Skip Navigation Links


Bookmark and Share
Rick Rule on the Sprott Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium: Great Venue, Vetted Exhibitors and Leading Industry Side, Policy and Resource Expert Speakers.

on 6/27/2018



Once Again, I had the pleasure of speaking with Rick Rule, President and CEO of Sprott US Holdings Inc. He is one of my favorite people to interview, as his wit and intellect are only exceeded by his experience and knowledge of natural resource investment strategies. Rick is a highly experienced investor and speculator, focusing on public and private issuers in natural resource industries. He has personally structured, led and participated in hundreds of privately placed debt and equity issuances for resource companies operating globally, and domiciled in Australia, Canada, Chile, Great Britain, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. Rick has over thirty years of experience in metals, mining and the natural resource sector in general, and is a presenter at hundreds of resource and investment conferences.


Today we are talking about the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium which is being held July 17th - 20th in Vancouver. This is a very different conference, in that Sprott has vetted and has an investment in all the exhibiting resource companies. They are vetted investment-worthy companies. Rick points out this year there are “three themes that I see as being most interesting to investors, {they] will be Generative Exploration, Royalty and Takeover Targets. And within those sub-themes, there are probably going to be 35 or 40 exhibitors that fit into one of those three themes.”


There are amazing Speakers, as well as great networking opportunities like the “Harbour cruise.” This is a great time to go to the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver . It is a beautiful location with an unparalleled resource for resource investors.



Allen Alper Jr.:                 This is Allen Alper Jr. with Metals News and I'm here with Rick Rule of Sprott. Rick, today I'd like to ask you a bit about your upcoming Sprott Natural Resource Symposium . Why don't you tell us what's exciting about the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium and what sets it apart from these other conferences?

 

Rick Rule:                          Well, one of my favorite questions! I don't want to run down my conference competition, but I do, in fact, believe that this is the finest Natural Resource Investment Conference of this type in the world.

 

                                            For the first point, it's been ongoing for 30 years. So, the conference has stood the test of time. It wouldn't exist had it not delivered value for investors. Specifically, I think the things that set the conference apart are first that it's held in Vancouver, which is really the epicenter of mineral exploration finance worldwide. As well as, of course, being a very nice place to visit in the summer.

 

                                            The second and probably more important reason, is that unlike other conferences, no company can exhibit in the conference if it isn't owned in Sprott managed accounts. Now, the fact that we own it doesn't guarantee that it goes up, but it does guarantee that we have vetted and understand every exhibitor in an attempt to keep the quality high. Our money is involved in every company that's allowed to visit the Sprott conference.

 

                                            Finally, the quality of our speakers is fantastic. Some of the biggest and most reputable newsletter writers and market commentators in the world, as well as people who have built themselves billion dollar companies, telling you about the lessons that they learned in the mining industry and how to help you become a better investor. People like Jim Ricker, bestselling newsletter writer, bestselling author, former general counsel for long-term capital management, who worked out the bankruptcy of long-term capital management.





                                           David Stockman, head of the office of management and budget in the Reagan administration, author of "The Triumph of Politics". My personal favorites are Jim Grant, Grant Williams, a great-great-great group of industry speakers and then of course, the company leaders, the Robert Friedland's of the world, high officials from Silver Wheaton, and Franco-Nevada.

 

                                            For those of you who care about mining investment and mining speculation, there isn't a better use of time, this year, than coming to this conference.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                 If I'm attending Sprott Natural Resource Symposium , will I have exposure to these people?

 

Rick Rule:                          Absolutely. One of the things that's really fun is simply watching some of these great speakers after they're done speaking, going through the exhibit hall questioning companies. I had the good fortune to tag along with Robert Friedland last year. One of the best mine-discoverers in the world, and watch him go booth to booth asking questions.

 

                                           This year, unlike prior years, there will be an optional attendee cruise, a harbor cruise. This is not a free event, you have to book early , but having the ability to float through Vancouver Harbor with food and drink on me for four hours, talking to the various speakers in a very, very, very casual setting, I think will be an awful lot of fun. And of course, there's plenty of time to walk through and interview the speakers, who are simultaneously exhibitors.

 

                                            Many of whom will be manning booths or holding luncheons or giving workshops during the course of the conference.





Allen Alper Jr.:                 We talked about companies that are exhibiting. The thing that sets them apart is they've all been vetted by Sprott. What do you think of these companies as targets? Do you have favorites out of these companies?

 

Rick Rule:                          Not really. That really depends on who the investor is and what their time frame is. We have companies, with market capitalization as small as ten million dollars and companies, with market capitalization as large as fifteen billion dollars and all ranges in between.

 

                                            The question you ask is more a question that is aimed at individual investors rather than attendees. I can tell you that my themes, the themes that I'm interested in this year are exploration, because most people aren't interested in it and so the exploration stocks are cheap. And also because there's no greater way, if you're willing to take risks than building wealth through exploration.

 

                                            So, I, personally, will be interested in the prospect generators. The people who generate exploration targets in this type of conference. But it's important to note, too, that the best performing sector in mining for the last ten years has been the royalty companies. Royalty and streaming companies. And we will have several royalty and streaming companies there, from the very largest to the very smallest. That's a sub-theme that will attract people.

 

                                           For the bigger part of the mining capital markets, I think a theme that will be of particular interest in 2019 is going to be merger and acquisition and takeover targets. We will have several companies present, who I think have a very good chance of being taking over in 2018. The most prominent of which, of course, is Nevsun, which is subject to a takeover offer as we speak.

 

                                            So, the themes that I see as being interesting to investors, the three themes that I see as being most interesting to investors, will be Generative Exploration, Royalty and Takeover Targets. And within those sub-themes, there are probably going to be 35 or 40 exhibitors that fit into one of those three themes.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                  Excellent! Excellent! Now, you're going to be speaking there and you've mentioned some of the other speakers. Who are the speakers that people absolutely have to hear?

 

Rick Rule:                          Well, I would say on the industry side, the best speaker at the show is clearly Robert Friedland. For people, who weren't familiar with him, he has been serially successful in the last 35 years in the mining business. He was responsible for the team that discovered the Fairbanks Gold Deposit. I think it's produced 10 million ounces, now. Gross Rosebel has produced seven million ounces, now. Boise's Bay is the greatest nickel-copper discovery of this century. Oyu Tolgoi now provides 30 percent of the GDP of the nation of Mongolia. Kamoa-Kakula is an enormous new copper discovery in Congo. Flatreef Deposit is a big platinum discovery in South Africa.

 

                                            One man, responsible for financing and leading the teams that've discovered seven world-class, absolutely tier-one deposits, doesn't get better than that.  Of course, Randy Smallwood from Silver Wheaton basically brought the carve-out and streaming ideas to the mining business. One of the most important financial innovations, in the mining business, in the last 20 years and not coincidentally built a company, Silver Wheaton, from zero to a 15 billion dollar market capitalization associated with that.

 

                                            Learning from industry leaders like this is indispensable. Another one of my favorite speakers will be Jim Grant from The Interest Rate Observer, a venerable commentator on general markets, but also a real, real, real gold bug. Doug Casey is always a crowd pleaser. You can count on Doug to be insightful, brilliant and also outrageous and entertaining. So, of course Doug will be there.

 

                                          

                                            Grant Williams, from Real Vision, is always a crowd pleaser. There will be one good speaker after another. If somebody has a complaint about this conference, it's that by the end of it, they will be absolutely worn out.

 





Allen Alper Jr.:                 Well, that's always a good complaint.

 

Rick Rule:                          It is. It is. There's never too much of a good thing. I have to tell you, I think it's going to be really hard this year not to make some money at this conference. In the near-term, I think the takeover plays work. In the longer term, I'm certain the exploration plays work and the royalty plays seem to work in all seasons.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                 That's great. That's great. What are your most important reason for putting on the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium .

 

Rick Rule:                          The most important reason for doing the conference, for us, is that our existing clients have said it's an important part of their relationship with Sprott. So, the most important single thing for me is the fact that it builds education among my existing clients. Given that I will have 200 or 250 existing clients at the conference, it makes absolute sense to open it up to people who are not clients yet and                give them a view of the competency of the Sprott organization. It's our belief that when people, who are veteran conference attendees, compare our conference with other conferences and see the quality of our conference relative to some other conferences that the good feeling that results from the conference will extend to their good feeling with regards to Sprott and that we will increase our customer base. But, my primary reason for doing the conference is that it delivers substantial value to our existing customers. Great face time with our existing customers is priceless.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                   Yes, What will be the topic of your presentation at the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium ?

 

Rick Rule:                          I will be speaking about exploration. It's been 20 years since we had a good exploration market. The major mining companies have both under-invested and invested poorly in exploration, meaning that their exploration and development pipelines are empty. When good deposits are discovered, they're getting taken over at eye-popping multiples. Witness yesterday’s bid for Arizona Mining at 1.8 billion dollars, a huge premium to the market capitalization that existed right before the bid, or going farther back, the takeover of Mariana by Sandstorm and of course, the takeover of Reservoir by Nevsun, and now the proposed takeover of Nevsun by Lundin.

 

                                            When good discoveries are made in a market where good discoveries are rare, they are taken over at real premiums. This does a couple things. It adds hope and it adds liquidity to the market. And it sharpens the market for successful exploration. I think the unsung theme in the Junior Resource Market in 2019 will be exploration, so that's what I will talk about. Gretzky said that he became a great hockey player by skating to where the puck was going to go, rather than to where the puck is. I think the puck is “going to go” to exploration, so that's what I'll be speaking about.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                 Great. That's a great insight. What do you think are the two main reasons that investors absolutely have to go to this symposium .

 

Rick Rule:                          Well, I think there are two reasons. We will have great general discussions, educational discussions. We will have discussions from people like David Stockman, talking about global politics from an insider's perspective. Jim Ricker's talking about what could go wrong in the economy, from somebody who has seen it firsthand at long-term capital management. So, great education, but probably more important than that, people who invest, either directly as company CEOs or indirectly, like myself as a money manager and equity investor and lender. People who invest billions of dollars a year will give you practical information about how to invest and in many cases talk about things that they are investing in, personally.

 

                                            Beyond that, the ability to visit with the management teams of companies that you own or should own in a one to one setting, where you actually get to meet these guys, not read about them in newsletters, not read their press-release, but actually talk to the CEO, talk to the Chief Financial Officer. Talk to the geologists. This is invaluable if you're a serious investor or speculator in minerals.

 





Allen Alper Jr.:                 Absolutely! Now, let's talk a little bit about the timing of this. Why is this the right time to go to Vancouver.

 

Rick Rule:                          Pretty simply, because we started this conference about 30 years ago, with our friends at Agora. We wanted to do it in Vancouver because we wanted to do it around the theme of small cap and micro-cap mineral stocks, Vancouver being the epicenter of that business. And there is no better city in the world when the weather is nice than Vancouver. And the weather is nicest in Vancouver at the end of July and the beginning of August. So, given that we wanted to have it in Vancouver, we wanted to have it in the best possible weather.

 

                                            It's worth noting, of course, that the fireworks festival also takes place that time of year. An event separate and apart from the conference that attracts 250,000 people to the shores of Vancouver. So, the combination of a really intoxicatingly beautiful city, at its best possible time, in a conference where somebody who works hard will almost certainly make money, I think is a very, very compelling value proposition.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                 Excellent! Excellent! So, is there anything else you'd like to add about the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium .

 

Rick Rule:                          No. You already have me breathless. I'm looking forward to seeing you and many of your readers/investors at the conference. I really do believe that people will have a great time and people will come away from it making money.

 

Allen Alper Jr.:                 We're looking forward to it, and we are looking forward to helping our readers/investors make much, much more money, by attending such an excellent venue.

 

                                            Click on this link to register for the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium and the Harbour Cruise .

 

You can always email Rick Rule at Rrule@sprottglobal.com , and Rick has offered all MetalsNews readers the opportunity to have their natural resources portfolio ranked by Rick Rule. Just email your natural resources portfolios to Rick. It's important to put both the name and the stock symbol for each stock in your portfolio in the body of the email. Rick will then get back with his rankings of the companies that are in your natural resources portfolio on an absolutely no obligation basis.

 

Sprott Natural Resource Symposium Contact Information:
Register for Sprott Natural Resource Symposium

 

When
Tuesday, July 17, 2018 - Friday, July 20, 2018
7:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Pacific Time

 

Where
Fairmont Hotel Vancouver
900 W Georgia St.
Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 2W6
Canada
+1 604-684-3131

 

Planner
Cali Farnham

 

Sprott US Holdings Contact Information:
Contact Sprott

 

Sprott U.S. Holdings, Inc.
1910 Palomar Point Way, Suite 200
Carlsbad, CA 92008



Brokerage Services
Sprott Global Resource Investments Ltd.
Telephone: 
800.477.7853
Email: 
contact@sprottglobal.com  


Separately Managed Accounts
Sprott Asset Management USA, Inc.
Telephone: 
866.531.8746
Email: 
contact@sprottusa.com

 

 

 




Disclaimer | Terms Of Use And Privacy Statement


© Metals News. All rights reserved.