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Infinitum Copper (TSX-V: INFI) CEO Steve Robertson on 3 New Copper Discoveries at La Adelita Copper Project, Mexico, Plus New Acquisition in Arizona Copper Belt
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Infinitum Copper — Mr. Steve Robertson. Steve, great to have you back on. How are you, sir?
Steve Robertson: I'm doing really well. It's always a pleasure. Thanks, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into it. You had some news this morning. We chatted over the weekend briefly. You announced a C$1 million private placement. And let me tell you why it was pretty compelling to me and why I volunteered to offer it to accredited investors of Junior Resource Insider.
One, the metal is the right metal for me. I really like the mid-to-long-term fundamentals of copper. There's also some gold involved there. You have multiple projects. You're in great jurisdictions: you're in Sonora state; you're in Arizona state. So all boxes are checked there.
But then, as I dig a little further… the share structure is tight… the market cap is tiny… you're already drilling. And you're drilling and following up in areas where you've already had success in outlining the discoveries that you referenced there.
With all that said, Steve, can you provide a brief overview of the company and the team, which is really impressive because I think that speaks to a lot of why this is a pretty compelling opportunity at current levels.
Steve Robertson: The year that we've been having at Infinitum Copper has been unbelievable. We set out to create a premier copper explorer, and we wanted to do that by, first of all, having a great team that we would center the company around. And we've certainly got that. We wanted to have a portfolio of high-quality projects. Well, we've got two great projects in the portfolio now, and we're going to continue to build on that portfolio as opportunities allow.
Our crews in the field have just been hitting it out of the park in terms of their activities, including making three brand-new discoveries down at La Adelita so far this season. So it's really been quite a stellar year for us. We just have been having constant headwinds in terms of the market but I don't want to get distracted by that. I want to make sure that we continue to give the guys in the field the opportunity to continue to perform as well as they have.
Gerardo Del Real: Just to be absolutely clear, the financing goes a long way towards providing that bridge or that runway that gets us to news from the assays, drilling, and further exploration work, correct?
Steve Robertson: Yeah, that's right. We've got three brand-new discoveries down at La Adelita so that's going to result in an expansion of the amount of work that we want to do. So we want to make sure that we're not going to run into a wall in terms of financing and need to pull the crews out of the field.
Then, on top of that, we've acquired the new Hot Breccia project up in Arizona, and it's unfunded right now. So we want to make sure that we're just doing a small financing now that will allow us to do some of the work, permitting, community relations and that sort of thing and get an airborne geophysical survey lined up for the fall and work on permitting for later in the calendar year.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk the team. You and I have chatted in the past. I was impressed, initially, when you reached out and we offered to tell this story, in large part, because of your past history of success and, frankly, the team that you've put together is top notch. Can you give a brief overview of the team here, Steve?
Steve Robertson: Sure, on the geological front, we've got two of the biggest names in the business, Dr. Peter Megaw and Doug Kirwin — both world-renowned experts in their respective fields. Peter, of course, is an expert in carbonate replacement deposits. He's one of the co-founders of MAG Silver, a company that started out like Infinitum Copper but is a multibillion-dollar company at this point developing the Juanicipio project down in Mexico.
His counterpart would be Doug Kirwin who is, really, a world-class porphyry expert. He was the Executive VP of Ivanhoe for a number of years; led the team there to a number of discoveries, many of which are in production now. Both of those guys have a tremendous fire and passion for exploration. They've had many successes in the past, and I'm convinced that they've got many successes left in their future as well.
Then, we've got Jorge Ramiro, who's really a capital markets expert and does a great job of keeping us well-funded and keeping the markets well aware of the successes that we're making. The depth goes deeper than that. Of course, we've got the next layer down, we've got the geologists. Two down in Mexico. We've got two great Sonoran-born geologists that really have been performing very well and are a big part of our success to date.
Rafa Gallardo has been a partner of Peter Megaw's for over 30 years. Not only does he do a great job as a geologist but he also does a great job as an ambassador for the company and the local community. And that's really important, as we know, in every jurisdiction in this day and age. We've got a very strong team all the way from top to bottom.
Gerardo Del Real: Where is the market cap today because… when you talk about the team and when you talk about multiple assets in stable jurisdictions, when we talk about multiple catalysts in the second half of the year, and then we talk copper and gold… I would expect a market cap much higher than where it is today. You care to share where that is today, Steve?
Steve Robertson: Yeah, we're less than C$9 million as we sit today. It's really been a challenging market despite, as you said in the introduction, copper is definitely the place to be. The long-term fundamentals and the medium-term fundamentals for copper are just fantastic. But a lot of things in our sector are on sale right now and that includes Infinitum Copper.
This is a pretty cheap valuation for anybody that is looking for a good premier copper explorer. I don't think there's a lot of products on the shelf. We don't have a lot of peers that are actually really building their business around exploration and discovery the way that we are.
A lot of companies out there are pulling out old assets to see if they can make them work in this price cycle. We've got a little bit of a different approach to our business model, and I think the market valuation is very compelling where we're at today.
Gerardo Del Real: A very, very busy second half of the year with multiple catalysts. Steve, anything else to add to that?
Steve Robertson: No, I think that the really critical thing for us right now is not to take our eye off the ball. We've been hitting all the milestones for ourselves both corporately and out in the field with the exploration crews. Despite the turmoil and turbulence that are going on in the surrounding market, we need to keep our heads down, keep focused on what we do well — and that's discovery. This financing will go a long way to helping us do that.
Gerardo Del Real: When do you suspect we'll start seeing some assays here?
Steve Robertson: We should be starting to see some of the drill results start to roll out within the next month. We're right around the beginning of July now… it'll be into July by the time we'll get to the end of this week. So I would suspect probably mid-July or so we could see some results coming up.
Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic! Steve, thank you for the time… thanks for the overview. Appreciate it.
Steve Robertson: Always a pleasure, Gerardo. Thank you.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon.