“I Could Not Be More Bullish”: Pierre Lassonde’s $17,250 Gold Target

With gold holding firmly above $4,700 an ounce and silver breaking into the $80 to $85 range, Pierre Lassonde returns to Kitco News to explain the architecture of the new bull market. The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee and resource sector pioneer breaks down his $17,250 gold target, highlighting the striking parallels between the late 1970s and today’s macroeconomic environment.

Lassonde details how $40 trillion in U.S. debt and persistent deficits are forcing a fundamental shift in the global financial architecture. He explains why central banks are relentlessly diversifying away from the U.S. dollar, driving physical price discovery to the East and treating gold as the “currency of last reserve”.

Beyond the metal, Lassonde unpacks the immense optionality in mining equities today. He discusses why current stock prices fail to reflect the potential for 5x margin expansion, questions Barrick Gold's current strategy, and calls out Canadian pension funds for their lack of domestic investment. Plus, he reveals why copper-gold deposits are the true "nirvana" of the mining sector in an electrified world.

Recorded May 11 2026

Follow Jeremy Szafron on X: @JeremySzafron (https://x.com/JeremySzafron)
Follow Kitco News on X: @KitcoNewsNOW (https://x.com/KitcoNewsNOW)

Chapters:
00:00 Metals Surge Setup 
00:40 Meet Pierre Lassonde 
01:20 Dow Gold Target 
01:52 1970s Replay Thesis 
05:33 Debt Deficits Dollar 
07:15 Gold Last Reserve 
07:51 Parallel Payment Systems 
11:41 Central Banks Drive 
15:17 India Demand Shock 
18:29 Shanghai Volatility 
21:28 Mining Stocks Leverage 
25:38 Majors Discipline Shift 
28:34 Shareholder Returns First 
30:12 Spotting Disciplined Miners 
31:33 Orla’s Playbook 
34:46 Jurisdiction Risk Discounts 
36:00 Canada Policy and Pensions 
45:06 Optionality Royalties and Copper
__________________________________________________________________

Like, share, and subscribe to Kitco News—and turn on alerts to stay current with expert interviews, market insights, and breaking news coverage. 

FOLLOW US:  
X: https://x.com/kitconewsnow  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitconews  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KitcoNews  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kitconews

Visit: https://Kitco.com/ for live gold, silver, and crypto prices, the latest mining news, and macroeconomic insights.  

Live gold price and chart: https://www.kitco.com/charts/gold
Live silver price and chart: https://www.kitco.com/charts/silver
Live crypto market data: https://www.kitco.com/price/crypto

For more information on advertising, sponsorship and marketing promotions – please visit our online media kit at: https://www.kitco.com/advertising  

Disclaimer:  
The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

Disclaimer:  
The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back. I'm Jeremy Safron. Uh, with gold holding firmly above $4,700 an ounce on the spot side, and I mean silver also breaking into that $80, $85 range today. Now, the physical metals market are sending a very clear signal here, yet many traditional mining equities have still not fully reflected the move in the underlying metals, especially when measured against margins, free cash flow, and of course reserve scarcity. Now, we're also in a market shaped by persistent deficits, rising sovereign debt burdens, of course, central bank gold buying and a global reserve system that is slowly shifting back towards hard assets. Now, to break down where capital is flowing, we are joined by one of the most respected figures in the resource sector. He is a Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee, the former president of Newmont Mining, the pioneer of the royalty and streaming model, is the co-founder of Franco Nevada. Also a major shareholder, we should mention, of uh of Orla as well, which we'll talk about today. Mr. Pierre Lason, welcome back to Kitco News. Thanks for making the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Jeremy, thank you for having me. Always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, I appreciate you making this. I mean, obviously an interesting time. We're watching these metal markets uh go a little bit crazy here. We've seen a little bit of corrective territory now. It seems like we have some bullish uh tailwinds. I want to talk to you a little bit about that architecture of the of this bull market because I was watching an interview uh of you where you kind of explained your $17,250 target for gold earlier this year. You tied it partly to the Dow to gold ratio. And uh in in past cycles, that ratio kind of moved close to one to one, but your base case was less extreme, a lower Dow, roughly uh a two to one ratio, and and gold around 17,250. Is is that still your working framework?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, absolutely. And uh the parallel between what we're living today and the 1970s, particularly the late 1970s, 1976, 1980, is incredible. And to use uh the French uh philosopher Voltaire, history never repeats itself, but man always does. And if you look at the 1930s, 50 years later, it was like the 19, late 70s, early 80s, and then you know, 50 years later we're looking at, you know, again the 26 to 2030 time frame. It seems that every two and a half generations we forget what happened. And if you look back to the late 1970s, uh you saw inflation go up every year, you saw interest rate go up every year, you saw the dollar go up every year, and guess what? You saw gold going up even faster every year until a peak of $800 in 1980. Well, that was a tenfold increase from $90 back in 1975. And uh when I look at what's happening in the world today, um, the uh you know the result of the Iran war first impact energy prices, which then impacts food prices. And don't be surprised if by year-end, this year, we see inflation CPI in the US at 4, 4.5 percent. And again, it's a repeat of the 1970s. Now, in the 1970s, inflation went up to like 12 or 13, 14 percent, and mortgage rate went up to 17 percent. I don't expect that because back then there was very very little leverage in the economy, very little debt. The total debt in 1981, when Reagan was first elected, was $1 trillion. Today, that's the amount of money that the US has to pay in interest every year, because the total debt is approaching now 40 trillion. So the amount of leverage in the economy makes it you know very, very difficult for the Federal Reserve to raise rates, which could complicate things even more to my mind. So I am like, I could not be more bullish, to be very honest with you. And um what people tend to uh forget, I mean, the the gold market is climbing a wall of worry. You know, we've all heard about it. And I I speak to uh, you know, I was at a function this weekend, people were asking me about gold, they're all worried that it's you know over, uh, that it's too highly priced, it's gonna go down. They don't realize that the the the world financial architecture is changing, and that's the reason why the gold price is so solidly anchored and very likely to go up.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, you could point to I mean inflation week is also kicking off just this week with Morgan Stanley warning CPI could come in spicier as they're calling. And many expected, you know, a hot April CPI tied partly to that energy and air travel. At the same time, the economy is still carrying enormous leverage across government debts, as you just talked about. I mean, consumers, private credit, uh corporate balance sheets. But I guess my question is if inflation stays sticky while growth kind of slows here, I mean, does that strengthen your your 1970s framework? Or is today's setup more dangerous because of the system is far more leveraged?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Well, it's uh first you have to understand that 80% of the value of gold is tied to the US dollar. Okay, and then 20% is everything else, including interest rate, which determines the sort of variability of the gold price over you know a short period of time. But the value of the dollar, you know, in correspond uh in relationship with all the other currency is the number one determinant of the gold price. And we just pointed out the US debt 40 trillion, the uh US deficit this year uh for 2026 uh will be over uh I believe it's 7.9% of GDP. You imagine, I mean, this is the United States with budget deficit that used to be only allowed in Banana Republic. And next year it's not gonna be any better. And if you have a recession on top of that, what do you think is gonna happen? Well, what happened is that the Federal Reserve is essentially monetizing the debt and printing dollars, and that's why the gold price is reacting the way it is. To me, and when we look at the short term, we saw a high of $5,400 gold in January, then we went down to you know, like as low as um uh 43 uh and even a bit lower, I think, you know, and I think that was the bottom for this cycle. Now we're on the way back up.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, great to hear. Uh, you know, when you when you're talking about that roughly 80% of gold's value is tied to what happens to the US dollar, and that that debt load and that deficit trajectory this year are central to that kind of setup. If that's the case, is is gold you know less of a commodity trade and more of a vote on the U.S. fiscal credibility here?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

It it is. Uh gold 90% of the time is a commodity, but 10% of the time it's a it's the currency of last reserve. When the dollar doesn't perform its role as currency of last reserve, guess what? Gold takes its place. And that's what's happening right now. So absolutely. Uh I think that uh the uh I I talked about the architecture of the financial order. If you look at China, it has created a parallel system to the SWIFT system uh to bypass all the economic the US economic embargoes and whatnot. And that system is growing, you know, like in percentage term, it's like 50, 100 percent, you know, not only a year, but like every six months, because more and more countries are tired of getting kicked in the rear end by the US and say, like, you know, we're gonna go our own way. So um Iran today gets paid its oil in yuan, okay? And then they spend it back in yuan and they bypass the entire financial architecture. Um I think that uh the the the the the you know when you look at the United States, there's no good answer to uh the problem that the U.S. have. And it they're not the only one, by the way. I mean, if you look at you know France or Britain or like you know, Britain, the Germany, they're all in the same boat. The only difference is that the size of the US makes it, and the fact that the US dollar is the reserve currency uh makes it uh very difficult. But if you're a US politician, will you get elected if you tell the voters I'm gonna raise your taxes and I'm gonna cut your benefits? No. So what do they do? They print more money, and because that's always the easy way out. Now, you know, what's gonna happen in two, three years, at some point in time, like back in the 1980s, Reagan came in, Volker was elected, and the two of them write the ship and put the U.S. back on course. Is that gonna happen in like you know, in the next election? Who knows? But until then, with you know, President Trump in the White House, bet on gold. Yeah, I I like to say that when he got elected, he told everybody at the in his inaugural speech that the golden age of America begins right now. Boy, was he right, okay? Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, yeah, you're not kidding. And I mean, you know, on that topic, Pierre, I mean, is there is there any realistic policy path that that breaks this gold thesis? Or or would it require a recession severe enough to kind of force liquidations first?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I think it will require a uh a major recession to to reset the tone. And it will require also from you know the uh the Congress or Senate or a President of the United States to have the political will uh to right in the ship. I either increase taxes or you know, if they cut benefit, you for sure gonna end up with a bigger recession. So um, but the one thing with the United States that I've noticed is that they have this incredible ability to walk right up to the the the right up to the cliff, to the abyss, and look at it, stare at it, and walk back. So I'm still incredibly positive about the United States and about you know the US dollar. I just don't know when is that's gonna happen. In the meantime, I see no will whatsoever, and that's why I'm betting on gold. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

You you were talking about China there, uh, and kind of that parallel payment system is compounding at the pace you were describing, 500% every six months. That that's not just you know sanctions avoidance. It seems like that's a structural response to dollar weaponization. At what point does this become a liquidity problem for the dollar system itself, you know, like where countries no longer just diversify reserves but actively reduce their need to hold dollars for trade settlement.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

That's a very good point, uh Jeremy, because as we are seeing, the central banks now are the major players in the gold market. If you look at uh the gold production last year was about 3,800 tons, well, almost half of that went to central banks. So they are like the number one players, and that's because they see they want their currency to be anchored closer to gold. And when you look at the reserve uh between uh the central bank reserve, it used to be 80 plus percent dollars, and gold was like you know, less than 10 percent. Well, gold has moved as more than double in weight, it's now over 20 percent, while the dollar has come down to about 56%, and it's still going down. So the central banks are diversifying out of the dollars, they're you know increasing their gold holdings, and on top of that, you have currencies that are popping up. You look at um uh Tether, for example, uh Tether Gold, they're buying three tons of gold a month, and they're they have a currency that's like a world currency. Uh, they uh they have 540 million wallets, 150, 60 billion behind it. Uh, that's becoming a world currency anchored on gold. So there's a lot of things going on in the gold world that have nothing to do with jewelry. I mean, like the jewelry market is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago. If I look at when I was chairman of the World Gold Council, our major client was first India, which used to take over a thousand tons of gold just for jewelry. And second was you know, China, but way, way, you know, uh uh uh after. Uh today, the central banks of China and the Chinese people, just them take over half the gold mined every year. So there's a comp and then you got all the central banks from Poland to Azerbaijan to you know Russia to like you know, they're all buying gold to diversify out of the dollar. So as I said, the entire world architecture of financial uh the finance is changing, and that's what we are looking at, and that's why I see the gold price, you know, still going up over the next two, three years. And I reiterate that my $17,250 gold price is as solid as can be. I mean, I'm convinced we will see this in the next I say three years, could be sooner, could be later, but you know, and that will be depending on what happened to the Dow or whatever, it could be two to one, three to one. I I don't want to be extreme because like if you look at one to one, the Dow today is 50,000. Could that happen? I mean, anything can happen. The reality is that the the gold price more and more is getting set in Shanghai on the Shanghai gold exchange. And we we all know that you know uh Chinese in particular have a very high propensity for gambling. And I I said it when I was chair of the World Gold Council. What you're gonna see at the end of this bull market is you're gonna see essentially a casino type atmosphere in the gold space, and mostly that's gonna come out of uh Shanghai.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, yeah. I want to talk to you about China. I have a couple of questions planned for it, but you just mentioned there briefly, Pierre, uh, India, and it's obviously a major gold market. Uh just today, Prime Minister Modi is reportedly asking citizens to avoid buying gold for a year to protect foreign exchange rates or reserves, rather. I mean, this this is extraordinary. Does this prove your point that gold is no longer just a cultural savings asset, but a national balance of payments issue?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Well, for India, it really is. It's their second largest uh purchase after oil. Okay, so uh Modi is on his knees asking his resident, but what do you think they're gonna you know think when your president tells you not to buy something? They're gonna say, well, you know, he's gonna depreciate our currency even more, and it's gonna have the complete total opposite effect. Okay, the demand for gold is gonna go up, and in India, they have a lot of backdoor to the official uh, you know, uh way for entering gold. There's a lot of it comes in through the Middle East, you know, on felukkas and different means, and uh, and that's what's gonna happen. So now the the Iran war has caused a bit of a uh a tremor in the market because I mean, between Iran and the in the Middle East, uh they are major uh gold purchaser, gold players, and that has been severely disrupted. Uh but notwithstanding that, the gold market, you know, like uh maybe had a slight hiccup, uh, but it's just you know, like digested it and moving right on.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

You know, you talked about central banks picking it up, and obviously a major theme driving physical demand is this relentless central bank buying, especially from the east. Uh you made an important point earlier this year. China's restricted crypto, so so the Chinese investor is looking for an alternative to the Renbini. Uh gold becomes kind of the natural outlet here. Is that one reason price discovery is migrating east faster than Western investors understand?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Um I I don't know uh whether or not uh it has anything to do with crypto, to be honest with you. Well, the fact is that you know crypto are banned in China. So uh if you want to diversify uh gold uh you know in terms of asset, gold is a natural, uh, but it's been that way for hundreds of years. It's not nothing new to uh the uh the Chinese. And um so I I I see that as just a natural way for uh you know um for gold. Um you know I remember visiting uh in uh Beijing, there's a gold store that's like three-story high. All they sell is gold in every shape, form, you know, from jewelry to bars to decorations to eagles to whatnot. And I asked a manager, I said, like, you know, when people come here, do they buy the gold bracelet or necklace earring uh because it's jewelry or because it's an investment? And she goes, No, no, they buy it because it's jewelry, but in the back of their mind, if anything goes wrong, it becomes an investment.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah, yeah. And of course, I mean you you warned about it just there that that as Shanghai becomes more important, gold could almost kind of trade with a more of a casino style mentality, as you call it. Does that Eastern price discovery make gold more fundamentally anchored or more volatile?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

More volatile. We're seeing it in the price volatility, like you know, in the morning, for example, the gold can be up or down $100 because of Shanghai, and then it the relays gets on when London starts in the morning, and then the uh and then the COMEX in New York, and it's a battle between the three. Uh, but you know, where the the majority of the physical gold ends up, it's Shanghai, it's China. And you know, whoever buys that last ounce of physical gold is the one who dictates the price.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Uh I mean it's actually it's a good point. I mean, all of that kind of points to that bigger shift from paper exposure to the physical control, too. I mean, it so it sounds like we're moving into a market where COMEX in London still set maybe the screen price, but the real power sits with whoever can source it and hold the physical metal itself.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, and we see that in uh in the silver space even more. And uh we saw, for example, that one trader on the Shanghai exchange, you know, made like a half a billion dollar profit on the silver because he squeezed uh, you know, like they he he cornered the market and then he dropped it. And uh they're able to, I wouldn't call it manipulate, but um, you know, uh it's uh let's say a very concerted effort, okay? Let's call it this way. Uh the gold market is so much bigger that it's very difficult for anyone to do that. But, you know, if you come in and you dump 200 tons of gold in the morning, uh the price will be down $100. You know, when I was chair of the World Gold Council, I asked to do a study on the uh volatility of gold price uh vis-a-vis the uh quantity and the elasticity of gold price, if I say if I can say that. And uh for every 100 tons of gold that is either bought or sold, the gold price moves by $40, $50 a ton. Um, so you can see, like not a ton per hundred tons, sorry. Right. So you can see, like, you know, uh if you're 200 200 tons, that's 100 bucks for sure. That volatility, and that's the kind of you know, volume and volatility that we're seeing today.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Let's get back to that 1970s parallel. Only because I mean you you you lived and invested through that great gold bull market. Um, many economists are drawing parallels between that decade's segflation and what we're entering today, including yourself. But I mean, from your perspective, how does the current macro set up kind of compare to the 70s? And and more importantly, what lesson should investors apply right now that they're currently ignoring?

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Well, the the lesson is you want to own, in particular, uh, you know, gold mining companies that have very stable uh costs. Uh I I remember buying Free State Goduld, which was a South African underground mine in 1976 for $5 a share. Now, you know, inflation to the 76 was was raging and the price of oil went up, but this was a run on electricity because it's underground and you Know you can't really dilute the grade, you can't go like open pit mining, you can you know, like dilute your grade and increase your tonnage, you're uh you're not producing any more gold, but you for a longer time. And the stock went from five dollars sold in 1980 for $105. Okay, and that's the kind of leverage that you get to uh gold price. So if you look at most of the miners today, they have you know total cost in of $1,500, $1,600. Well, on $4,600, that's $3,000 an ounce margin. I mean, think of like gold goes to $17,000. The margins are gonna expand by a factor of five. None of that is in the stock price. None of it. Okay, and it doesn't have to go to $17,000. I mean, you know, God bless if it just goes to $7,000, you're still gonna have like a more than doubling of the margins. So I don't think people uh think of that. They, you know, like they're still too afraid that they're climbing the famous wall of worry, but it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah. I mean, you kind of also pointed out that before, you know, the the the entire gold sector remains tiny compared to individual companies like Tesla and NVIDIA, uh if institutions decide that they need even a small hard asset allocation right now, is there enough investable mining equity capacity to kind of absorb that capital?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Well, the the point that uh I made is yeah, the gold world is a very small world, okay? And if 1% of total worldwide savings wanted to go into gold, for example, gold will be well over 25,000 tomorrow morning, simply because there's only 222,000 tons of gold that exists, and of that, you know, like 50,000 is in central bank's reserve. It's never going to go out. And then you've got like, you know, probably another 100,000 that's in jewelry and bottom drawers of people they're called heirloom that you know people will never consider selling. So the the amount of gold that is available on a yearly basis for transaction is limited at you know five, six thousand tons. Even if you push the price to 20,000, I don't think you could get like 10,000 tons out of the the uh underground anywhere. And so it it makes for you know a market that is is quite volatile. In terms of the the mining company, again, you know, you've got thousands and thousands of junior companies. Yeah, 90% of them will go bankrupt. Okay, they have no business plan. Okay, they're they're essentially uh, I mean, to be kind, they are as good as going to Las Vegas. Okay, they're uh essentially like you know, they're a uh a ticket that you know for gambling. That's what they are. When you look at mining operating companies, um, you know, including the senior, the intermediate, you don't have more than about 40 companies with a total market cap that's like you know, far, far less than a Tesla or you know, I mean, it's like a fraction of Nvidia. So it's a it's a niche market.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, yeah. Uh I'm sure you read that story out today. Uh I guess Barrick is kind of a perfect case study because you know the company reported stronger Q1 results, uh authorized a $3 billion share buyback and is still moving towards a North American gold IPO. Is is this what disciplined capital allocators look like at the top of a gold cycle? Or is this a signal that the majors would rather return cash and restructure than than take on new mine building risk?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Well, I'll be very candid. I mean, I don't quite understand what Barrack is doing because uh floating 20% of something that you already own, uh when you own Barrick, I'm not sure that it's gonna help the Barrack shareholders one way or the other. I mean, I've seen it done in the past, and these you know uh companies become orphans and then they end up all by getting buyback. Uh so to me, this is not evident. Uh, you know, like this move is not evident. Um, now, in terms of capital and discipline allocation, yes, this cycle has been, from that perspective, absolutely different from anything else that we've seen in the last 25, 30 years. The CEOs that are in place have been incredibly disciplined at capital allocation, at acquisition. You haven't seen like, you know, the huge premiums and like, you know, the complete fiascos that we've seen in the past. And uh most companies rely on internal growth. Um they do buy projects if uh need be. Um and um, you know, there's been a number of mergers of equals, so there's no premium paid. They understand that you know the market doesn't like that, and they have been very successful, and that's what we're seeing. And then the companies have, you know, as soon as they get cash flow, they start to pay dividend. And then if they have surplus cash, they buy back their shares. This is something that we have never seen. I mean, like I've been in the business for 50 years, and this is the first time ever that I've seen buybacks in the goal space.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah. You're talking about management teams kind of finally learning and becoming more disciplined. What changed? I mean, was it shareholder pressure? Was it the scars from the last cycle or maybe higher financing costs? Or is it simply the fact that investors stopped rewarding growth for growth's sake?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Jeremy, all of the above, my friend. Yeah, all of the above. Okay, like, you know, the CEOs that, you know, were responsible for the disasters have been mostly turfed out. The new, you know, crew, the the younger crew have learned the lessons. And uh the shareholders have been incredibly vocal about what is it that they want. They don't want growth at all costs, they want money in their pocket, they want returns, and the uh CEOs have learned that if they want their share price to appreciate, they need to be responsive to their shareholders.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah, yeah. Is is I guess you know, a sharper question I could ask you too is is the real bull case for mining equities not just higher gold, but that this is the first cycle where management might actually let share shareholders, you know, keep the upside.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, I mean, exactly. Okay. Uh, you know, like if you're not making money at $4,600 gold and you're not returning money to your shareholders, you should not be in this business. Okay, like get out of here. Uh, you know, any decent mining company, their total cash cost should be no more than sixteen hundred dollars plus or minus a hundred dollars. That's the what the all-in, you know, all in cost. The cash costs only probably closer to a thousand, twelve hundred maybe. And um, by the time you pay your taxes, you should have, you know, you should be very profitable and have money enough to pay dividend and to do buyback if necessary. And still finance internal growth. Uh, because you know, most companies, you look at Agnico Eagle, you look at, you know, we talked that you mentioned Orla earlier, uh, you took at uh you look at Equinox in the the middle space, they um, you know, Alamos, they all have internal growth plans that are, you know, self-funded and they're all moving in the right direction.

unknown 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

I was gonna ask you, I mean, a lot of people uh ask me to ask somebody like you that sees deal flow. How do you separate the structurally sound, kind of well-run companies from the ones that are just simply being rescued by the metal price? I mean, what's that one metric that you trust most right now to prove management is disciplined? Is it kind of that all insustaining cost? Is it free cash flow per share, reserve life?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

You know, it there's not one metric that I would use because um like each mine is different in its uh operation, its cash costs, and and whatnot. Um, you can go from you look at Alamos, you know, their uh their mine uh their mine complex in Quebec is incredibly profitable. Uh and uh the company is incredibly well run. And when you look at that, they they have what I call the golden halo. Okay, like if you look at uh the share price uh per ounce of production, uh they're the the highest in the business. With Londine Gold, for example, that has an exceptional mine in Ecuador. Um, but it's Ecuador. Uh there's some you know political risk there. Right. Uh but even at that, they are getting the golden halo. Why? Because great management, great ore body, and uh disciplined capital allocation return to shareholders.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, let's uh let's get into Orla a little bit here, Pierre, because it seems to capture a lot of what you're describing. I mean, discipline growth, you know, aligned ownership, uh, long-life assets in a market that still may not fully price execution. I mean, what has Orla kind of done differently than other mid-tier miners should study here in this market? I mean, is it is it asset selection? Is it management discipline? Is it the willingness to build rather than to chase size?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Uh well, you know, Orla did buy the muscle white mine from uh Newmont uh back to like a year and a half, two years ago. So we have done acquisition, but very disciplined. And uh it comes back to number one management. Okay, management is fully aligned with the major shareholders in creating growth, uh, but not at all costs, and also minimizing dilution. Uh, the bane of all gold stocks, and uh, you know, and particularly at the the junior level is uh you know, too many management takes their stock as um uh you know, they they issue it like toilet paper. Well, if you do that, guess what you get? Okay, uh, and uh I you know personally have been incredibly strict about you know stock issue, and uh would rather you know do anything that I can uh not to issue stock so that the value per share goes up. I mean, that's the ultimate criteria. Are you increasing the amount of ounces per share that you have? Are you increasing the you know operating earnings per share? If you're not doing that, you're not doing your job. And at Orla, the you know, Jason Simpson, the CEO, everybody is aligned on these metrics, and they have been very successful doing it. We put our first mine in production for 135 million US during COVID. This mine is producing over 150 million of cash flow a year. Okay. Uh it had a nine-month payback. Um, you look at uh Muscle White, it's gonna be the same story. It's gonna be like you know, a two-year payback. And this is the kind of company that Orla, you know, has become. And now we're gonna put our third mine into production, uh, starting the construction this summer in uh Nevada. And to me, when you build a company, it's a bit like building a portfolio. You need uh different assets, and I love the fact that Orla is gonna have three mines in three different jurisdictions: Canada, US, Mexico, and they're all brand new and they're all long life. And when I say brand new, because muscle white essentially we're recapitalizing the mine, and uh that will essentially become the brand new mine. So with 20-year life. And a company like that, you have to treasure it.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Yeah, Pierre, I mean you you brought it up there. Jurisdictional risk is becoming one of the biggest valuation gaps in mining. I mean, two companies can produce the same ounce of gold, but the the market will pay different, very different multiples depending on where the ounces are from. Do you think investors now value jurisdiction almost as much as grade and margin?

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Uh no, I think that um uh on unfortunately what we see, what I see is investors wait until something happens in a jurisdiction to take a discount. Uh they assume that because the mine is, you know, in Timbook 2, that it's gonna, you know, keep functioning the way it has over the last five years. Well, in these jurisdictions where you know politics can change literally overnight, um, there should be a discount. Uh but unfortunately that's not what happens in reality. In reality, um, you know, people assume that things that happened yesterday will go on to tomorrow until it changes. And then God knows, you know, like they they strike a discount.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, yeah. Uh well, I guess we could bring this back to Canada as well. I mean, you've been one of the loudest voices pushing Canadian pension funds to stop ignoring our own resource sector. Uh, you know, whether or not uh some of those allocations have happened, I guess is the question. But are we finally seeing Canada kind of open for business again? Or is the tone friendlier while the permitting and capital problems remain the same?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Well, the tone is definitely friendlier, okay? Um, you know, Mr. Carney, the prime minister, and uh Tim Hutchison, the uh mines minister, sorry, have made it clear uh that they want to push natural resources and for good reason because they are the motor of the economy, and they've been left behind by Trudeau for 10 years. So they are the first, you know, friendly uh people in Ottawa that our industry has had in probably 40 years. Thank God. Okay, like you know, this is I find that absolutely fantastic. Now, between the the thought and the action, uh sometimes politicians forget, okay. Well, in the case of Canada, uh that is so far not the case. Like Mr. Carney is is put in in front of uh you know Parliament that he wants to cut regulation, he wants to cut the time to market, he wants to make sure that pipelines are gonna get built and mines are gonna get built. I mean, terrific intention. Uh, I think in terms of the pension fund, uh, you know, the attitude of the pension fund has been Canada is not investable. Uh you know, we are worldwide and the Canadian market only represents 2% of the worldwide market, so we're gonna put 2% there, and then the rest is uh gonna go in the US and everywhere else. To me, they are derelict in their in their function. Uh I look at uh the uh Quebec Pension Fund, where they have a dual mandate of return to uh shareholders, but as well to uh clearly support the Canadian economy. And if you take a company like Kouštar, which is now one of the or the largest single company in the 7-Eleven space uh market, they would not be in Canada if it wasn't for the Casa Depot. If you look at uh Bombardier, they would not be in Canada without Casa Depot. And that's the kind of attitude that we have to have for the almost $3 trillion of the Maple Eight that are not in Canada. I find egregious the fact that uh the Canadian Pension Plan has 2% of its money invested in Canadian equities. 2% of which practically none is in the mining sector. I mean, to me it's an indictment, you know, of these pension funds managers. And uh these funds were created by politicians, and therefore it's to the politicians to address that question. And I've you know made it clear to both Mr. Kearney and Mr. Hodgson that they have to take a far more uh you know positive attitude toward the these pension funds and get them invested in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the pension the pensions will say their mandate is returns, not national policy. But how do you convince them that backing Canadian mining and infrastructure is not not patriotism, but but a long-duration kind of return-driven allocation?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Well, if you look at the pension funds that are run totally in Canada, their return is no different than the Maple Eight, okay? Like, you know, they seem to you know imply that only by doing this diversification uh that uh they're uh or by being like 98% outside of Canada that they can you know produce the kind of uh return that they have. Um you know, I I'll point out to one other thing. The CPP is something like 34% invested in private equity. This is gonna come and bite them in the rear end real bad at some point in time, and that some point in time may start to be now because too many private equities are not able to return money to their shareholders, and they keep delaying and delaying. And these are, you know, uh the way they mark them is they they create a fiction markup and say, well, it's worth that. But if they were marked to market, the CPP would be losing billions and billions. And it's a proportion that's way too high, and there's no oversight of that. And so, and you know, some of the other pension funds are nowhere near that high. But if you look at Australia's pension fund, the superannuation funds, they only have 5% of the entire amount in uh private equity versus 34% for CPP. So, like, who's right or if I may say so? Uh then, you know, in terms of taxes as well, I think that the Canadian government's got to look at the Canadian tax system and you know make it far more encouraging for people to invest in Canada. The one thing that Australia does, which I think is, you know, would do incredibly well in Canada, is once the company has paid full taxes on the profit, those profits can be distributed to the shareholders tax-free. They're called frank dividend. So it encourages people to buy you know stocks in Australia, Australian to buy Australian stocks because they get free dividend. Right. Not taxable because the company has already paid taxes. In Canada, not only the company pays taxes, but when you get the dividend, you pay another 44% taxes. Like, why is that? I mean, that's double taxation. Now you're paying, you know, God knows, like 64-70% taxes. That's confiscation.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yeah, yeah. Well said. And you know, you were going back to what you were talking about there. You're thinking that Canada at least it's, you know, it's in the early action. It seems to be moving in the right direction, and so far it looks okay. What do you think is kind of a next concrete test? Is it is it permitting timelines, friendly tax, as you just said? I mean, is it even comparable to the US with this narrative about strategic metals interest?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Well, it's still not comparable to the U.S. because we have uh far many more entrenched interests in Canada. First of all, like the provinces are all their own domain, each province has its own uh mineral jurisdiction, and then the federal comes on top of that, and then on top of that, we have all the aboriginal claims, and um you know you have to reconcile all that to get going. So it's not anywhere near as easy as in the US or like in Nevada, for example, which is probably the easiest place in the world to do business. Um, but still, it can be done if, for example, the federal government finally goes back to reality and says, okay, you know, the province has the jurisdiction over mining. We will essentially take, you know, uh our lead from the province, you take over the entire permitting process and we'll tag along and we'll make sure that we deliver our part, which is the water and like you know, some of the other stuff. And uh, but you know, we're not gonna be the one directing traffic. That will cut permitting probably by half, right there. Okay. Uh, and then the province are also keen to get on the act so they can also act and uh you know um uh diminish that uh permitting time. Uh uh in my eponymous uh you know, Lasan career. In the middle there, you know, it used to be two to three years for permitting, and now it's like some anywhere from you know five to seven years. And I call that the killing fields because you get killed. And I made the point, for example, to the premier of uh the Yukon when I was there to give a speech not too long ago, that a project worth 10 billion, if it's discounted at 10% per year for 10%, it's worth zero. Okay? Zero. How can you finance a project like that? You can't, because your company can't raise any money. So I said, if you just look at permitting and you cut it down by 50% and you make it five years, you're finally gonna get and attract money in this in this province. And they should, because they've got an incredible mineral endowment. And um, so cutting permitting time is absolutely essential if you want Canada to become a really investable place on the planet.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Well said. Um here, what one of your ideas most associated with your career is optionality. I mean, at $4,700 gold, how should investors think about price optionality and land optionality? And I guess the difference between generational deposits and those finite one or two million ounce discoveries?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Well, you know, to use the oldest adage in the business, the best place to find a gold mine is right beside a gold mine. Okay? So when you look at the mining companies that possess the most land and where they already have infrastructures, they're the ones who are likely to, you know, create the most wealth for the shareholders because not only they've got the they've already spent the money in terms of capex, but they've got the land. You look at Barrack and Four Mile in Nevada. I mean, that's it. They found it right beside, you know, an ore body they already own. Okay. And, you know, um, you look at the Carlin trend. I mean, how many deposits have been found on the Carlin trend? Like Barrack Gold Strike mine, 50 million ounces of gold was found right beside Newmont's uh operation. And there's probably 25 deposits that were found on the same trend. So to me, that's where the um the intermediate company, the larger company that have big, big land positions are the are going to be the real winner in this cycle. You always have the junior, okay, who you know can um find a spot on the planet that's never been touched, that you know, they go there. Like Canada, I mean, we have the second largest land mass in the world. Where do you find mine on land? Okay, so we should be a powerhouse in mining. But unfortunately, in the early 2000s, the government of the time let all of our big mining company go. Okay, so the Naranda went and Falconbridge and Inco and Alcan, and they all went out the door. So today we're rebuilding that. The good thing is that we have all this land in the Canadian North, and there's going to be like, you know, incredible discovery made, but they're not cheap, they're expensive, they take time, and that's where the juniors have the ability to go because you know they can one two guys with like a you know a float plane, and it will it happen? It will, but it's one in a thousand.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Yeah, yeah, well said. And I mean, you know, of course, everyone knows that you built your royalty model to kind of capture upside while avoiding many of those operational risks that hurt miners, as you just talked about. I mean, in this cycle, should investors still prefer royalty and streaming companies over operators, or are the producers finally offering enough free cash flow and operating leverage to kind of compete here?

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Well, to me, like I know a balanced portfolio would have a royalty company as well as like an intermediate, a senior company, so that you get the leverage. And um, but there's no doubt that you know there's two forms of optionality there's price optionality, so the gold price goes from 4,000 to 5,000. You know, you've just gone up 25%, and which company will respond the most to that? And then you have land optionality, and that's a function of the operator of the land, where it is, and the geologists, you know, how good are your geologists? And uh, you know, the one that gives you the biggest bang for the buck, of course, is land optionality, you know, like finding a gold strike type deposit. You know, oh my god, I still remember. Like, you know, one of the whole was a thousand feet, it was 330 meters of three of uh 10 gram gold.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Jesus. Um I know. Yeah, I don't even know what to say to that, Pierre. I mean, um, you know, there's a few of those around. Uh we gotta talk a little bit briefly about MA. I know our time's going quick, but I also, you know, you you you you've called copper gold deposits the best deposits in the world because copper is obviously tied to the real economy. Gold protects against that monetary stress. In this world of AI power demand and these grid shortages and fiscal instability. I mean, are is that system the ideal mining asset for this cycle?

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yeah, because um, you know, today 80% of terminal energy is uh the carbon molecule and 20% is electricity. And as the uh world goes over the next 10 to 20 years, we have to flip that conundrum around to 80% of terminal energy being electricity and only 20% being carbon base. If we're gonna reach that gold, the one critical metal that you know you need is copper, okay? Because copper is a the metal that carries electricity better than anything else that you can have. So to me, there's only one critical metal and it's copper. And when you look at the world financial architecture, the only real money is gold. So if you have a deposit that has, you know, like a two-third copper, one-third gold, that's nirvana. I mean, that's the best of all worlds because yes, we're gonna end up using twice as much copper over the next 20 years than we're producing currently, and that's why the copper price today is like six dollars a pound and not you know two dollars a pound. And it's also why gold is 46 and not you know a thousand. Yeah, so I love copper gold deposits. They are to me like the nirvana of like exploration. If you can find one of those, you're in the high clover.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

I mean, you know, does the Anglo-American you know tech deal kind of show that investors are starting to put a strategic premium on copper and critical minerals while gold companies are still valued mainly as financial assets?

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Well, they uh the uh tech Anglo deal made a great deal of sense because they already owned and shared some of the assets, and also uh Anglo has been you know exploring all over South America and combining their forces makes you know a total amount of sense. Uh, but you look at Freeport in the United States, like you know, their deposit in Indonesia is one of the greatest copper gold deposits on the planet. I mean that they're producing two million ounces of gold out of copper, okay? Those are the kind of those are the best gold deposit on the planet because they go for 50 to 100 years. You don't find that in a single gold mine, okay? And so that's why I really like it as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Interesting. And bringing this back to the juniors quickly, I mean, if Canada lost too many major gold champions in the early 2000s, are are juniors now the only real pipeline to build that base? I mean, are they are they exploration companies? Are they next generation you know mining champions? What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 52:08

The there's no doubt that uh, you know, the junior companies that we have in Canada today are going to uh feed uh the uh the cycle for the the next giant. We we need to find more Sudbury's, we need to find more um, you know, the the Rouen Urada or uh Voises Bay. And some of these will be found by junior companies. The fact is, is when you go back 100 years on the record, junior companies find approximately half of all new uh deposits, and the operating company the other half. So do we need juniors? Yes, we do, and they have a purpose, and they will find you know the uh some of the these next generation deposits. But the company that will build them are the companies that are already there today, uh, that are either some of the seniors or some of the intermediate companies that we see today.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

All right. Now we covered lots, macro picture, gold's role in the financial system, even got to Canada, Pierre. But I mean, if let's let's wrap up with this. If investors are kind of watching this sector for the rest of 2026, what is one signal that kind of tells you this is no longer just a gold price move, but a full mining cycle?

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Uh well, I I mean I it's already a full mining cycle. Let's uh be clear about that. I mean, like when I look at Orla, for example, we started the company 11 years ago uh this month, and uh at uh less than a dollar a share, the stock is now like around $20 a share. We've built a real company over 11 years, so it is a real mining cycle, and I'm not the only one. You look at Ross Beattie and Equinox, he's done the same thing. You look at uh John McCluskey and Alamos, he's done the same thing. All of us had the same view that there was a mining, uh gold mining cycle in the making. We all wanted to be part of it, we all wanted to create a very solid company, and we've done it, okay? And it's just gonna get better because this cycle is far from over. So when I see people still on the sideline, um, uh, you know, in the gold market, I'm like, what are you waiting for? This is gonna get even better, okay? So, you know, climb that wall of worry, get over it, get in there.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, Pierre, are you having fun these days uh with $4,600 gold? What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Well, uh, this week I've got so many things happening. You have no idea, but yes, I'm having so much fun. My kids are all thinking I should be retired. I said, I am. That's why I'm having so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Don't retire, don't retire yet. And I and I know that you got uh another deal uh coming out too. I don't think you can talk about it. So maybe this is kind of a cliffhanger for viewers. You'll come back on the program and we can talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Absolutely. Be happy to do that, Jeremy. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

And thank you for tuning in to Kitco News. Be sure to like, subscribe for more deep dive analysis of the top experts in the resource sector. I'm Jeremy Staffordin. We'll see you next time.