Mastering the Dynamics of Large Retail Shareholder Bases

0:08 All right, as people are coming in, good afternoon or good morning, everyone, depending on where you're logging in from. Thanks for joining us today for a sort of inside baseball panel event about managing large retail shareholder bases. A bit of housekeeping, as always, today's event will be recorded and available on six.com and our YouTube channel just following the event, probably before the end of the day. Please do share with anybody that you think might find it interesting. We'd love to hear from the live audience today as well. There is a chat button in the bottom right of your screen. So please do use it to ask questions or

0:39 give your commentary during the event. Once we're winding down the conversation, we'll try and tackle any questions that came through during. That's enough out of me. I'm going to let the speakers introduce themselves. I'll start with Anne. Hi, Anne Wilkinson. I work for Generation Mining. We have a palladium copper project that we're looking to develop on the North Shore of Lake Superior. And I'm a huge Formula 1 fan.

1:04 There we go. Throw it to you next, Bob. Okay, hi, Paul Morris. I'm the Director of Investor Relations for First Mining Gold, gold developer with a portfolio of gold projects across Canada, 2 flagship projects, 1 in Ontario, 1 in Quebec, and I'm an ex-stockbroker,

1:26 investment advisor, which I think gives me a good handle on what investors are looking for, what investment advisors are looking for, and I play guitar. Thank you, Paul. And I'll throw it to Daniel. Hi, I'm Daniel Deramican, the founder and CEO of 6. We build software that brings investors and companies closer together without intermediaries.

1:51 And finally, Duncan. Duncan Roy, I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations for Power Nickel. We've got a really significant nickel deposit battery grade up in Quebec near James Bay. Gonna be a historic play. Like Paul, and actually I did work with Paul way back when at Burns Fry, I was a broker for over 3 decades. So bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the world of doing IR and understanding how money works. Awesome. Thank you. So now let's get into the protein. Thank you, everybody, for joining me today. So I'll start off by saying, I think we all know it, but it is a bad market for metals right now. I don't think there's any point kind of pretending that's not true. And I think it's useful context for the discussion that we're having today, because it means a lot of retail shareholders perceive themselves as their word, not mine, as bag holders.

2:49 And they're frustrated. It's obviously the mood is not ideal among that crowd. So I'll start right off the bat with a pretty loaded question, and I'll give it to you, Paul, to start us off. Is now the time to communicate more or are we hiding our head in the sand and waiting for this period to blow over? Oh my God, is that a trick question?

3:07 No, you should avoid speaking with them at all costs. No, of course not. This time you want to speak to your investor base more than ever. You've got to be proactive. You've got to reach out to them before they reach out to you. And you've got to give them assurance that their investment is safe. And yeah, absolutely. You know, one thing I make sure I do, if they call me, I get back to them immediately. One of my pet peeves is when I don't hear back from people, even if it's just simply to tell them, look, really busy. Can I give you a call later?

3:55 Can I call you tomorrow?

3:58 Communication is absolutely key. And it's all about rapport. And I'm also also look for ways to to reassure them. So for me, for example. You know, I I've been an investor. I've been with the company since 2021, but I've been an investor since 2015. I've got skin in the game and that really holds a lot with them. And the other thing is, I will just tell you, our chairman and CEO recently invested a significant amount of money into financing.

4:45 And our chairman has been buying in the market in a significant way. That really makes investors feel a lot more comfortable. So no, communication, actually important, be proactive. Do not put your head in the sand.

5:02 Thank you, Paul. I'll throw it to Anne. Are you team communicate more or team stick your head in the sand? No, absolutely team communicate more. I wanna just kind of step sideways and say that, you know, the word bag holders, kind of, we need to unpack that. I think that no one is a bag holder. Every investor develops a thesis about how and where they want to invest. And so the more you can communicate around that thesis about why people should invest in you and the better that you've outlined that then the better everyone will feel about their investment. So you know in our case If you have a theory about electric vehicles or the prevalence of plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles, you're going to have this thesis around Palladium being stronger for longer.

5:57 And accordingly,

5:59 notwithstanding the price of palladium being whipsawed almost daily, if the thesis still holds, then the reasons for retaining your investment in the company remain. So it's just that simple and you just need to communicate around that. Makes sense. Duncan, I'll throw it to you. Do you think now's the time to communicate a lot or do you think it's time to wait and see what happens? For multiple reasons, I would say time right now is pretty attractive. So essentially we're in the asymmetric risk business with our investments. We're not looking to have people make 5 or 10 percent on their investments.

6:46 And our thought process is we can take something from a 30 million market cap to over a billion dollars in value. So why does someone want to get involved in that aside from making a lot of money? Well, like Anne said, it's got to fit their risk profile, investment thesis, their theories and such. So people get comfortable once they're past their theories that they think work, when they know all the facts that they can possibly know. So we're trying to eliminate risk of a void of facts. So, you know, we think with our story, You know, I'm sure Paul thinks the same way and thinks the same way. Hey, listen, we got lots of information for you.

7:38 So you can understand

7:41 the investment idea. So it's McNamara's first law, understand the big picture and the parts make sense. So this is why, here's our big picture, this is why we think we're going to be successful. Now you need to understand some technical aspects, some geological aspects, geography, politics, commodities. And if you work through that stuff with your investors or potential investors, they'll develop a much higher comfort level. And they're more likely to A, invest more, or B, maintain their investments and stick around for the long haul. So that's what you want. You don't wanna be cycling through your investor base.

8:27 That's a pain in the ass. You really want dedicated longer term shareholders as much as possible. And they're only going to do that if they they're comfy. So explain, let a rep do it in as many different ways as you can to get that out to a broad audience. And life is a lot easier for everyone.

8:50 Yeah, I am, sorry if I may jump in. I speak with our investors regularly and if they're disgruntled, the first thing I do, I don't get defensive, I empathize with them and say, look, I understand, I happen to be an investor as well. And I want for nothing more than to see this stock price significantly, significantly higher. Then I review the company with them, remind them of the salient investment details, why they invested in the first time, give them an update on what's happening now,

9:29 why I think these are exciting times. And

9:37 it's actually very, very well appreciated. But also this reaching out regularly is so important. And I remember calling one of our investors and he said, you know, Paul, I was actually thinking of selling and I talked about the company, you know, reminded him that I'm an investor. I've been an investor since day 1, 2015, long before I joined the company was in 2021. And I reviewed the company with him and he thanked me. And later that day, he called me to say, you know what, Paul, thanks. I'm glad I chatted with you. I'm actually adding to my position. So, yeah, that was made. It honestly made me feel, made me feel great.

10:28 There's one other thing I'd like to point out, and it's something that our CEO, Terry Lynch, brings up quite a bit of recent. And that is in general right now, commodity prices, commodity levels are at pretty decent levels. And the stock market, as we measure it in Canada, TSXV, good old Vegas, it's on its ass. It is so low. You have to sit there and say, What's the risk here?

11:05 So as a broker, I would never really touch something unless it had 3 to 1 upside or better. That was just like a base level. And with the TSXV down here and stocks being crushed so much, especially with all the naked shorting, you know, abuse that's been going on. Stocks

11:28 are trading at about 30 cents on the dollar compared to where they have historically with commodity levels. So just to sort of get back to normal levels here for today's valuations You're looking at triples plus on on companies without getting into their specific intrinsics or leverage. So the best time to go load up on stuff is is in a period like like this when there's exuberance and when there's research reports coming out saying, you know, your stock's going to the moon and blah, blah, blah. Well, consider lighting up then. But

12:08 right now, without the exuberance, with the mental anguish that's out there for a lot of people, this is the time to sit there and say, well, you know, are you really truly going to buy low and sell high?

12:22 Or are you going to wait till things have run? So you're going to miss out because this industry, you know, it's the mining industry. It's like oil and gas. When things hit, they take off like mad and it happens in a very short period of time. Your stock's sitting there at 50 cents. Next week it's at a dollar, then it's a dollar 25. Are you going to sit there and say, well, geez, you know what? I really like the company, but am I gonna buy it at a buck 25, it's too rich, because I could have bought it last week or 2 weeks ago at 50 cents. So what's the answer? The answer is, buy a certain amount that you're comfortable with, at this variable 50 cent rate, and drive on from there.

13:07 That's how you make your account go in the right direction. And those are all cases that you can only make when you're communicating. And then Daniel, I do want to loop you in here. So back to just the original question. Do you think now in this market, as we've discussed, is it time to communicate more or just wait it out?

13:28 Ultimately, a deep part of investing is about relationships. And what I think is so important to recognize is that the metals and mining space in particular is very, very small. At 6, we've hosted thousands of events. We see the people on the back end who attend events. And it's by and large very similar names of people attending hundreds of events. And what that tells us is that the people that are ultimately going to be the ones that drive your share price higher when times go well in the bull market are going to be the same people that have been around during the bear market, and they will remember how you treated them during the bear market. As an investor myself in several companies, one of the things that I feel betrayed by is when a company that I believed in and got excited by stops publishing any communications whatsoever. And I have no idea how I explain this position to myself when I'm evaluating my portfolio or explain it to a friend or a colleague of mine or spouse.

14:26 All of those emotions are ultimately going to be in the decision for a shareholder that holds your shares either now or in the future, when they're deciding, when things are going well, do I double down on this team? What they're fundamentally asking is, do I trust you?

14:43 And the greatest way to know if you should trust someone is how they treat you when their back is against the wall. And so I would say firmly, it's about being open and accessible. And I think having those meetings and those conversations is critically important now more than ever. Makes sense. I do. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, no, and you mentioned, you know, building rapport is so crucial because, you know, especially with prospective investors, you can be, you'd be speaking with someone who, you know, may be looking at 2 or 3 other similar companies and which one are they gonna invest in? They're gonna invest in the one where they have the, with whom they have the best rapport.

15:30 And so building relationship, building a good rapport, being very sincere about it, having skin in the game,

15:41 I think goes a very, very long way. On the asymmetrical upside point, Duncan, that you brought up, I think one of the asymmetrical opportunities that companies have today is that you can actually get to know your shareholders. I think one of the hardest parts of being a public company is the uncertainty of who actually holds shares and who owns them. And so when things are so quiet and when the market is so thin, getting and building real relationships with the people means that you'll actually know who those shareholders are, you'll have a deeper understanding of them, and then that rapport comes much more into full fruition. That's such an important point. And one thing that we do at Power Nickel is really go out of our way to figure out who owns our stock for multiple reasons.

16:31 So we're frequently getting our noble list updated.

16:36 Recently we had an investor who owns nearly 2% of our company that nobody knew. So I picked up the phone, called the guy, got him to sit down with our CEO, have a discussion, address his thoughts and concerns. That's just so important. Guys aren't going crazy on the phone on the broker side, So you do have time to talk to these guys, you know, amongst other ways of communicating. Some guys just like to get charts, you know, data decks, all that sort of stuff.

17:15 But having a handle on who your shareholders are, what they think about the reality of your world, you know, that's so important to understand. Like we're in a company, we see things, You know, we see things that we can't tell the public. We've got our strategic thoughts. Some are private. Some we're very vocal about. But being able to communicate all that stuff makes all the difference. And Just 1 other little part.

17:48 You know, when you talk when things change, you take a look at the whole universe of, you know, Kennedy mining stocks. The old stat was, you know, they're equivalent to the market cap size of a company like Pepsi. So when Fidelity or one of these other US institutional giants say, we're going to start to allocate money into mining, we like gold or platinum or nickel or whatever it is, copper, they step into the pond and it's the old fatty and skinny, you know, and look at what, look at with what happens. So that's where things change like that. And we think we're knocking on the door on that.

18:35 Appreciate that. I do want to talk about the flip side. And I'll start with you here. I hear all the time and often from IR reps as much as from CEOs. They worry about over communicating with their investor audience. In your opinion, do you think that's possible?

18:51 And what if any are the risks of over communication?

18:54 So I would say that the danger isn't in over communicating. The danger is in not listening to the echo coming back at you once you've communicated. And I'll unpack that a little bit. If you communicate something about timelines on permitting or how complex permitting can be and what you need to do in order to get permits. And all of your questions around permits, you can't assume that people aren't listening or that they're not listening carefully enough. The only thing over which we have control is our communications. And so we need to refine that. We need to rethink that. And we need to evolve the communication to figure out how can I make it simpler? How can I drill down into that beautiful trinity?

19:46 What? So what? Now what? So it's communications around those levels. So I don't think you can over communicate ever I think that sometimes we don't listen carefully enough to the way that our communications are being reflected back at us?

20:06 I sometimes try to be a little bit careful because I can't stand when I get tons and tons and tons of calls of let's say service providers and it's pestering. And I think also some investors don't wanna be called that much. I think you can drive them a bit nuts, But I think what you have to make sure first,

20:36 what comes back and if there are certain objections, you have to handle them and handle them well. And there are ways of saying things. So you're communicating, what you say, the verb, verbiage is so important. You can say a certain point that depending on how you phrase it can be either considered negative or positive. So you've got to be careful. So for example, this stock represents great value. Does that mean it's great value right now? It's expensive? Does it mean it's fairly valued or great value for a new investor to get in. What about saying this stock offers our investors excellent potential for significant appreciation?

21:28 That's

21:31 how you word things. But as far as, you know, over communicating, I think, I think better off when you're communicating, you have that very attention grabbing message that just gets them thinking. And yeah, that's...

21:52 My answer was in the context of avoiding generalities, providing context, and Paul, to your absolute point, you know, there's a fine line between being communicative and being a stalker. So, and- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tony once was accused of being a stalker. And that was a misunderstanding, I'm hoping. That was my mother. But I'll throw it to you, Daniel. Is there an opportunity to overcommunicate? What do you think that would look like? So over the summer, I met with about 100 investors that have been active on our platform and I just asked them what they think about companies over communicating and Broadly, I heard 3 main ideas that I'll share today the first is there are investors that know us so much about your company arguably they know more than you do.

22:49 And when they attend an event or when they receive an email, they've done so because of an implicit promise that you've made to them that they're going to get an update or learn something. And where investors accuse companies of over communicating is when they're saying so much while saying nothing at all. If an investor is waiting on understanding what a permit issue is or how a court might rule on a particular action, or there's a particular fear that they have and companies talk about everything but that then they feel like it's a lot of noise and hot air that's completely irrelevant. And that's what investors mean when they say these companies are over communicating and wasting their IR budgets because I are is about managing expectations of investors. And the only way to do that, echoing Anne's point, is to listen to what investors want to hear from you. And so among existing shareholders and investors that are very familiar, it's critically important to understand what is the number 1 thing on their mind

23:51 and answering that before you share the number 1 thing on your mind. In terms of how to attract new investors, it's a completely different scenario. And there it's about the clarity, like Anne, like you were mentioning, it's about understanding if your message is resonating. And so looking at IR communications from those 2 vantage points, but people that are already very familiar and answering those questions as quickly and succinctly as possible, and then making it simple and easy for a new investor to enter into the story. You may not have that history of context. I appreciate that. I do want to open Duncan's before we get into the next topic. Duncan, do you think it's possible to over communicate with investors?

24:32 Everyone can make mistakes. But as Dan said, essentially it's a conversation. Conversations are 2 ways. You have to ask what's important to you, person on the other side of the conversation. What do you need to know? And if you then turn around and ask some more questions, you might get to a better understanding of their understanding and comprehension of your world and what's material and what isn't. So essentially that's a helpful buildup for trust in a relationship. And I find most conversations very easy with people.

25:20 That can be fun. So, and as Dan was talking about earlier, it's good to find out what these people are interested in outside of your stock and your mining. The F1 came up as a thing. Well, it's interesting to find out personal aspects of the people that you're dealing with and

25:40 And Daniel it important to like there's there is 2 groups there's there's the guys who are on board the bus and the guys that you want to bring on board. And so you are having different kinds of communication with these 2 groups. And again, they're conversations and they're perhaps stylistically different. And you are sending different messages to the different constituents. So you know if people think you're telling them too much stuff, they're gonna tell you to shut up. Are they gonna hang up or they're gonna do whatever or they're just you know they don't want to take your call again and and there you go and that's perhaps your fault or maybe you phone them on the wrong time but that stuff comes out you know with relationships over time and And it should be an easy thing. You know, you shouldn't be pestering people and vice versa, right? So there's a space and time for everything.

26:45 And judging that with individuals, that's the important part. That makes sense to me. I want to get into data because I know in the modern era, I are people you have more access to data than ever previously. You know more about your shareholders, your perspective investors, the market, how you're perceived, how the industry perceives the company but oftentimes, and this always frustrates me, is that a lot of that data just lays fallow. I'll provide data, data will show up and it just remains mostly unused. I'd love to know your perspective.

27:18 And Anne, I'll start again with you actually. How do you use data to improve your work as an IR pro? So how do we use data? When it comes to targeting investors, And I'm talking on the institutional side. What I tend to do is I will screen for who owns Sabani, who owns Impala, who owns all of these other entities that play in the platinum group metal space in order to sort through who might be able to get themselves around the notion about coming a little bit into the smaller end of the market, right, because these are the big producers.

28:07 And when you use data that way, sometimes the targeting efforts can be really, really useful. On the retail side, it's a little bit more challenging. I'm sure, you know, here's confession time. When I log in to watch a video of one of my peers, you know, I have seen both Dean Marilyn Monroe has attended at least one of my conferences. Dean has also attended one of my conferences. So when we collect data from some of these backgrounds, I question whether we're getting good, clean, useful data.

28:57 I would also say that we've got heat maps on our website and we can figure out, you know, what people are looking at and we can, you know, map back IP addresses to general entities. And that has been really interesting in the lead up to PDAC because we're doing a little bit of targeting with one of our contact relationship management software providers. So, and we've gotten some good results with that. So, you know, there are days when I just feel like I've got enough to be getting on with that one more piece of data will be just exactly that. It's data. It's not necessarily actionable intel. I'm sure I answered the question. That's certainly an answer. Yeah, no, I get where you're coming from. Go for it, Paul.

29:45 Yeah, when you mentioned the question, I thought you were sort of specifically referring to CRM programs. When you've got a massive investor base, you just can't function without it. And for me, it's an ongoing process of continuing to streamline the system that we happen to use to make it more efficient for me. But one of the things, what's the most important thing in investor relations? It's the investor and building rapport. So one of the great things about having a CRM program, you have a conversation, you put notes of that conversation. And the next time you speak to that person, you can say something like, Oh, listen, just calling that first firstly, how was what's what's a recent example? How was your daughter's wedding? Yeah, because that went into the notes and that helps build rapport.

30:54 So it's really, really useful. One thing I have to get better at is, inputting next time I need to speak to that person. And I'm working on that. And the other thing as far as data, well, I'm always trying to uncover investors we didn't know about. You know, and honestly, Romeo, from some of the webinars we've done, you know, you get you provide me with the lists of all the attendees. And I would say 95 percent of the people on the list get an email from me very shortly thereafter, thanking them for attending. And I would say almost every single time I do that, I uncover a new investor we didn't know about.

31:44 So it's a really, really useful exercise. Laborious. Do I enjoy it? Not really. But it has to be done. It's the yeoman's work of investor relations for sure. But I'll throw to Daniel because you're in the unique position of being a data provider. I mean, like Paul said, we certainly give people a lot of data following events. But you also use investor data yourself as somebody seeking investment as an investor. So I'll throw it to you for how you use data. Yeah, certainly. So we use it largely to understand what's happening on the iGrid. To understanding what sorts of subject lines get opens. How do we target advertisements better so we reach the right investor? How do we create messaging or copy or images that lead to better performance?

32:33 And all of that is super useful because iterating on that over time, we've seen phenomenal results. Like right now with our emails, we get about a 50% open rate anytime we send it out. And the journey to get there, and I'm sure many people here on this call have seen many of the emails that Sik sends out over time, took a tremendous long time to get right and iterate. And so understanding that feedback that people are providing and then implementing it has been super labor intensive, but incredibly worthwhile. Then on the other side, it's about identifying that needle in a haystack, a person that needs to talk to right now, either to jump them off of, to get them off of the ledge so that they don't jump and sell a tremendous amount of shares. They're going to sell, send the company share price tanking or conversely, reaching out proactively to that investor who's thinking about making an investment anyways and becoming friends with them and building a relationship and letting them know that they now have someone at the company that they can call and speak with when they have questions, and then getting them over the line and making that investment.

33:40 And so using data in both of those aspects, we found would be really helpful. Well, and to jump in and to take that comment a little bit sideways, the better you know your investor base, the better you'll understand when certain investors with very specific mandates and I'm thinking private equity, they may be rolling over a fund, they may need to exit. And to understand the timing on that and to understand their exit points lends itself well to canvassing the market and understanding where there may be a big buyer who has hesitated in waiting into the marketplace because they don't want to unduly run the stock up. And so pairing up those 800-pound gorillas so that they can move through the marketplace without upsetting too many things is really, really important. And that's more on the institutional side, but it's back to Paul and Duncan's points, just communication, communication, communication.

34:50 For sure. And I'll throw it, Duncan, before we get to the next topic. How do you use data, just to round out this discussion? Well, as judiciously as possible. I mean, it's, you know, as everyone points out, it's an onslaught of data that's available to you. You can't use it all. And so you have to figure out how to leverage it. And kudos to 6ix, I have to say this, we've really enjoyed the relationship. I think we've got something like 6,000 people hooked into the Power Nickel story through you guys. It keeps, you know, it's growing growing really fast right now and you guys are able to disseminate stuff that we want sent out and you've been very creative in your programs.

35:49 You know, it's it's made a significant difference. And honestly, it really helps me out because I can go focus on some other stuff at the same time. And we do use some other organizations. So we're doing some stuff geographically with data. And and so guys in the States are getting stuff, guys in Germany, guys in England. And And all these things come together. And we think we're getting really good use out of all this onslaught of data. We're still gonna miss stuff, but the key is trying to get as organized as possible, be accurate with your CRM database, try not to send Max too many duplicate emails, all that stuff, right?

36:45 And then be succinct with your outreach. So again, thank you, SixIX, you guys are doing a fantastic job. I appreciate that very much. We didn't ask for this plug for anybody watching. That was completely improvised. Appreciate it. So I want to get into what's a kind of dirty word in mining investor relations for whatever reason, just social media. I come from a background of Fortune 500 marketing where everybody's so excited about social media. And in mining, IR people have described it to me just in the last month as a burden, a nightmare. Somebody even last month called social media a tumor on their life. As a VP of IR and mining. So I'm curious, what do you feel is the role of social media and driving investor relations and how do you use it? I'll start with you Paul. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. So you should ask Anne this and maybe you can relate your story about someone sending you an email saying, you know, curse you for doing mining.

37:47 Oh, so, yeah, really I'll keep it really short. So in a previous adventure in my life I was conducting the investor relations we were trying to permit a mine in the upper Michigan peninsula. And one of the issues was I managed to get to be the target for an email campaign or an online petition. And so I would get hundreds of emails a day trying to get the mind stopped. And interestingly enough, and I forgot to tell you guys about this, they were copying one of our brokerage firms in New York, the investment banking division in order to try and make sure that they did not in any way, shape or form aid us in getting the financing for that particular location.

38:43 And the one that frustrated me most was, you know, because I can't read them all, I had a redirect and they were all dumping into a folder and I would try and read 10 a day to try and get a sense for, you know, generally speaking, what were the issues. And in fact, this is taking longer, But what in fact is some of the major issues is we went through fairly carefully a select few and we actually changed the mine plan to make the footprint much, much smaller. So, it did feed back into the engineers and the work that we're doing and the permitting and all of the rest of it. But the one that was frustrating to me was 1 young gentleman decided that he, like he goes, please, dear God, no more mining.

39:30 Can you please just stay with renewable technology? At which point in time, I was almost in tears and didn't know what to do with myself because I just wanted to take his phone away, computer away, get him to turn out all the lights in his house, turn off the furnace and generally go sit in the dark. Because we as the mining industry need to do a better job about communicating the benefits we bring. And I think that one of the strongest ways to do that is through social media. And I will say though, Facebook is for your mindset, right? So it's when you are doing road clearing, you'll put up on your Facebook page so that the locals know that you're actually going to be in and you're clearing snow off the road because you're going to move the drills in to do some exploration.

40:23 LinkedIn I think is one of the strongest platforms because I can get a little bit broader reach and talk about what's going on in the palladium markets or what's going on in the copper markets. And then I like Twitter, although I have to say Twitter frightens me to a certain extent because every time I go to the homepage, something that I really didn't want to engage with pops up and so I'm a little bit more nervous about Twitter. It just seems like a more dangerous place to be. The one thing I want to talk about though, and I'm not sure whether this isn't why your VPIR called it a tumor. Some of us don't actually use social media in a social way.

41:14 So it's a one-way, Some will talk in a one-way conversation, like we'll post something about platinum, or we'll post something about copper, or we'll post something about what we're doing. And the true social aspect is when people comment, to get back to them, to note who's liking your stuff, to reach out and make sure. And I'm wondering whether your IROs who don't like social media find that that's just a little bit more time consuming than that they want it. So that's a question for everybody else. Is that, cause I don't mind social media at all. I'll turn to Paul, we just talked about Twitter this morning, so you're gonna hear.

42:02 No, listen, social media, obviously, it's crucial these days and it's free advertising. It's putting the name of the company out there. For me, the objective always with any marketing, marketing efforts, whatever, social media, whatever, is I want me so so that what am I doing? It's one of my dogs demanding to go outside. So bear with me for a second. Disagreeing with me. That is a very big dog. That is not a chihuahua. You know, I want. I want people to somehow contact me. I wanna find new people who are willing to listen to the story.

42:58 You know, and ultimately direct communication is the most important thing. So if any efforts in social media can lead to direct communication with not just existing investors, but new prospective investors, then I'm a happy camper. Appreciate that. Duncan, I'll throw it to you. I did mute you just to, for the dog being vocal. So you can unmute yourself at the bottom of the screen, but eager to hear how you use social media and what you think of using it in mining. It's a little microphone at the bottom of your screen. Sorry about that, Tycone. Yeah. That's right with the dogs, they're vocal. Social media, it's what you make of it. I like the interactions that we have mostly on LinkedIn.

43:49 As Dan said, it's pretty professional, it's reasonable broadcasting, And for the most part, you kind of know these people that are on LinkedIn. So, you know, You're back to what we were talking about earlier. You're having somewhat of a conversation while you're broadcasting. And you can do it pretty specific. Other parts of social media, it's the shotgun aspect and you're firing stuff out. You have no idea what's gonna happen. So that's interesting. Do you get fixated on that? No. You know, things show up, you know, like Paul van Daniel said, you'll find that person, the diamond in the rough that shows up out of nowhere because you so utilizing this Social technology so, you know interesting.

44:45 I think at the end of the day, my preference is really get on the phone, talk to Bob, Fred, Steve, whoever, and have a chat. How are you doing? And explain what's important. And you know, I hate to say this, but don't tell them to buy the stock. It's one thing I try not to do. I'll say, hey, look, things are pretty timely here. If you wanted to do something, this is probably a good time, but I'm not going to tell you to go buy stock. And if you want to sell your stock, all yours. But here you go. You know, we're just we're agents of information and opportunity for these guys. And so sometimes best personally rather than social media, but social media obviously has a big impact and a very broad distribution. So.

45:35 Well, and just to jump in with one last point, there are times when we wanna communicate something that doesn't quite reach the level of a news release, right? It doesn't quite get there. You know, this was a fun one that I really, really enjoyed distributing. We downloaded the trail cameras for our marathon project and it turned out we had a pack of 9 timber wolves visiting the location for the stormwater management pond and that one was a that one we got really high engagement because all I posted I just posted the photo and said a few of the neighbors stopped by to see the ultimate location for the stormwater management pond.

46:23 And that one, because they're gorgeous animals, they're looking really quite healthy. And that one was a fun one, because I'm not going to news release that, but it was fun to share. You can show it to the slowest and fattest geologist who's working up there and say, hey, time to get in shape, buddy. I'll throw it to you, Daniel, because I know you use social media in a variety of different ways. So I'm curious what your take generally on how the industry uses social media. Certainly. I think that social media really needs to start with why somebody is there in the first place. And ultimately, people want to be entertained. I think, and to your point, the reason that posts and content like that work so well is because I'm on Twitter when I'm waiting for a bus or waiting for an airplane and I'm bored and subsequently I'm entertained by it or I'm on LinkedIn or any other social media platform.

47:16 And so when you meet the reason that an end user is on the platform in the first place, and you satisfy that need, these algorithms and the results tend to perform much better. I think that the challenge of our industry and public companies more broadly, is we see social media as just another communication platform, but it's not as effective as a press release. It's not as required as a CDAR or a news filing. And so it occupies this place in most of our minds, and most IR and company minds, which is how do we use this effectively in a way that is accretive rather than burdensome? And the existing formats of social media don't quite allow for that. One of the things that we've been experimenting with, and we're actually going to be releasing this in about a week or so during our product launch is changing the format of these events. Right now we have about 38 I see or so other people that are in the room with us increasing the format of this event so that Anybody who wants to join can actually be part of it and they can request a microphone and they can contribute. We can see their face if they opt into that. We can have that real live conversation because I think as Nate's commented in the comments, which is social media is when you release the trolls bashing your organizations, and that's the fear of a lot of these platforms.

48:35 When you have that humanity of a face and a voice, typically discourse becomes a lot more civilized. And so I think there's still a way for companies to figure out how to bring that social aspect to the capital market space. And so I agree with all the points so far and we're continuing to innovate and try out new formats. Great. In the interest of time, so I do have kind of individual company specific questions for each of you, But if we could just keep answers to 1 or 2 minutes, just so we can get to the couple of questions in the chat if possible. But I'll start with you, Paul. So, not only are you at First Mining, you're in development for your flagship project, SpringPool, and many investors, or at least the perception is that investors might consider it an unexciting time while you wait for permitting, but what we might consider shrewd investors would consider this period an opportunity.

49:27 So curious how you navigate communicating that with existing and prospective shareholders when you are on the phone, when you have gotten that data. Yeah, no, great question. And I'm actually very, very excited right now. And I bet, just for the audience, just to put it in perspective, what we're going through. So, as I mentioned earlier, FirstMining has a portfolio of projects, 2 flagship projects, one of which is called Springpole Northwest Ontario. Early 2021, we came out with a result of a pre-feasibility study showing really robust economics, phenomenal. And now we're in the permitting phase. We actually, we've been going through the permitting phase for quite a while. It's a long process.

50:19 Every mine that's been built has had to go through the permitting phase. It's long. It's not unique to us. And I'm excited. While some may refer to the Lausanne curve and say, oh, this is the boring phase of development, I find it exciting. Why? We have found the main deposit. It doesn't mean we're not going to find more Gold, but we found the main deposit. Now, going to permitting. Well, early last year, we submitted the draft environmental assessment documents, 10,000 pages long. No, I have not read it all yet. And it's the regulators came back to us with about 1600 comments and questions.

51:08 We've got back to them with that, you know, no showstoppers. And all that is going to be massaged into the final environmental assessment, which is going to be submitted hopefully maybe late this summer. It's exciting. That is a significant, significant milestone. And so while the process is long, we are in the advanced stages of it. So I am really, really excited. And I do tell investors that till I'm blue in the face. I think that makes sense. And Anna, I'll throw it to you because Marathon, it's not identical, obviously, but there's somewhat similar position. I'm curious, When investors call in, when you get emails, they're not all fun to receive and manage for sure. But I'm curious how you, just communication-wise, turn a grumpy shareholder into a real advocate for Marathon and for Gen M. So I'm going to take a small snippet out of Duncan, one of Duncan's answers a little bit earlier.

52:22 So what is it, the serenity prayer, you control those things over which you have control. So the palladium platinum group metals market right now is probably as bad as we've seen it. And last time I checked, we had no control over that. So you know, we talk about what the underlying fundamentals are, we talk about the disconnect in the current pricing for platinum group metals and the current fundamentals. And then usually I pivot and talk about what we're doing. So we're controlling those things over which we have control. Advancing financing discussions, our environmental team, arguably one of the best in the business, keeps advancing those permits. Those are the things over which we have control. The discussions we have with government bodies both in Ontario and federally, those are the things that we focus on.

53:23 And to Duncan's point, I can't tell somebody to buy today or to not sell today. What I can do is make sure that they're in possession of all of the information that they would need in order to support their original thesis or to evolve their original thesis on why they bought the stock. And that's what I'm here for. Appreciate that. Duncan, I got a quick question for you. So PowerNickel, you have a lot of different stories to tell investors. You got the battle against naked short selling alongside Safe Canadian Mining, the recent NI 43,101, or your partnerships with FleetSpace. With so many stories, how are you able to manage what your focus is when talking to investors? And how do you shift the focus when you think broad investors are overlooking some key points?

54:20 Yes. Right back to McNamara's first law, understand the big picture and the parts make sense. So we just come out and say, hey, listen, we believe that we're the best Nickel investment on the planet right now. And then let's go into a fairly simple explanation. 1, it's a property. 2, it's our management. We've got a relationship with CBMR that nobody really knows about. They're a billion plus leader in the Nickel refining world. We're at the front of technology utilization with Fleet Space out of Australia with their ambient noise tomography. And you know, there's everything in the classic one up on Wall Street.

55:10 Why are you buying this stock? You should be able to explain it in about 5 or 6 sentences, you know, the old Peter Lynch story. And then it becomes fun to go talk about these different things. But if people, you know, you've got to sort of, again, it's a conversation you have to ask, you know, what turns your crank? Are you interested in our technology stuff? Are you interested in the CDMR? Because what they do is very different from the real tangibles of the world and how they take dirt and turn it into money. Terry's an interesting guy in many ways. The stuff we're doing with Naked Shorts gets an awful lot of attention and people are very curious about it.

55:57 In some respects, it's a different story. We're happy to say, let's talk about Power Nickel, and then we'll talk about, look for a PG word here, the guys who are doing the naked short abuse. And go from there. Part of our story. And we're actors in all this stuff. You know, trying to save the planet here. And that can be an entire conversation. And sometimes it is. But, you know, my objective is to get more shareholders and potentially get our stock price going from A to B.

56:47 The short selling stuff is important, but it's a different story. So it's a conversation. You have to get feedback from your audience and figure out what turns their crank and what they're curious about. And let that drive the conversation. That makes sense. I'm going to try, Daniel, you're my boss, so I'm going to give you the last word. I think that's how this usually works. But I'll give you a broad question. I apologize to people who did ask questions in the chat. We ran out of time today, but I actually will get back to you personally just with our thoughts about your questions. So we will get back to you. But Daniel, I'll get to you. What do you think is the role of the IR professional in the digital age, specifically a bad metals market? What should they be doing? What tools should they be using? Go for it.

57:36 So the way I largely experience investor relations is as a role of CEO competence, where good IR makes me believe in the CEO and believe in a company. And oftentimes when I believe in a CEO in a company, I don't even see or realize that's IR. And in that sense, truly good IR and IR professionals are the unsung heroes of these companies. It's only when things are falling apart and when things are becoming very, very bad, that IR really gets noticed and when companies start looking inward and it becomes a situation of companies almost eating and cannibalizing themselves trying to figure out how to fix it. And so similar to what Duncan said, and I think that fantastic quote you shared earlier with McNamara. The idea is what is it exactly that we are trying to do here in IR?

58:24 It's about reaching investors and figuring out from first principles, what is the best way to do that? Obviously, in person is by far the best. Having an interaction with someone is phenomenal. You can build a real relationship. The problem is there's only one of you and there's lots and lots and lots of investors. And you can't treat each investor exactly the same and so far as getting a claim applying to them, because there aren't enough hours in a day. And so the role of great digital in the investor relations space is to surface and discover that marginal next investor that has the most utility to speak with, that's going to have the best experience when they speak with you, and using IR as a way to allow your reputation to reach them before you do.

59:12 In so far as you're able to use digital to surface those investors, you are doing them a favor because they're raising their hands because you as an investment match their portfolio thesis. And similar to what Anne was saying, which is pairing gorillas with other gorillas, When you pair an investor who has an investment thesis with your company thesis and those 2 match, great things happen, investments are made, and ultimately you have compatibility and you're in the same boat together. So That's my general view of where digital effects in the IRX. Appreciate it. Can I just add one thing here? Yeah, go for it. So we haven't really talked about this, but there's a terrific advantage to utilizing the world that Daniel and everyone creates for us and it helps stay away from potential liability which is selective disclosure.

1:00:13 You know it's it's pretty easy to get on the phone and and you know your favorite guy Bob phones up and says hey what's happening and you sit there and go well can't wait for you know this is gonna come out here blah blah blah or that's gonna come out and you've crossed the line So it's really helpful to have the digital broadcasting aspects. It's out, it's in the world. There's a full disclosure, all that sort of stuff. So it's just a helpful safety valve on top of everything else. So I just, most people don't think about that, but you do have to be aware, especially in our jobs, and have that caution and go from there.

1:01:05 I appreciate that. I'll end with just one comment from the chat from Adrian. He said, you guys will have the most satisfying job in the world when the bull market starts. So we have that to look forward to. But Ann, Paul, Daniel, Duncan, thank you so much for your time today. I think this was a great chat. For everybody listening, thanks for joining and the replay will be available soon. Have a great afternoon, everyone.