Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
0:08 All right, well, welcome everyone to the last event in the series with B Metals meeting investors around the world. I'm very pleased to introduce Derek Iwanaka, the Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development at B Metals, who is joining us live from London. Derek's going to provide us with a quick update on how the trip has been. And then, of course, we'll open the floor up to questions. So if anyone has any questions, feel free to submit them at any time. And we'll try to get to them after Derek's update. So thanks so much for joining. And I'll pass it to you, Derek.
0:39 Thanks, Sasha. And hello to everybody who's there live with us. It's been a heck of a last 2 weeks. We, John and I have gone from Cape Town to Frankfurt to Zurich and now to London. We've met literally investors around the world. So it's kind of funny that we, I mean, we, well, we knew we were going to be meeting investors all over, but we literally have been meeting investors around the world the last 2 weeks. This is kind of, I feel like it's like the opening of, of the world. People are starting to get back to meeting in person and meeting down at the Indaba was terrific. In Cape Town last week, we met all kinds of new people that I would never have met if I had just stayed in Vancouver.
1:30 So I do really feel like things are opening up. Investors are starting to look around it and get more active. The junior markets have been crummy, to say the least. We've watched a number of small, a small, Well, not even just smaller, but larger companies also tumbling quite dramatically. So pretty good time to be looking at picking up or making positions in stocks, I would say right now. So I've purchased some stock myself and so have others in our Insider Group for B Metals. So we think it's a great time and we are finally drilling in Japan. So we really figured the timing couldn't be better for us to go on a marketing roadshow. But yeah, it's been an interesting contrast between each country, starting off in Cape Town last week, moving up to Frankfurt and meeting with a number of high net worth individuals and hearing their perspectives on the markets, on inflation, on politics, everything.
2:42 You know, really contrasting viewpoints between each place and then moving over to Zurich where we had a small luncheon with a few high net worth individuals and a couple portfolio managers and then moving on to London today where it is very beautiful outside you can't really tell right now because I'm in my hotel room. As it turns out, we ended up doing team calls with a few of the fund managers here in London. And then we have a couple more calls tomorrow. So I'll just give you a little rundown. What we've been seeing is that some of the, I would say the fund managers definitely seem to have a more keen interest in our self Mountain property, which is our more advanced polymetallic project that has it's all on patented ground.
3:39 And they like that aspect that we could potentially get that in production within 2 to 3 years. So that seems to have been something that they really gravitated towards. Our Pangani property, I would have to say, because we went down to Africa, that was the highlight while we were down there. Zambia also was getting some good news flow. So Arc Minerals announced a deal with Anglo that they are potentially going to be acquiring them for $88 million. So that's down in Zambia. And then 1st Quantum took the opportunity during that conference to announce that they were going to put in another 500 million dollars for expanding their project down in Zambia. So there's lots of money out there going towards Africa.
4:27 There seems to be a sense, and Not in all countries, but there seems to be a sense that there is greater safety, especially in Zambia. The government regime has changed there recently and HH has taken over and seems to be more pro-business. So we are seeing more interest in Zambia itself. We saw I think about half a dozen major companies that were showing an interest in what we were doing in Zambia because it has that potential for a tier 1 copper discovery and obviously copper is pretty topical with the metal prices not only being high but of course with the interest in electric vehicles and electrification around the world that there's going to be not just the band now but in the future and for probably many years to come. So copper is definitely getting a lot of attention.
5:24 We saw that. And then finally, I would say that more of the high net worth individual types that we've been meeting seem to be more keen to listen about what we're doing in Japan. Japan is something that's very unique. There are really only a couple other companies exploring in Japan. And so We are seeing that that is intriguing people that we are exploring in Japan. As our investors know, Japan hosts the highest grade gold mine in the world, the Hishikata Gold Mine, which is unbelievably high grade. It's producing between 30 to 40, well, has historically been producing at 30 to 40 grams per tonne gold, which is over an ounce per gold per tonne. And to put that in perspective, the worldwide average grade is somewhere around 1 gram per tonne today for operating gold mines. So you know, 30 to 40 times what normal or today's average is.
6:25 I understand Hishikari is producing right now at about 20 grams per ton, so still 20 times the multiple of what the average grade operating gold mines are today. So yeah, it's been a great trip. Well, this is kind of the unveiling, I guess, or re-unveiling of B Metals. And I'm going to head back to Vancouver tomorrow morning and looking forward to doing some more marketing in the near future and hopefully if this these video series was of interest to people we can do more but this is kind of just an experiment
7:05 to just show people what we do on the road for B-Metals. So I'll close it off there and open it to Dasha or if anybody's out there, if they have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Great, thank you so much. Yeah, if anyone has any questions, feel free to submit them. But Derek, you've had a really busy 10 days. What has been the highlight from the trip so far? Well, personally for me, just because I had never been down to South Africa, it was an eye-opening experience. It feels so foreign to travel, well, 22 hours of flight time and another 6 or 7 hours of layover. So, I mean, it literally took almost 2 days for me to get over there. And then you kind of feel like you're going to be in a different world than you are. But it's for me anyways, it's kind of strange that you landed.
8:01 It's a first world country. I mean, South Africa is, everybody speaks English there, everybody understands you. It is actually fairly orderly. Sure, there are some aspects where there is infrastructure issues and whatnot, but it's a first class country. So I mean, it was really nice to see what it's like down there. And to see, I mean you do hear about oh South Africa is a dangerous place to be and when I was heading down there people were telling me to be careful and I found that the people there were so fantastic and super friendly. So that was on a personal level was quite interesting but from a business standpoint what I got was that there's still so much interest in Africa itself and investing in Africa and that there's lots of money out there to be put to work in Africa.
8:58 Based on the major companies that we met down there, there's clearly billions of dollars that could be spent in Africa. And I would say, since we've been in London, especially, there's a pretty good appetite for investing. I know some North Americans are maybe not familiar with Africa and so they're a little bit reluctant to invest over there in or in projects that are in Africa. But I don't see that with at least a number of the people that we've met so far in London, and also just in Germany and Switzerland as well. I mean, there's just a better understanding for that area. Right. Well, it's so great that the world's opening up and you're able to meet these investors in person. And thank you for taking us with you on that journey. I hope the attendees also found it valuable. I definitely found it interesting.
9:51 But we're definitely gonna compile your trip up to video and send out to all the registrants for this event. So if you miss any of the cities, we will, you'll be able to watch and get some insight. If there are no questions, I feel we're gonna wrap up here, but I just wanna thank you again, Derek, for taking us through these 4 cities and providing us an inside scoop of what it's like. And of course, everyone who attended the sessions will be emailing out the video. So I'll just pass it back to you if you have any last remarks, but I'm sure you're on your last leg of the trip, so I bet you're a bit tired. It is time to go out for a drink, yes. So thanks everybody, and thanks Tasha, especially yesterday, because it was it was quite early. So thank you. All right. Thank you so much and have a great rest of your day.
