencore was coming up, right? When Glencore was growing, I imagine there were very few rooms that
(38:06) they were shoved out of if they had the cash to Exactly. no one the word critical minerals didn't even exist before 2020, like this. No one
(38:14) even talked about this, right? It was really after COVID and then after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and some of the other geopolitical events that people
(38:22) started to think about and the US administration being very vocal about critical minerals, otherwise maybe we still wouldn't even be talking
(38:29) about this word, right? But also I think here in Canada the government didn't want to have
(38:36) another large takeover maybe was the wrong word because when I was working on this it was a true partnership and we were going
(38:43) to share knowledge and share people and share governance and share control really but the the irony is now I think
(38:52) the Canadian government has maybe done a little bit of a 180 and they're a lot and some of those doors are opening again to places like China so and
(39:00) to Chinese investment, so you have to go with the times and this just comes back to why Glencore would always think about investing for
(39:08) the long term and acquiring assets and investing in assets because governments change all the time and policy changes all the time and risk change all the
(39:15) time and it's the resource base that you have in the ground which differentiates any other investment from another.
(39:23) Good perspective. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you, Amber.
(39:26) That's Jordan Pandoff joining us of Lumina Metals. Don't miss our next episode. We've got Brian Tyiss on the show of Avenue Investment Partners. If you've got questions for the money
(39:35) manager, you can email us questions at inthemoneypod.com. And we'll see you on the next episode.