Pacific Opportunity Capital President Mark Brown on Positioning for 10 Fold Gains When No One Is Looking

Mark Brown: Well, I've been great, and I was really happy to see you down in person in New Orleans in the fall. And it's great to have this catch up, so very happy to be here.

Mark Brown: Okay, great. I mean, Rare Element Resources. We were just so excited about it at the time, but it was 10 years of hard work, but 10 years where we had consistently good drill results. And then all of a sudden, the macroeconomic picture changed and the share price just skyrocketed, and people all of a sudden looked at us and said, "Wow, how have you had this for so long?" And we said, "Well, we've been trying to tell people for 10 years that we had this," and all of a sudden the share price went from 15 cents to $15 over the course of a few years.

And that's what's happening now with companies. The macroeconomic picture is getting better and better, and a lot of the companies we’re involved with that have been advancing their projects are at stages where, "Wow, this is looking really interesting.” They've had some good drill results in multiple different elements, and it's an exciting time. So, we're excited to see these projects advance. And as things change in the macroeconomic picture, could be much better for the share prices.

Mark Brown: Exactly. And I'm going to cut right to the chase and go to the heart of the matter is that you've got to have good drill results for these discoveries, and you've got to be drilling. Avrupa's got a partner funding drilling in Portugal for high grade copper-lead-zinc, and they're hitting good results. So, recently they hit 113 meters of 0.35 copper, plus a little bit of silver and lead and zinc there. Those are decent grades and the partner’s funding it. So, that's exciting. And when you get into those things and maybe get closer and closer to something that's even higher grade, it gets more and more interesting. And Avrupa also just acquired some projects in Finland. And again, one of the key indicators for me about these projects, and one of the reasons I really like them, is because they have historic resources on the projects.

So, these are in Finland in a well-known mining area. There's some historic resources done by very large companies that have... One of the resources was 1.8 million tonnes grading 1.5% copper. That's not bad. Another estimate of resource on the project was 4 million tonnes of 1.1% copper. As you know, 1% copper is a very good grade. So, Avrupa's got a couple of great potential high grade projects, and that's great, is always key in these projects. You got to do your homework and you got to be positioned early, but at some point when you get more and more drill results, the share prices just explode.

Mark Brown: So, it's trading at 8 cents a share Canadian. About 40 million shares outstanding. So, you're talking a tiny market cap. In Canadian dollars, it's almost worth nothing you can get into these companies very easily, accumulate significant share positions, and then see what happens as they go forward. And the downside on them is also very limited because you've got some big shareholders that back the companies. Our group is to buy shares anytime they dip down, and so we own a lot of stock in it, and we have some other big shareholders that do the same thing. So, there's a lot of support there.

Mark Brown: So, Alianza's really interesting because it has the potential to have four different properties drill this summer, and that's pretty amazing. There's majors that don't even have that much drilling going on.

The main project there is a silver project, high grade silver project in the Keno Hill area of the Yukon called Haldane. We've done a little bit of drilling the last couple years and hit things like 300 grams over 8.7 meters. We've hit three meters of 1,315 grams of silver, and there's multiple targets on the project. It needs a lot more drilling. We've just filed a 43-101 report on that project, and it's 100% owned. So, that's the flagship.

But on top of that, we have the Tim Silver Project, optioned out to Coeur Mining. They've hit actually a four meter intercept in a trench of 10 ounces of silver per tonne there, and it's right near Coeur's Silvertip Mine, so that one's going to be drilled this summer.

And then we've got two copper projects that we just optioned out to Allied Copper, and they're planning to drill those this summer. And both of those have high grade copper, 1% plus in chip samples and in trench samples. So, lots of great stuff going on. That drilling is really what gives the excitement for the shareholders, because that's really where you add your value after you do all your homework in the background. We've done a lot of homework in these companies. We're excited to have so much drilling going on this summer. It should be a really great summer for Alianza.

Mark Brown: So, Alianza's a little bigger share structure, about 150 million shares outstanding, trading right now at about 6.5, 7 cents a share. You're $10 million Canadian, roughly maybe up to $12 million right now.

But it is tiny. And that's exactly what happened with Rare Element. I mean, Bob Bishop, back in the day, he used to look at Rare Element and go, "This market cap is so tiny. You should just buy it because there's good people involved. And I know they'll do something, even if their rare earth project doesn't work out." But anyway, he was also a big backer of the rare earths when no one knew what they were, and now they're in all the electric cars and everything.

But that exploded. And he used to tell people, "There's a tiny market cap. You should just buy some." Anyway. Obviously, he was right. So, there you go.

Mark Brown: Just, you're exactly right, and we've got a great group here. We're working hard. And I think at some point, these things are going to clean out. Like you say, the market's going to turn and the companies that have the high grade projects with lots of drilling and they're active are the ones that are going to get moving first here. So, we have fantastic shareholders, lots of support, and it's just a matter of time before these things get moving, and it's a great time to get into them.

Mark Brown: Thanks so much, Gerardo. Take care.