Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: Gold Stocks

Banyan Gold (TSX-V: BYN)(OTC: BYAGF) CEO Tara Christie on Aggressive Drilling, Gold, Silver, and Why Banyan Remains Undervalued

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Banyan Gold (TSX-V: BYN)(OTC: BYAGF), Ms. Tara Christie. Tara, always great to have you on. I know you have been up, down, left and right, spreading the good Banyan word. We had a bit of a consolidation here recently. You have come out of that beautifully and you have a 2026 that I think is likely going to be the envy of a lot of companies. Let's get into why. Thank you for your time. First and foremost, how have you been?

Tara Christie: Excellent. I've been on the road a lot and that's given me great perspectives on where people's heads are, what they think about the market and gold price. And it's given me even more confidence. Not only are the fundamentals of gold strong, and this is a fabulous gold price, but Banyan's fundamentals are even stronger and I think we're in the best position we've ever been in. So yeah, it's going to be a transformative year for us and I'm really glad to be able to talk to you about it.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I want to talk about the drills turning. I want to talk about you hitting 3,408 grams per tonne silver over 1.4 meters here recently. But I want to start by asking you about the addition to the management team, because you are now at that stage where you have the treasury, you have the resource space, you have the exploration upside, you have gold tailwinds that clearly are going to only increase the value proposition for Banyan. Why strengthen the management team at this stage?

Tara Christie: Well, it's a key time for us. We have hit a different market cap, the expectations of us, the broader interest in Banyan and in the Yukon generally. I think now is the time to make sure that we're properly telling the story and also evaluating all the different corporate development opportunities, which are becoming available to us and which our shareholders want us to be looking at now that we're a different company. This company has come a really long way and for that, we need the bench strength to be able to manage all of the opportunities that are around us. We did that last year by adding Duncan Mackay, my VP of exploration, who's brought a whole different caliber of the geology to our team. And that's partly the recipe for our new model and the success that we've had in the field and that we're going to have this year, again, with those drills turning already.

But Patrick was really key. There's an awful lot that's been on my shoulders and my CFO’s shoulders with managing various different opportunities. That purchase of the royalty by Franco Nevada has given us a new valuation for the property. Remember, it was a 6% royalty that they purchased for $52.2 million, but it's really... Because it can be bought down to 1% for $10 million, you could kind of look at it that they just paid $42.2 million for a 1% NSR royalty and we're trading at $40 per ounce. That's the kind of disconnect between our valuation and where we are in the market that Patrick's going to be really instrumental working closely with me and of course with Jasmine on communications to get out and tell the story and bring in new institutional interests, make sure the corporates know about us. That's all part of a strategy of a company that's at our scale now. So it's a sea change and it's super exciting.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's talk about what else is super exciting. You being able to hone in on these high, high grade silver veins, right? Within the broader context of everything else that already exists and that you're targeting. You mentioned the drills are turning. I believe it's what you... I think you mentioned five rigs, we're turning, if I'm recalling correctly.

Tara Christie: Yep. Five rigs turning. Super excited. We started our field program February 15th. So we're over... I think we're 6,500 meters in already and under budget. So we always knew it was 40,000 meters plus our program, depending on where the budget fell, plus 10,000 meters on those regional targets. And remember, AurMac is only 2% of our property. We've got over 720 square kilometers. We're going to drill some of those other targets that really have the same geochemical, geophysical lookalikes on the rest of our property. So we're going to have two fly drills in the summer. So we'll drop to four drills at AurMac proper. So it'll slow down a little bit in total productivity on AurMac, but ramp up outside of the property. So great position to be in. And I'm super excited. I'm going up to the field in two weeks and I'll get to see some of that core that I get my daily logs of, which definitely are exciting.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, we've talked at length why we believe, and I know you believe, that Banyan is undervalued relative to its peers. Can you please just give me like a brief line on when you speak to these institutions, because I know they're calling, and you're making the case. I got to believe it's a pretty easy case to make, right?

Tara Christie: Yes, it is. And a little bit of it, we have to go back to 2024, and that's a key difference between us and any other gold company. Lots of junior gold miners are undervalued for the market right now, but they weren't starting as undervalued as we were. Remember 2024, when that happened, we only had 75% ownership of our property. There was that 8.6% of our stock that was outstanding. That was a huge overhang, plus the overhang of what type of project we would be, whether heap leach would be possible in the Yukon. And of course, we moved our strategy and it's clear the economics are driving us to the mill. We knew that by September, we had a deal to get 100% of our property and to make sure that that block of stock was crossed. That wasn't cleared up in October. And if you look at the graph of our share price, we stayed flat into October.

All of our peers started rerating in August, September, and really had pretty significant gains long before we even started to move. So then in October, we started to move, but we're still trading under $40 US per ounce. Our peers right next to us are $100 per ounce, even as high as $300 per ounce. And again, not all ounces are equal. And I guess I think that we actually should be on the higher end of that scale for dollar per ounce because we're low strip ratio right from surface. We have existing roads, existing hydropower on the property and access to the grid. Those are huge, huge advantages. You look at other projects that sold, even the probe project, $80 an ounce, but it had 10 satellite... It had a huge strip ratio, over 7:1. Those are big differences. So in the valuations, where should we be valued?

Well, I think that we're still tremendously undervalued. And I think our speedy recovery to this dip is real evidence to that. The people that understand that have been out looking at Banyan. And yeah, we haven't had huge volume yet. We went down on pretty low volume and we're coming up on pretty low volume. When people actually start to understand the value proposition of Banyan, I think that will be game changing for us. And we're in such a good position. We still have a couple news releases to come from our results from last year.

We've got that updated mineral resource, which remember, our last resource was at a 2,050 gold price and three year trailing average is probably 2,800 without even any of the 43,000 meters that we drilled last year, which much of it was very strategically targeted. Our high grade zones at reducing strip ratio, eliminating waste, I think that's going to be really compelling for both our mineral resource update here, as well as our upcoming PEA in the second half of the year. So yeah, I've never been more excited about what we're going to be able to deliver than I am this year.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, congrats to you and the team getting the company where it's at. And I'm looking forward to congratulating you when you're eventually bought out at a pretty healthy premium because I think the writing's on the wall for that. And I know you, Tara, I've known you long enough now to where you're going to tell me your job is to maximize shareholder value, including your large shareholding in the company between now and then. So I'll give you the last word.

Tara Christie: Well, I wouldn't count us out. You always need to position the company to be able to build it and put the people in place because that's a selling feature as well as a building feature. But absolutely right. I am, and my team is laser focused on shareholder value, making sure that we're spending the money that we have in the bank well. We've got a great team out on site and I give lots of thanks to them for slugging it out in the cold temperatures and getting some pretty incredible drill holes in before we have to move to the holes that you drill in the summer. So it is going to be a great year. And thank you to my long-term shareholders who have stuck with me. I'm pretty committed to delivering for the people that help me to get here. So that's who I work for and I'm pretty excited about this year. So thanks for the time.

Gerardo Del Real: Excited to have you back on soon. Thank you.

Tara Christie: Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. Cheers.

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