I
Have the benefit of experience a lot of experience in being able to sort the wheat from the chaff
You have to cross your fingers a lot they hope things don't happen
but when they do
The only way to deal with it is to Institute is to build a business
That's big enough that it's not going to be a killer to your whole yes is fun and that means diversification and scale
So the the power business itself
It's all about scale the bigger the scale the less a calamity on one project affects the mothership
Plus, of course, the bigger it is the lower the cost of capital which is wealth grading by itself
So getting big really does make a difference in the power business
Clean energies no exception. If you have a large clean energy company and you're focused on clean energy. You have a niche that
Investors who want that kind of company will go to the only way you can appeal to them is to stay pure
But be diversified enough to give them the coverage when it's not blowing in
In Texas in 2008 when I began life geothermal power company
There were 16 public companies in Australia and Canada
16 power companies whose name had geothermal in them focus by
2011 or 2012 there were three
Right, the others had gone had gone under there was three some of them had gone under through being combined emerged
but they share over wealth loss or
dissipation in that period from that business was was colossal why it was sort of the flavor of the month from
2004 to 2008 of 2009 and
It was just a it was a bad business sector a spur accrual for the lesson seasoner
He was promoting so many of those companies
Proved to be a very tough business the ones that survived like mine I survived because we diversified let me grew much much bigger
Which is hard work by itself, but you can ultimately you can do it
but when you let's let's say you have to close a mind for whatever there's a cave-in there's something
What's the process of that from a management perspective it is?
Where in the scale of the problems there creates is?
The shareholder because to them obviously it's everything. Yeah, and they can overreact and they tend to over it
Yeah as soon as you get you know
Those things happen people dump this year's because they're terrified of how bad it could be
Do you focus on that at all?
Or can you not do you reach you're able to do that when you're like when you're me in a company?
Yeah, grant. You're not a seller right? I can't sell it right. I'm
I've got two outcomes either I get borrowed I
Saw once yeah, and I've done that many many times, but I only do it once
I
Don't sell along the way I buy along the way but I only saw once or if I'm in a company
If I'm building a company that's going to be a long-term operating business
My attitude is I'm going to build that company until I'm no longer needed to be there in which case I then either
Resign or retire or leave it or die or something like that and and the company survives?
My exit in the company in which case it's a happy ending
maybe just at my death I the stock is sold when I when I croak I mean
in other words
I don't build these companies to exit along the way no either I get bought out or I or I or I hold them until
Until the long term the critical thing is we tell shareholders what we're going to do and we follow through we execute that plan
The companies that frustrate me are the companies where I invest in them
I give them a million dollars to do X and they go and spend it on Y
Right. It drives me crazy, and I never invested them again
III don't mind if they if they take that million dollars if they say they're gonna go and explore a bunch of holes in this
Place for this commodity and they come up with nothing
That's fine you execute. Well, that's exactly what I made that bet for I gave you a million dollars
I understand this risk, I understand. It may end up a zero, but I also man it with ten million dollars
Yeah, if they if they got lucky and I'm prepared to take that risk, and I never whine if it goes to zero
Because that's the nature of the business. But if they go and divert it somewhere else then I get mad
So so people watching this who who who invested we people watching who do invest in resource stocks
They'll be plenty that maybe will end up investing in them and you invest
Not in companies around but you also invest in other companies. What's kind of your checklist?
What do you look for in what order importance and how do you figure out? Okay
This is this is a company worth my investment
Well, the first it by far is is who's involved?
Yeah
I look very carefully who's involved and I look at their record and I often meet them
In conferences or wherever and I encourage all investors to try to do that
Especially with the smaller companies to get a measure that people
Were involved because at the end of the day and the smaller companies not necessarily the big ones
But even it applies there, it's it's the management. That's that's very important
But really the second thing and it's it's it's for me it's as important is the quality of the project
I I do try to look at that carefully
You can't get too cute because you never really know what it's going to be like until you know
You drill a few holes or until you until you do a bunch of engineering work to make sure that the gold or copper
Whatever it is can actually be recovered. Yeah, I which doesn't always happen
So I do look at the property I have the benefit of experience a lot of experience in
being able to sort the wheat from the chaff and
and looking at quality projects and so
But even I'll get involved in projects that don't work out and that's that's just the nature of the business services business
So this story there is I think again diversification you want to have a portfolio of these type of companies
Out of ten companies not note 50 not crazy numbers, but you know five or town and you're going to have you know
10 or 20% they go to zero you're going to have hopefully maybe one out of ten that really has a
huge huge gain and
The ones in the middle you're going to maybe get your money back and at the end of the day you're going to outperform
on average
now if you have a portfolio if
You if you then also step back and try to ignore the noise in the market the noise and the newspapers the noise and all
The pundits and actually think for yourself for a minute travel the world
Understand what's happening in the world antique take a long view on metal prices
look at where they are in the cycle if you buy the
Doesn't matter what you buy it's gonna go down if the metal price turns
Similar at the bottom if you buy almost anything at the bottom everything will rise the the rising tide floats all ships
but even in that environment, you will get better performance out of certain companies certain management in certain properties than others and
And that's I think the the thing to focus on is to think for yourself
Identify trends it's a cyclical business. It's not making a computer
It's not so I mean you have to worry about any revenue revenue set by world prices
Yeah, you don't have control over your revenues. So
You've got to understand how these cycles work and and they really are
They're somewhat predictable in that you you know when things are not at the top
You don't know ever when it's going to be at the top, you know when it's not at the top. Yeah if it's sort of
Like today gold is around 1200 and some the high was 1800
Yeah, the next cycle is going to shoot through that. I know that I absolutely know that I
just don't know when so
Buying today is a much better time than buying one. Go ahead $1,800 five years ago
There's seven years ago
And when you have that happen, then you're going to do well regardless, but you can also do well even in a down market
It's just much more difficult and for that you have to be a very astute investor
you have to follow the company's you have to you have to be diversified enough to have that that ability to have C losses and
A few companies and gains than others. Yeah, and then you have to rely on management and on Lady Luck
What is it for me? I've always I was looking for management and and you look for
execution and to your point doing what you said you were going to do and
Really after that everything else is slings and arrows you can't really lose a little bit things. Yeah
It's a little bit of a role of the roulette table, but it's very difficult. Yeah, I think for individual investors
The only problem you have there is
Between your ears because you've wrestled with the fact that you might be losing money and people get over committed and uneat and they do
they keep buying all the way down till they get much too big a position for their own comfort levels, but institutional investors have to
Answer to investors, right which is really hard
I mean
I see I see Institute
making the most boneheaded decisions
again
And again and again because they kind of lose confidence
and they don't want to look bad and they saw that they sell they sell come as it should hold onto when things turn a
Little bit south they sell these companies. I
I've I've had that up more often in my own companies when I see a
Great institutional investor have to sell and then the stock triples
and I just say why didn't you hold on this was going out I could have told it if he'd had if you'd had the
Time to phone me or come to my visitor management
I would have told you what we were doing and said you just have this knee-jerk reaction. Hit your quarterly numbers
to sell and it's just
boneheaded if you had invested in 1985 or through the plus 30 years only in four people you
would have
Thousands and thousands and thousands percent gains
Over that period you'd have you'd have had compounded games of I'm gonna say 25 to 30 percent per year for 20 years
Yeah, 30 years like crazy gains me Lukas Lundin Richard work
And Robert Friedland. Those are before that papa now there's plenty of other names
There's some great entrepreneurs in Australia some great owners in England and in Toronto. Those are just four names that I know really well
a handful of others
As well, but but only those four names, you know
You don't mean it like a real bandit and and and that's all you would have had to invest in
Yeah, but it's all talking about that purely people. Yeah, it doesn't matter
You know, I was in a nickel and copper and gold and silver
Trailers been into all kinds of stuff Linden's mostly oil
It's big hits actually oil and gas, but it's just he just knows how to create wealth and I just can't
in my personal world
I can't put a finger to why that is in my world that I've been so lucky and why everybody can't do it?
It's not brains. I don't think it's brains. I don't have any more brains than any other guy in this business
I just I treat the money like it's it's mine and I don't spend it right crazy
I don't consider other people's money when I get given shareholder money
I feel as it's a great privilege and it's it's an honor to be
Guarding it for them as a guardian
And I try to spend it. I've known as a very frugal
Very cheap patterns. I pay my people very well. I have very low overhead
I I try to treat you know the money like it's like it belongs to my shareholders as it does and
You know I try to spread risk I try to joint venture things if they're really risky
I try to spend my own shoulders money on things that are much more certain
I I do try to diversify I try to have lots of balls and lots of
lots of places and in the air a lot as much as I can also, I'd say I
try to lead a full life myself personally where I have a really great family, and I have a lot of
Karmic energy from that and it helps my business for all night. I love life as well
I love hiking and I love getting outdoors. I'm fairly fairly healthy and fit and that feeds into the business success
Somehow I can't put a tangible value in it
But I think it all it all kinds of fits in in a box when you talk about it's not intelligence
I think there's a certain there is a certain intelligence that comes through as you have success
You have failure you learn what we're successful you learn what not to do
That's true sucess success begets success and and and failure almost implies
You're gonna keep failing because you don't have the you know
Right. Now I have the financial resources that I never had before and just for that reason alone
I was able to prop up my clean energy company I gained and again when it needed money
Yeah
If I didn't have that ability to help it it wouldn't have gone through those tough years
with with equinox goal know I have the financial capacity to
Sort of support it
Even if we're wrong in the gold price the gold price goes down the assets
We're building now that are going to have great value if the goal proposed down that Valley is going to disappear
Well, I have the capacity to
bail that company out and that alone is going to ensure its success because I'll end up just
If I have to buy shares that lower price, I'll buy the whole company. I mean I can afford to do that now, so
so
That's a nice little thing to have in my pocket now that I never used to have
And it's as reassuring as well
You