In short: Bought 20% of the company day one — "one of the biggest checks I've written so far in my career." A classic Gentile setup: scale, grade, terrific infrastructure, a project with the potential to become a mine, in a Canada that is now favorable for building gold mines.
A small gold explorer in which Gentile bought a 20% stake in one go — one of the largest single investments of his career, made while gold miners were out of favour this spring. He says it has the traits he looks for: a large deposit, good grade, roads and power nearby, and a real chance of one day becoming a mine. He owns a big slice and can't easily sell, so this is a long-term bet on the project being built or bought.
3:45One of the biggest checks I've written so far in my career, bought 20% of the company day one. We can get into more details there, but that's a classic setup that I look for, an asset that has scale, grade, terrific infrastructure, a project that I truly believe over time, it's going to take time, has potential to become a mine.
In short: His highest-conviction gold long, and a big recent buy. Asked to name one: "one of the big positions that we have now, we bought recently, is McFarlane Lake Mining… I know the MLM. It's already done very well." The reason is other people's diligence, named: "one guy that I follow, Michael Gentile, very smart guy. So there are a few other people like that — Cohen at Scotia — and I follow Lassonde and a few others like that… these people have done kind of the pre-work. They already know the engineering is fine. The ore is good. The metallurgy is probably fine and these projects are probably going to be mined, because in mining there's a lot of issues that can come over time. So the fact that some of these people have done the work, I feel more comfortable." Asked whether he would instead buy the safe large-cap: "I prefer the small ones where there's a lot of catalyst and I know who's on the board… and I know the upcoming expected catalysts we should see over time." The host puts the size at "sub $300 million market cap." "MLM is one but there's many many others."
His single highest-conviction gold position, and a recent purchase, is a small Ontario gold company worth under $300 million. The interesting part is not the company but how he got comfortable with it, because mining juniors are the easiest place in markets to lose money on a good story.
Mining projects fail for technical reasons that are genuinely hard for an outside investor to assess: the geology can be misread, the rock may not give up its gold economically (that is what "metallurgy" means — whether the processing actually works), or the engineering may not stand up. Tardif's shortcut is to follow a handful of specialist investors who have already done that work and put their own money in — he names Michael Gentile, "Cohen at Scotia," and Lassonde. If they have vetted the geology, the ore and the metallurgy, "these projects are probably going to be mined," and he inherits their diligence.
The second half of his answer is why he prefers this to simply buying a large, safe producer like Agnico Eagle. In a small company he can enumerate the catalysts coming and he knows, or knows someone who knows, the board and management. That combination — a queue of known events plus a short line to the people responsible for them — is his stated edge, and it does not exist in a large-cap. Note the risk this carries: a sub-$300m junior can fall a very long way if a single catalyst disappoints.
12:55So we buy on strength and we sell on weakness just to help us lower our risk and our net exposure to the market. — Okay. So you won't tell me your copper shorts. People love to talk about their longs. So tell me your highest conviction gold long right now. — Well, don't want to say just one name. — Okay. — But one of the big positions that we have now, we bought recently, is McFarlane Lake Mining.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.