Transcript: Exploring the Titans of Resource Investment with Rick Rule
Link to my Zoom call with Rick
TRANSCRIPT:
Rick (00:00:02):
There was never a deal that Ned couldn't make more complex and Ned would say, it's important if you're going to do a lot of business with this guy, you love him. It's important that you can resolve commercial disputes over dinner, not go to court. Early in my career after he spent time teaching me anything I did, if I'd call him, he'd say, will I get out at the same time and at the same price as you? And if I would say yes, he'd say, okay, save me the rest of the story. What would you like me to do? If you're going to have an enduring relationship with an intelligent counterparty that you ought to strike fundamental as opposed to emotional agreement. If you want to open with me, I would say I have an opportunity that I think is selling for half. Its intrinsic value and the reason for it is that it's a commodity that everybody else loves to hate. Now, immediately you hit all of my hot buttons.
Tommy (00:00:52):
Thank you for talking to me, Rick. I wanted to ask you three things. Could you describe your history with Ned Goodman?
Rick (00:01:02):
I met Ned sometime around 1977 or 1978. I was also being mentored by one of the best geologists I ever met named Hugh Mogenson, who at that point in time worked for Butell Goodman as an analyst. And I was doing an oil and gas workout that Hugh had been involved in. And so Hugh introduced me to Ned Goodman sometime in the late 1970s. And I was, well, first of all, I'd obviously heard of Ned in and around a lot of things being involved in the natural resource business, I was struck immediately by a wonderful sense of a guy who, although he didn't do technical work himself was a great consumer of expertise around both geology and engineering. And a guy that had an absolutely instinctive sense for finance around extractive industries, or as I used to put it years ago, turning rocks into money. I was also struck by a guy who was extraordinarily generous with his time with a young guy like me.
(00:02:20):
He spent tens of hours with me, I suspect attracted to my energy if nothing else, he was to the point where his mind was better than his legs. I guess I still had legs. And I was struck too by his abiding interest in the ascent of humankind, which is to say he wasn't just kind to me. He really truly wished well for the world. I'm not saying he always wished well for his competitors. Tommy, by the way, he was a highly competitive guy and understood the nature of his business. But I would say that he was smart, that he was curious, that he was generous, and at his heart at least, if you weren't in his way at that particular moment, he was extraordinarily kind.
Tommy (00:03:10):
Yesterday I was talking to Peter Brown, Canaccord founder, and Peter was describing how in the aftermath of the windfall affair and the Royal Commission that Toronto's mining stock business was moved out of, driven out of town. And Peter tried to pick up that business with the Vancouver Stock Exchange and the BCSC in Vancouver. And I think Peter was saying that a large portion majority of trading in Toronto at that time was these penny mining stocks. And when the business was shut down there, it totally died. And he said that as a young broker, he could barely afford to keep the lights on. He got a call from Ned who said, Hey, I hear what you're trying to do and I want to support you.
(00:04:02):
Peter said, which he's a colorful person, but he said, I'm not sure if it wasn't for Ned if I would've made it. He said, and then he said, probably I would've. But they had this incredible story with Helo in the 1980s, and Brown was telling me how Murray peso's margin calls had forced him to sell his control block in Corona. Brown said that he bought it and he called Ned because Ned had done him so many favors and sold it to Ned in 1977 or eight when you met, I don't think Ned was yet a household named in Canada. Definitely Helo made him that. But did you have exposure and a view of the business he was doing at the time when you met him?
Rick (00:04:54):
Yeah, he was certainly a household word in oil and gas and laterally in mining finance, household word is perhaps the wrong phrase because most Canadian households, like most American households, can't spell either oil or gas. But certainly in the industry, Ned was one of those rare providers of capital that listened and took into account the presentation. He wasn't one, he understood that he wasn't one necessarily that made his money by not writing checks. He was willing to take considered risks. He was willing to take considered risks on people like Murray Pezim, a wonderful but lethal salesman if ever there was one. And also Hughes and Lang Ned played both sides of the Corona game, or pardon me, the Helo game. And in fact won twice. But before Corona, while he probably wasn't too well known to the readers of the financial Post, for those people who were in extractive industries, particularly in the exploration part of extractive industries, Ned was a very important and very influential player.
Tommy (00:06:16):
Were you privy to, or do you know the genesis of the Franco Nevada story in 1983? Were you around? Did you know much about that name?
Rick (00:06:26):
I had the extraordinary good fortune of being allocated 10,000 shares of Franco Nevada at 35 cents in the initial public offering.
Tommy (00:06:34):
Did you take it?
Rick (00:06:35):
I did. I did. And at that point in time, it was an idea. It was nothing more Seymour, it's true, had had a fondness for the royalty business going back to his oil and gas experience. So he had a fondness for royalties that was at that point in time, 10 or 15 years old. He understood them to be probably the best part of the capital stack in oil and gas and then the mining business. But my understanding of the Franco Nevada Genesis was that they actually saw an advertisement for royalty in a Reno newspaper. And having been in the process of blowing their brains out of Alligator Ridge, probably thought we could do worse. I mean, I don't know if that's the true genesis, but I certainly recall discussions during that period of time between Seymour who came to favor the royalty approach and Ned who had a much more aggressive company building approach, hence the difference between say Corona and Franco Nevada.
Tommy (00:07:44):
Do you remember who offered you that chair position?
Rick (00:07:50):
I would suspect, I mean, the answer to that is no. I would suspect it was Hugh Mogenson who said, I've got an allocation for you and you're out of your mind if you don't take it. These are all wonderful people. As I recall, there was no cheap stock in that deal. Everybody got on the same price. There was no penny stock issued to anybody. There was no warrants issued to anybody. There were no options issued to anybody. I could be mistaken on that, but as I recall, everybody came at the same price and the same time, there were some people who were allowed to come in much bigger than peons like me, but that was probably the fairest offering in the history of the TSX.
Tommy (00:08:30):
I think from what I read, it looks like Seymour Schulich was maybe the junior partner at Buutel Goodman and lassonde was the gold analyst there, and that's correct. And through new venture equities, Goodman controlled vehicle, he helped them start the company and fund it. And obviously they bought the royalty out of the newspaper. That's what I've read too. And that's where the Gold Strike discovery happened. Subsequently, later, I think they paid 3 million and had received over 1 billion in dividends. 2 million, 2 million,
Rick (00:09:09):
I remember that. Yeah. 2 million
Tommy (00:09:11):
And received over 1 billion in dividends from it.
Rick (00:09:15):
And I recall, by the way, Tommy, nothing to do with Ned, but I recall clearly seeing the news release from Barrick on the gold strike discovery. There was a drill hole that was aptly named the screamer, because as I understand that a hawk flew by when they were trying to name it. And if my memory serves me correctly, that was almost 300 meters of 30 gram rock. It was an astonishing hold.
Tommy (00:09:46):
The crazy part reading about that is I'm a amateur Peter Munk historian and Adnan Khashoggi the arms dealer and Monk had this success in hotels in Australia and a Asia, and they wanted to get into the gold business after some failures in oil and gas. And apparently their first call was to net who helped them get into the Canadian mining business, and subsequently into that later opportunity, which I think they found on their own. But Ned told, or Peter Munk told John Goodman that Munk blamed Barrick on Ned, and I found this, it's crazy that he had the royalty through Franco Nevada. And when I've learned about his history, like you tell Goodman manages 40 billion. He started dynamic funds which had 90 billion under management. They sold it in 2010 for $3.2 billion. It's like the perfect exit of a mutual fund manager because who would've wanted the business today at that price?
(00:10:52):
And in 1983, Ned lobbied the finance minister to extend tax breaks to regular investors, expiration tax breaks leading to the boom flow through business. He raised 5 billion in flow through with CMP funds. And then Dream Unlimited was a real estate manager with 25 billion under management. It's like his success in financial services is unparalleled, and his success in mining seems to be unparalleled beyond the advisor to Barrick, the co-founder of Franco, he was the founder of Kinross, the founder, Dundee precious co-founder of Rip Padre, which I didn't even know about until I went down this rabbit hole and the key backer to all these deals. And it's just like a unfathomable that one person could have such a role in our market.
Rick (00:11:47):
Well, certainly early in my career, after he spent time teaching me, basically anything I did, if I'd call him, he'd say, will I get out at the same time and at the same price as you? And if I would say yes, he'd say, okay, save me the rest of the story. What would you like me to do? Many, many, many times, Murray Sinclair Jr. A Vancouver resident who I believe,
Tommy (00:12:16):
I don't know him, but I know of him for
Rick (00:12:17):
Sure, and I would make bridge your mezzanine loans to companies that exceeded our ability to fund. And our first call was always to Ned for two reasons. He loved the senior part of the credit stack. He loved to be a high yield debt owner rather than to be an equity owner. But Murray and I also knew that none of the junior mining companies would dare screw Ned. They might not pay Murray and I, but they wouldn't dare not pay Ned. So he was, in addition to being an invaluable part of my intellectual genesis, he was an important funder and syndicate partner in my early career.
Tommy (00:13:02):
Do you remember any specifics of what you learned from him?
Rick (00:13:07):
I would say that what Ned was best at was picking talent that he believed to be simultaneously competent and honest. And then listening. I remember Ned telling me, don't pay too much attention to established geological models. Let the rocks tell you what they are. If you try to fit them into a box associated with your exploration thesis, often you will miss data because it doesn't conform to your paradigm. That's useful in determining what becomes. Ned also taught me, I suspect, well, maybe life taught me, but Ned was both persistent and tenacious. Ned simply outlasted many of his competitors. Many competitors today have trauma holding stock over a long weekend. They think the fact that they want to go up, that they want stocks to go up in a period of time that will enable them to meet their auto lease payment or something like that is germane.
(00:14:27):
And Ned knew that building companies took five years or six years or seven years. Ned was also a believer that you had to look after your investors first because they were your constituency. The issuer wasn't your constituency, but that part of the package of looking after your investors was making sure that at least on success, the managers did. Well. Ned was not a believer in high cash compensation for company executives, but he was a believer in fairly fulsome options packages, and he was also a believer in bonuses provided that the bonuses were issued in return for realizable goals. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Ned had a very rational sense that everyone should win, of course, in their own order.
Tommy (00:15:28):
Do you think that there's anybody like him or has there been anyone like him who would you compare him to?
Rick (00:15:37):
I'm not sure in the resource business in Canada that there is, the people who are Ned's equivalent have most often gone to the issuer side rather than being on the agent side. I mean, when I think about somebody who has tenaciousness access to good commercial skills and access to good technical skills, I think of Murray Edwards, but Murray of course went to the issuer side from being an attorney really quite early. Probably the best conjunction of the skills in the mining business is Zo Bartner, Seymour, wiley old Fox, who again has wonderful listening ability, doesn't try to tell a deposit what it is, although they went separate ways. They were an amazing combination. Ned, I remember Ned, don't take this wrong, but we would be talking about somebody that we were thinking about investment with, and Ned would say, it's important if you're going to do a lot of business with this guy, you love him.
(00:16:48):
It's important that you can resolve commercial disputes over dinner, not go to court. I think that was useful. There was occasion, I know, well, and I won't mention the names, but there was an occasion where I had invested with somebody who I knew, knew Ned. In fact, Ned introduced me to this person, and it turned out that this person was viciously, viciously, antisemitic, and had said some things to Ned probably while under the influence of alcohol. And I remember Ned called me up and said, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor, which is to say never do business with this guy again for the rest of his life or your life. I realize you do substantial business with him, and I will see to it that you suffer no loss, no financial loss as a consequence of this, but I would consider it a personal favor, which was interesting to me.
Tommy (00:17:42):
Did you oblige Jim? I'm assuming you did.
Rick (00:17:45):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, given what Ned had done for in the first instance, and then in a very calculated sense, the amount of money I had to make from this other person relative to the amount of money I had to make from Ned. In fact, I liked Ned and I didn't like the other person anyway, I did business with him because it was easy business to do. But when Ned asked me and told me the reason I said, yeah, I'm in.
Tommy (00:18:10):
Ned had obviously the litigation experience with him. I didn't know
Rick (00:18:17):
Ned had lots of litigation experience.
Tommy (00:18:20):
I didn't know the story, but so Ned got control of peso's Corona, and right after the discovery, Lac Minerals came to site to see the core and consider an investment, and they learned proprietary information about it. They then staked around it and outbid Corona for the neighboring ground where they found a larger mine and built it. And with Ned as the controller backer of Corona in a David Goliath situation, sued Lac, which was a major, and after I think a seven year suit was awarded the new mine for costs that Black had put into it, and Corona doubled on the day and Lac split 50%. But what I read is that nobody saw that wind coming, right? Nobody thought that this little junior could out Fox the major when the major had breached a fiduciary duty to it. On that site visit in 1981,
Rick (00:19:20):
I talked to net a reasonable amount of time during that time, and Ned absolutely always believed he believed in the efficacy of the rule of law. He believed that the facts were on his side. He had absolute faith. I didn't, I had no faith in American or Canadian justice when it came to fairly complex commercial matters. But Ned had absolute faith, and I don't think that Ned, at least publicly ever expressed any doubt whatsoever that the Canadian courts would find in his favor because from his point of view, he knew he was right. I thought that faith was charming myself, but I didn't share it.
Tommy (00:20:04):
You mentioned complexity, and one thing that when I've been doing research about Ned is that his dealings were far more complex than anything I've ever seen. And I heard that in the 1980s there was a illustration done in a newspaper about Ned in front of a whiteboard with all these related companies and completely filled with words, and at the bottom it said something like Easy, right?
Rick (00:20:32):
I have a copy of that somewhere, Tommy, if
Tommy (00:20:34):
You could. I've looked everywhere for it. If you could share it with me, I would be very grateful. Apparently it was on T-shirts at some point, but yeah,
Rick (00:20:41):
I'll try and dig that out. And it is true that there was never a deal that it couldn't make more complex. He had a fondness for that. Partly that was because Ned believed that Ned would serve Ned's interests the best, and so he was always interested in things like dual share structures where there was a super voting share.
Tommy (00:21:07):
Dundee corp today has a hundred to one votes with the 3 million shares that the suns have, and
Rick (00:21:12):
That's correct. And Ned was famous for wanting cascading structures where a share class controls the company and that company controls three other companies,
Tommy (00:21:26):
And those companies invest in each other, and it's like, so for me, trying to make this linear, I wouldn't say struggling, but this is more difficult than other stories I've looked into.
Rick (00:21:40):
I think we're the author of these schemes, a person of lesser integrity. I would've been more angry about them. But the truth was that when Ned said to me, I'll come in if you and I go out at the same time, that's the way I was always treated. Ned always treated me fairly and I came to the point of view that if Ned was structuring something in complex fashion so that he could maintain control, and I wanted him to maintain control to the extent that there was no financial disincentive to me, it came not to bother me. I will say that it made due diligence
Tommy (00:22:23):
From
Rick (00:22:23):
My point of view, needlessly complex.
Tommy (00:22:25):
Yeah, so today there is a crisis in mining capital markets. I mean, I don't know if you feel that way, but there's no net who's taking shots on projects at scale and has the capital that he has. I mean maybe Eric Sprott who's done an immense amount for the business, but the capital is not there, the institutions are not there. The flows are in index funds, and I'm wondering, what do you tell issuer if you're not in an index fund and you need capital and your story is struggling, how do you tell an issuer to build a market today?
Rick (00:23:13):
Well, that's a very non NED related question. I would argue with you by the way, that Eric's skillsets are what the market needs. Now, one thing Ned was not was a promoter. His fondness for complexity when he would tell a story would leave most investors cold. While Eric's message is much simpler, much more promotional. So I would argue that in the early stage company, Eric May be more useful to the industry than Ned, although Eric uses just his own capital and Ned was able to commend a much broader amount of capital. Going back to your question though, I think that the malaise that confronts mining equities is the fault of the industry itself.
(00:24:00):
I suspect that investors, going back to the decade of the seventies, have looked at mining stocks as being leveraged warrants on commodities more than anything else, they've looked for leverage to the commodity price. Ironically, the most leveraged companies are of course the most marginal. If you're a high cost producer, when the price of your commodity goes up, you enjoy more margin expansion than a low cost producer. So for 60 or 70 years, the investor has asked the mining business to exhibit leverage, which is to say, be marginal, and boy has the mining industry complied. I mean, there's almost no more marginal business on earth if you dial our market back to the period 2000 to 2010, the gold price is up. What sevenfold and the free cashflow per share of the XAU declined, and now the mining industry says, why are we having trouble raising money?
(00:24:57):
It's because for the last five decades it was always send us new money, old money, all gone. Investors are sick of that, and with the juniors it's worse. What was nice about Ned is that he was reasonably good at in movie parlance, segregating the good from the bad. From the ugly, he would back high quality people. He was a lead order, but he would say to the brokerage industry, these terms and conditions are stupid. I'm happy to take 19.9% of the print, but it's going to be on these terms. These terms that you've proposed are merely a way for you to garner commission from stupid investors, and I'm no stupid investor. I would argue with you, Tommy, that the mining industry isn't short of capital today when good placements, or at least placements that I think are good come up, including over the last year and a half, I invariably get cut back. A company goes out to raise $20 million, they come back for 32, I put in for X, and I end up bidding two thirds of X. And heaven forbid from the issuer's viewpoint, they have to give me a warrant. They seem to be very generous with themselves with options,
Tommy (00:26:11):
But you see the dichotomy between a growing story that's made a discovery and it's being developed or maybe even a smaller miner that if they don't qualify for an index, they're orphan. Right?
Rick (00:26:27):
Certainly the industry has come to understand the benefits of amalgamation and larger trading volumes, but I don't think that that is the primary reason for the demise of the mining sector. I think junior mining sector's own failures are the cause of its own demise. If you see a deposit reunion would be an example. Snow line would be an example. There's plenty of money around for high quality people doing good work and not spending too much money on GNA. Ned was a great lead order. He probably, in terms of Canadian exploration as a consequence of his pioneering in the flow through shares deserves more credit than any other single human on the planet with the possible exception of Peter Brown. In terms of the genesis of Canadian exploration, I think we have to give him that. I don't think that the lack of Ned or Peter for that matter, functionally retired now, although still writing checks himself, I don't think that the passing of those two gentlemen has had as much to do with the current funding difficulty that the Canadian mining industry has simply because I think it's the fault of the industry and you also have some other, if you will, Titans coming up.
(00:27:55):
I think it's fair to say that Frank Giustra's come of age, his model is different than Peter Brown's and his model is different than Ned's. He isn't a guy necessarily who writes checks to other people's deals. He shepherds his own deals and he is certainly no longer a broker. But I think we've come to the point where there is a substructure of people and there are certainly quasi family offices, the Friedlands, the Lundins, people like that. I think that the industry has adapted. I think that the halt and the blind, which is to say most of the issuers haven't adapted and hopefully they'll go extinct.
Tommy (00:28:38):
You mentioned Frank, and I guess if I can ask you about Aris Mining, and this is a story that I know really well and I'm a shareholder of it, and it comes to my question about these orphaned companies, right? It's like Aris Mining has the best metrics of any small gold producer and it's cheaper than all of its peers on all of its metrics, but it lacks the trading volume to qualify for GDXJ at scale or GDX and I think it's in a special place. That 450 US market cap that will be self-funded with 500,000 ounces of production at 1200 costs in two years with 170 million on its balance sheet. I don't see how that stays a 450 million market cap company, but in the meantime, it's half the price it should be in my opinion. And so a company like Aris have to be subsumed to get the value that it deserves, or do they just wait and do what they're going to do and the market will weigh it eventually, but what do you do in that situation when you're not the GDXJ star?
Rick (00:29:58):
I need to disclose conflicts of interest. I'm a shareholder of Aris and I was a shareholder of Endeavor before it. I'm a woodier fan.
Tommy (00:30:07):
Me too.
Rick (00:30:07):
Before we go on, let's disclose conflicts. I think the description that you gave of the company is not quite accurate. I would suggest that there are still some unanswered questions with regards to continuity of grade, and I think that there's still some unanswered questions with regards to the politics and the sociology of Marmato. This is my second time investing in Marmato and I've been there. I don't know if you have no go there. I think that the sociological problems can be solved and I think that Woodyer is the right guy to do it having done it in frontier markets before, but I think that the market is uncertain about the political direction of Columbia, and I think Columbia's on again off again, fascination with mining means that the concern that the market is expressed is valid. I think the market should be concerned about mining in bc. People tend to be more concerned about political risks that they don't know about, but I think there is some concern. I think the market's concerned about the sociology around Marmato and Antioquia generally, and I think that's valid too. I think there are concerns around the drilling density at Marmato and the ability that the company has to live up to the projections that you've discussed. I own it because I believe that they will, but I can understand the criticism that they haven't yet. I get that.
Tommy (00:31:39):
I haven't heard that. I knew that the marma lower mine project that's now started, they're taking it from 20,000 or 30,000 ounces a year to 200 I think for 20 years is the plan. But I just assume because of who I'm dealing with that whether it's Neil and Wheaton who's funding it, that they have sufficient information to move forward with a bill, right?
Rick (00:32:08):
I think they're going to get it done. Understand that Silver Wheaton's funding it sequentially. You have to overcome, there has to be sequential progress to answer unanswered questions. Wheaton invests the same way that retail investors auto invests. They trust, but they verify. Retail investors have a very different paradigm, got a hunch, been a bunch, and that often doesn't work, particularly when the hunch is politically incorrect, which is to say Colombia, I happen to believe that fears over political risk in Colombia while well founded are unduly discounted compared to political risks in other jurisdictions, places like the United States and Canada, which I believe are riskier than the market gives them credit for being.
Tommy (00:33:00):
So Endeavor was a dog stock for five years was flat and growing, and then in one year it appreciated five x and that was 2015 or 2016, so it was like the market woke up to it
Rick (00:33:16):
Right after the check started cashing. You will remember that Endeavor answered a series of unanswered questions. Endeavor did two things. They answered a series of unanswered questions and they grew by amalgamation. Frank to his credit, understood that what you needed to do was get sufficient scope and scale and sufficient trading liquidity that the index funds had to buy you. The acquisition of Semafo was both about combining the Semafo and the endeavor assets to create a very solid West African to competitor and to maximize the joint pipeline. It was also about getting enough heft and enough trading liquidity that the various index funds had to buy it.
Tommy (00:34:06):
Do you think that there is a story like Aris or one that is would be suited to an amalgamation with it? It's tough for Aris to merge with somebody that has a premium price and if you are trying to get to the GDX,
Rick (00:34:26):
I don't think that they are or should be interested in an amalgamation. Now, I would love to see some form of northern South American amalgamation amongst say reunion, say G2, say GMining, say Aris, and if I'm really allowed to fantasize lundine gold, I'd love to see something like that happen.
Tommy (00:34:58):
It's crazy, but for me, looking at those stories like I love Oko and that's got a six 500 Canadian market cap. Gold's 3,000,000,001 great mine, and Dave Fennell was joking with me that he thought the Oko would be as good as it. They're different, different grade, but the simplicity at Oko and the scale is very impressive. Yep. G min G mining, that's close to a billion market cap, but I guess I see a reunion on a path to something like a mini lundine in potential, and that's what Jin is too, a smaller project, but there's Aris Orphan that's cashflowing today. That's the same value nearly. I mean it's bigger, but then just the deposit in the ground and Aris has four huge projects and cashflow.
Rick (00:35:58):
Yeah, I think the deposit, the market cares about one deposit in Aris, which I suspect in the near term Neil cares about too.
Tommy (00:36:06):
Is that Soto Norte? Pardon me? Is that Soto Norte? Yeah.
Rick (00:36:11):
I think too that with regards to the challenge in front of Reunion that the challenge is less formidable as you suggest it is socially one deposit. I mean they have a neighbor and that amalgamation, it would be nice if that amalgamation would take place, although I guess the management teams are less than past friends, but the job ahead of them is relatively simple, relatively non-complex, and the ore body shows every sign of wanting to get bigger, which is pretty nice. Fennell has also evidenced, unlike most of these other guys, a real willingness to transact even if he doesn't come out in the control shoes,
Tommy (00:37:06):
This is reunion.
Rick (00:37:07):
Yeah, I think that helps. With regards to G Mining, they were an orphans stock for a while. They have, I think done a very good job finding a constituency for their story
Tommy (00:37:21):
Background plus the Egyptian billionaire, right, who helped? Well, they both,
Rick (00:37:26):
I think they've done a better job than most Canadian miners finding a constituency themselves that wasn't delivered to them by the Canadian investment banks looking outside the ranks of traditional North American gold mining investors to find very large family offices around the world who came to believe in their track record came to believe in the lundine in premature. The Lundins were very generous in terms of crediting the Gignac family with successful on time, on budget completion Del Norte, which was by no means a simple task. Early in its incarnation, there was widespread condemnation about G mining in Canadian capital markets because they called them lousy promoters. In fact, the Gignac family didn't want to go the route of traditional investment bank led Canadian promotion and instead charted their own course. By the way, the same course that Endeavor had partially charted 10 years earlier.
(00:38:35):
My suspicion is that Neil Woodier will be able to do precisely that with Aris. I think like the Gignac family, it'll take him 12 to 18 months to do it, but I think going a different route than the route that is so common, Bay street Canada, yeah, will pay dividends. And my belief is that Neil, given his past successes and the tenacity of Frank behind him, will be able to fashion his own constituency. That constituency is out there, Tommy. It is just that most issuers are too lazy to access it. Most issuers seem to believe that you ought to be able to call up Haywood, and then you ought to be able to call up BMO. You ought to be able to consign market building and financing to those two outfits, and the game ought to be over, but that's not the way the game is currently constituted, and I think the success in G two in building their market cap in a nontraditional sense is really excellent testimony to that. But
Tommy (00:39:47):
That's G min, I think. G two, G two,
Rick (00:39:50):
I'm sorry, yes, G mining
Tommy (00:39:53):
G, but G two you mentioned that's G two gold fields, right? Yeah,
Rick (00:39:58):
It's right across the property line from Reunion, and I believe part of the same mineralized event, very different rock response G two thus far is more higher grade discrete veins, whereas Reunion is a very different ore body, but my suspicion is that they're part of the same mineralized event and I would love to see them at some point in time combined.
Tommy (00:40:22):
Does G2 have, is that the old Aurora mine?
Rick (00:40:26):
I don't know the answer to that.
Tommy (00:40:28):
Does did they have a mine startup that didn't go well there? Was there a mill and everything built or No,
Rick (00:40:35):
There may have been a very small scale mill.
Tommy (00:40:37):
I think there were a couple Guyanese stories that, I forget the name of the predecessor, but I watched Reunion and talking to John Goodman about it. They have 16% of it. I mean, according to him, he was backing them looking for 500,000 ounces insite thinking that it could be a simple million profitable mine, and then they've got 6 million ounces that could be much more, and it's a super success and it's now an $80 million position for Dundee Corp, and their market cap is 85 million and they've got 300 million of other assets. Do you follow Dundee Corp, the stock at all? Do you know much about
Rick (00:41:24):
I do. I need to say as predecessor, Dundee Bankcorp was one of the great wins of my career when it was spun out of Corona, when Corona was taken over by Homestake, it was a total orphan if my memory serves me well, and it was spun out, it traded for 41 cents. I wasn't astute enough to buy any at 41 cents. It took me till it was 55 or 60 cents before I understood what Ned was trying to do and the fact that it was a total orphan, but I'm delighted to say, by the way, partly without me, it went from 41 or 42 cents at the bottom to $42 at the top.
Tommy (00:42:03):
I think it had a three for one split, maybe even.
Rick (00:42:06):
It was astonishing. Now, it would be disingenuous to say I held every share 50 or so cents to 40 or so dollars, but the truth is it happened so quickly that I was able to hold a large number of shares and I benefited mightily from Ned's effort in that name, both in terms of my own personal net worth, but importantly my own reputation. My book was littered with Dundee Bancorp.
Tommy (00:42:40):
Well, they had a huge success in asset management and in other investments, but in 2014, they really hit the wall. The stock dropped 90% in four years. And so it seems like John, he's been leading this restructuring, selling assets, buying preferred shares back, and now they have this, I wouldn't say pristine stock, but you got a 90 million market cap with 300 plus million of assets, and that team and the Goodman's have about 12 or 13% of the stock, but John seems really focused on the family legacy and making it good again, so I'm a believer in it, and it's a little illiquid to buy it. That's part of the challenge, but I like it now.
Rick (00:43:33):
I do too. I need to spend more time with John. I've known him a little bit for a very long time. Again, Maurice Sinclair Jr. Who was his
Tommy (00:43:42):
Partner at Dundee. Precious the fund, I think, right?
Rick (00:43:45):
Yeah. Murray is a shareholder and former director and has told me that I should do my personal balance sheet a favor and get along when Murray Jr. Says something like that. It's usually pretty good advice.
Tommy (00:43:59):
Yeah, I've heard so much about him, but he remains an enigma to me. John described the two of them with Dundee Precious Metals as a fund. They had a 23% annual return from 92 to oh three. That's pretty good. And on one site, John in 1993 was at Yanacocha, and he said that BU Ventura, BU Ventura had a 40% interest in Yanacocha, and John was able to sort of beat Newmont to buy 7% of it for their fund, and they made 15 x in three years as a 3 million ounce a year. Mine was built out of profit, not equity,
Rick (00:44:48):
I'll tell you a similar story, but the best stock market would've my career was Paladin.
Tommy (00:44:54):
I've heard you describe it in past Australian
Rick (00:44:56):
Uranium Junior and I had bought a bunch of stock at a dime, financed them to see it all the way to a penny, which shakes your faith mercifully. I had the courage of my convictions. I bought some more stock, although not at a penny, and then the stock started on the way up and at a dollar, I decided that I would sell enough stock that I had my bait back. So I was selling some stock and I got a call from Murray John who used to work for Ned, and he said, Rick, you can do it. You want, but the buyer of that stock you're selling is Ned. You might want to think through the sell side. And of course, it went from that dollar to $10 in, I don't know, four years, four and a half years. A very shrewd guy.
Tommy (00:45:42):
No kidding. We spoke briefly, or maybe it was email. I was wondering if you could tell me your story about meeting Steven Roman, Sr. You're a great storyteller, and I don't know anybody who's known him directly.
Rick (00:46:00):
I'm embarrassed to say that. I don't know when I first met him,
Tommy (00:46:08):
It was 50 years ago.
Rick (00:46:10):
It was a long time ago. I do remember having lunch with him, and if my memory serves me correctly, it was in the bar of the old highs in Toronto, the original highs in Toronto, and I remember him as a very good storyteller and oblique promoter, which is to say he didn't begin his presentation with the close. He didn't try and say, this is a 25 cent stock that's going to go to $3, which is the normal Canadian open. He was much more of a Robert Friedland style promoter in the sense that he would begin his pitch with the state of the world. I think at Xerox, they used to call it foundational selling. He would get you to agree with two or three big picture statements before he would get more and more and more focused on where he wanted the discussion to go. I found him a fascinating human being. He was mission-driven, which is a very good thing, but his mission at the time that I met him wasn't of any particular interest to me, so he never did business.
Tommy (00:47:27):
What was his mission at the time? Do you remember? Pardon me? Was it the Slovak cause or,
Rick (00:47:32):
Well, Roman Corp, basically. He saw himself as an emerging merchant banker, and with probably the sole exception of Dundee Bank Corp, I have never invested in a merchant banker that worked for me. So that model, while he was of interest, wasn't of interest to me. Another really little known thing that I have found very consistent among very good natural resource investors is that they're collectors and buyers of redundant databases, and Roman was always bragging about the fact that bragging is the wrong phrase. He was always discussing with interest the fact that he had bought, as an example, the Pathfinder database or some other database, and he would say, I can't believe that these companies are selling me data that they compiled for $150 million and they're selling it to me for a hundred thousand dollars. And I would say, whatcha going to do with it? And he would say, I don't know, but it's going to come in handy. And I've heard that from other good investors. Very, very, very commonly. I've never been lucky enough myself to get one of these discarded major mining company databases, but I do remember with fascination that Roman was extremely interested in buying intellectual capital for a penny on the dollar with no immediate sense of what he was going to do with it, just that there was some knowledge in there that if he was smart enough to plummet would come in handy.
Tommy (00:49:22):
Could you describe a definition of merchant banking?
Rick (00:49:27):
Well, my definition is a sort of a holding company that invests both its capital and its talent in developing affiliates. Dundee Bank Corp was of course the classic successful.
Tommy (00:49:44):
It sounds like a nice way of describing a House Street promoter too, right?
Rick (00:49:48):
Well, except for that, the House Street promoter tries to use your money in the case of legitimate, and I would suggest that the Lundin family are merchant banks. They're just not public merchant banks. I would that Ross Beaty, I would argue that in the oil and gas business, and in some senses in the mining business, that some of these serially successful families are private merchant banks. They don't allow you to participate in the parent company because the parent company's closely held and they don't feel that they need you, and they don't feel like they'd like to talk to you in terms of how they allocate their own assets. But I would argue as an example that the collection of trusts that form the basis of the Linde family and the management company, Namdo, have the effect of being a private non-public merchant bank. And I would suggest that Kestrel Holdings, the Ross Beaty family has functioned in much the same fashion, answerable to themselves using their own money, but using their own money to grow a stable of affiliates
Tommy (00:50:55):
In Romans. In some of the readings I did about Roman, a journalist said that described that his faith floods a room, and you mentioned that he set a theme and got you to agree before he made the pitch. As a writer and a communicator, I always got to think about how do you grab people's attention right away, and so by saying a 25 cents stocks going to three bucks, at least I've set the tone and you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Do you think it's better to do the Friedland or Roman approach, or do you have to earn it by being the equivalent of a billionaire to have that sort of gravitas?
Rick (00:51:35):
I don't know, Tommy. I certainly understand that if you're going to have an enduring relationship with an intelligent counterparty, that you ought to strike fundamental as opposed to emotional agreement. If you're a guy like me and you start off by saying, I have a 25 cents stock that's going to go to $3, my usual first response is tell somebody who cares. I don't want to know if you need a headline like that.
Tommy (00:52:12):
So how do I open with Rick Rule with a pitch?
Rick (00:52:16):
It raises, oh, well, if you want to open with Rick Rule, I mean, you know me well enough, you've listened to my BS for years. If you want to open with me, I would say I have an opportunity that I think is selling for half. Its intrinsic value, and the reason for it is that it's a commodity that everybody else loves to hate. Now, immediately, you hit all of my hot buttons.
Tommy (00:52:39):
You forgot warrant. Yeah, well,
Rick (00:52:41):
I mean, when it comes to the deal terms, then we have that discussion, but I have to care about the investment before I care about the warrant. If I don't think the investment's worthwhile, I don't care particularly about getting the right to buy it at a higher price, so I don't think it's going to get there.
Tommy (00:52:57):
You said something, and I'll wrap up soon, but you mentioned databases and you mentioned Roman, and there was the Fennell story where he relentlessly pursued the Anaconda database to get, I think it was the deposit in surname that Oh my. But I wanted to bring this together by describing this man that I know. His name is Denis Laviolette. I dunno if you know him. I know him. Yeah, I think he's the VP X at Newfound Gold, and he used to work for Sheldon Inwentash. He's my age, so he kind of grew up knowing how the sausage was made, but he put together with Colin Kettell, this portfolio, including Newfound Gold, and he's made a big fortune on newfound, so I don't want to say he's puffed his chest out, but he has no fear of what you're going to think of him, but he's also very charming, and he's from Ottawa originally, but he's got this down home geologist charm, I'd say. I think that his wealth from the discovery has made him more confident, and so he's letting his hair down in the way that when he's promoting his companies, he's describing, oh, this thing's like a Frankenstein, and it's kind of like what I'm getting at is Roman and Friedland, they had huge success, which changed how they can market themselves because they bring to the room their track record, and I'm wondering, was there a difference with Robert in 1980 versus, or 85 versus today, and the way he would pitch Rick? Cool.
Rick (00:54:45):
Robert is now obviously he can pitch based on his reputation. What is consistent is that Robert is so smart. What happened in the early eighties is that you would have a couple of conversations with Robert, where Robert would just ask you questions and you would think, where is this going? Where it was going was that he was debriefing you. He was finding out what your hot buttons were. He was finding out how to persuade you Later. He was absolutely lethal because he was smart enough and he could segregate data in his mind well enough that he could tailor his pitch to fit your parameters. He knows too many people now, and he doesn't have time to do that. I think probably that process was, from his point of view, fairly degrading to him. He becomes a much less lethal promoter now because he doesn't pitch me on the basis of a 100% ability to understand what's going to be important to me. Ironically, to me, he's a less effective promoter. Now I know that his cost of capital will be low. He doesn't have to tell me that he's a great promoter. I know that he attracts great people and he pulls unbelievable stuff out of them. He motivates people like nobody else in this business.
Tommy (00:56:25):
Sorry, go ahead.
Rick (00:56:26):
In a sense, he doesn't have to be as lethal as a promoter as he was, and I don't mean lethal in a bad sense. I mean that when he was determined to sell somebody something before he started selling, he got to know them well enough that he could customize his own pitch. The pitch that he would give to say Peter Brown at that point in time, or Ned Goodman at that point in time or me, were very, very different pitches, each pitch geared to his understanding of the value of the person he was pitching. He was unique. I've never met a salesperson with his skills
Tommy (00:56:59):
When I was in the Congo with him 10 years ago, and I didn't know him, but I knew of the famous salesmanship of him, and he got quite frustrated with me. He looked at me, he is like, why do you keep telling me to promote the stock come back in 10 years? This mine will be built? And so I felt that he no longer wanted to do that. He was like,
Rick (00:57:23):
I think that's absolutely correct. He doesn't
Tommy (00:57:25):
Have
Rick (00:57:26):
To. I think he probably found the process demeaning, and I understand that completely, and the truth is he doesn't need to.
Tommy (00:57:34):
Robert, I've got a 17 billion market cap or something. Now,
Rick (00:57:38):
We've talked about a lot of people now, but Robert remembers very well that I was there for him in Ivanhoe mining at 65 cents, 66 cents, 67 cents. He appears at my conference in Boca Raton every year, not because he needs to, but rather because he believes maybe someday he'll need to, and at any rate, because I was loyal to him, he's loyal to me, which is a wonderful thing for a guy that's accomplished what he's accomplished.
Tommy (00:58:06):
Part of why I mentioned Denny was that we were describing the data sets, and so Denny bought ceo.ca, which was a great favor to me, but he also bought the Northern Miner for 3 million bucks, and he got mining.com with that acquisition. So that's a pretty valuable domain. But on one hand, it's kind of crazy because media businesses is insane, but there's 125 years of mining stories in there that I think could be interesting. Anyway, I've been noticing recently, success lets people sometimes be more of themselves. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes that's good, but anyway, watching the characters evolve is really fun and Well,
Rick (00:58:56):
I'd like to learn more about that stock. You may know I'm a reasonable shareholder at as Vermont, having watched Agora Grow, I'm attracted to the media and information business.
Tommy (00:59:10):
Well, that actually, it's a great stock for you, and I know somebody who has a block. We should talk. That business is like, it's 55 million of securities, Northern miner ceo.ca, a 0.2% royalty on newfound gold and a bunch of cash, and the valuation's 27 million.
Rick (00:59:34):
Yeah. If I know the securities, I'm probably unlikely to pay full price for that part, but I sure like the rest of it,
Tommy (00:59:42):
But I'm saying is that the, I get it. It's a basket case of inequity. It's trading at a huge discount too.
Rick (00:59:50):
No, I'd be very interested in knowing that. I think I might be able to help them in two senses. I think I might be able to help them on the content side. Oh
Tommy (01:00:01):
Yeah,
Rick (01:00:03):
I'm pretty good. If I believe a stock is selling for less than it's worth causing other people to know that it's selling for less than it's worth,
Tommy (01:00:11):
No, that would be a game changer for them.
Rick (01:00:15):
They should talk to me if they were prepared to do the right thing. I might in the right set of circumstances, sign some form of binding letter. I am attracted to dollar bills for 50 cents, particularly if I'm comfortable about the fact that there's a dollar there.
Tommy (01:00:37):
One of the challenges, obviously the mining securities are super speculative. They own a bunch of juniors, which are going to get written down this quarter, be for the last quarter, but yeah. One of the things that I think affects the stock negatively is Eric Sprott, actually, he's the largest shareholder with 15%, and I think obviously he's passive so wealthy and has all these investments, but Denis has been, he's got this huge position in newfound, and I think he wants to own more of it, but insider alignment is a piece that I think they're going to try to fix, and maybe that's the Rick opportunity.
Rick (01:01:19):
I have some history with Eric, and from my point of view, it's pretty good.
Tommy (01:01:22):
Yeah. Eric gave you the giant liquidity event, right? Well,
Rick (01:01:27):
It wasn't really a liquidity event. I haven't sold a share,
Tommy (01:01:30):
Really
Rick (01:01:31):
Not a share. What Eric did is my business made a lot of money, but there was no ongoing concern. Value. If I'd gotten hit by a truck, my heirs successors and the signs wouldn't have gotten anything for the business, and so that's what they did for me. Liquidity event assumes that you sell stock.
Tommy (01:01:55):
No, I meant diversification opportunity,
Rick (01:01:59):
Right? What it did was crystallize in a permanent sense, the intangible value that I had created around the global brands.
Tommy (01:02:12):
What do you do with the success you've enjoyed? You were in a video recently wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and it doesn't seem like you consume your money, but yet you're motivated by it, right? So what does money do for you?
Rick (01:02:32):
I'm wearing a shirt now that's emblazoned Battle Bank. I'm celebrating retirement by starting a new bank. My seventh, by the way. I like to create wealth. Well, when the second of my wife and I shed our mortal coil, which is to say when we're both gone effectively, our entire estate is going to go to philanthropy. Any other areas successors and the signs have been looked after already. And as you suggest, I'm not particularly a consumer. My new car is 14 years old. I live in a very nice house. I didn't succeed in downsizing with regards to my house, I hope you come visit me sometime.
Tommy (01:03:21):
Thank you. I would love to,
Rick (01:03:22):
But I'm down from three houses, so I have downsized. In one sense, I love helping people build businesses. I love entrepreneurs who find a need in the market and find a way to serve it. At the last bank, which we built EverBank, we recognized a need in the market. We recognized that the branch banking system in the US wasn't serving the mass affluent consumer, but was adding cost, and we understood that Americans wanted to save in currencies other than just the US dollar. It took us 14 years, but we built up a 275,000 saver constituency around that before selling the bank. Similarly, after I sold my business to Eric Sprott, we recognized that there was a whole class of Americans who wanted to own publicly traded oil and gas in a vehicle that wasn't, pardon me, publicly traded precious metals in a vehicle that was tax efficient.
(01:04:22):
That wasn't an ETF. That's now this brought physical trust business, a 26 billion business. There was a huge market segment to serve, and the market wasn't serving that segment. Being part of building those very large franchises, serving underserved portions of the market that I know well is something I just absolutely find fascinating. I don't need to do it myself anymore. At age 71, I'm past prime time in terms of being a CEO, but I love assisting young entrepreneurs who have identified a market need and a way to fulfill it. The other thing I do now is I spent 50 years Tommy, learning how to make money, and thus far my track record, giving it away is fairly spotty. The old dictum do no harm. I'm not sure. I've always done no harm, giving away money, so I'm going to spend the next 10 years learning how, because I'm going to give away a fairly large amount of money and I'd to do good. It's
Tommy (01:05:29):
Not an easy thing to do because as a libertarian man that you are, we know that it's better to teach a man a fish than to give him a fish.
Rick (01:05:39):
Well, in particular, I have a philosophical aversion to giving money to a philanthropy that takes government money. That means from my point of view, if I give money to an outfit that takes money from government, I feel like I'm benefiting from the proceeds of crime, and that limits the outlets I have.
(01:06:06):
Most of my estate will go to organizations that are at worst, or pardon me at best, antithetical and more likely hostile to government.
Tommy (01:06:20):
So is there a theology behind your philanthropy? Will the libertarian stuff that you do, will you support that sort of an issue?
Rick (01:06:32):
Certainly the Atlas Foundation, certainly students for Libertarian group like Ross Beatty and Tom Kaplan, I'm interested in environmental causes, but free market environmentalism. I'm interested in the work that, as an example, the Nature Conservancy does buying habitat and setting it aside, I'm interested in the work that Tom Kaplan does, saving big cats. If you save the top of the food chain almost naturally you've saved the rest. So I do that and I'm also very interested in invested in economic empowerment. So I've been investing reasonably successfully in microcredit for 30 years, establishing banks in places like India, Somalia, the West Bank, that loan money to very, very, very poor women, generally women that have no collateral. Interesting way to bank and providing economic opportunity through credit to people that otherwise wouldn't have it. I mean, these banks have enjoyed really tremendous financial success, although they're nonprofits and the human success that I've been able to enjoy vicariously, women that were absolutely destitute who now employ 20 other women and are part of feeding 20 families has been very gratifying to me.
Tommy (01:08:02):
For the last question, Rick, what are you most looking forward to personally right now?
Rick (01:08:08):
Probably the growth of Battle Bank.
Tommy (01:08:12):
What is the launch product of Battle Bank?
Rick (01:08:15):
We will be a nationwide branchless bank operating through the internet. Rather than having 15 deposit products designed to hoodwink customers, we'll have one deposit product, a high yield money market account so that you can earn interest on your checking account. As an example, we'll have certificates of deposit in 22 currencies, not just the US dollar. We'll have IRA products that aren't just repositories for mutual funds from financial institutions, but rather IRAs like your RSPs that can own a duplex or a triplex can own an owner or operated franchise, could invest in private equity. We believe that our customers, IRAs are just that. They're IRAs and we've developed legal structures to allow people to invest outside the norm in their IRAs. Amusingly on the lending side, one huge opportunity. We believe that there's in excess of $30 billion in precious metals, bullion held in segregated accounts in the US and nobody banks it. So establishing credit facilities for the gold community, a community that I know how to talk to and understand because I'm one of them, is I think a huge opportunity. When we started EverBank in 2000, the backlog of people who wanted to do business with us, that is to say our waiting list was zero. With Battle Bank today, pre-open, that list is above 12,000 on the way to 13,000.
(01:09:58):
EverBank grew in substantial measure through the assistance of the editors of Agora who liked our unique products and liked our approach to market. Battle Bank is owned as to about 20% of the bank by Agora and their editors and their publishers. So I would suggest that between my list and between the 275,000 former customers of EverBank and the efforts of Agora, that our customer acquisition cost will be very close to zero. If you combine a customer acquisition cost close to zero, a business plan narrowly focused on a few sectors that we know well and non-interest bearing expenses that are in the best decal in the industry as a consequence of having no branches, I think you have a recipe for a really, really, really successful bank. Just like the last one.
Tommy (01:11:03):
Will you put it in a penny stock so we can all buy it?
Rick (01:11:06):
It is unlikely. I hope it doesn't go public. It may. That'll be up to the shareholders. The last bank grew so fast that we had to take it public because we couldn't keep pace in the equity side with the deposit growth and the founders ran out of the ability to fund that growth. If you take, you need seven or 8% of deposits by way of equity to be a well-capitalized bank. When you take the bank from zero to 28 billion, obviously as private check writers, even with fairly substantial return earnings, which we had, you can't keep pace. I believe that because this bank won't enjoy the mortgage refinancing boom, that EverBank enjoyed that our pace of growth will be slower. I view this in the first five years as more of a dividend machine. Should the shareholders decide that they want to grow it faster or that they want liquidity, then we'll take it public.
Tommy (01:12:13):
When does it launch?
Rick (01:12:16):
That's up to the FDIC. The FDIC has had more significant challenges in the last two years than my bank. I'm afraid. Things like First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, it seems that my file wasn't the top of their desk. We believe that we've answered substantially all of their substantial questions now that they've asked them, and our hope is that we'll be open this summer.
Tommy (01:12:39):
How many co-founders do you have?
Rick (01:12:42):
Well, the real co-founder is Frank Trotter, who co-founded with David Goland,
Tommy (01:12:48):
EverBank
Rick (01:12:49):
EverBank on my living room floor, by the way, many, many, many years ago. So he's the real co-founder. There's a private family office in St. Louis that is the other leading shareholder. And then there's a variety of shareholders, including, I wouldn't call them a coalition, but a group around Agora, Agora Inc. Bill Bonner as a person, and then officers, directors, and employees of Agora. They own about 20% of the bank. At this stage.
Tommy (01:13:26):
I want to ask you about Bill Bonner, but maybe next time, because I've taken so much of your time,
Rick (01:13:31):
You're one of my favorite topics. One of my favorite people in the world. Okay,
Tommy (01:13:33):
Well let me book it in a quarter so with you. Thank you so much for your time today, Rick. Great.
Rick (01:13:38):
Pleasure. We should have a discussion to Peter Brown sometime.
Tommy (01:13:41):
Oh, he would kill me. He's such a unique character and
Rick (01:13:49):
You may know that I began my career in Vancouver in the bar business, and the consequence of that is that I have two trails on Peter Brown, one, the House Street Trail,
Tommy (01:13:59):
Daytime and nighttime,
Rick (01:14:00):
Other. The other one is the Hornby Trail, or maybe the daytime trail and the nighttime trail, but they're both amusing.
Tommy (01:14:06):
Well, I had a lunch with him once and it was 12 hours, and I'm still recovering from it, and it was six years ago.
Rick (01:14:16):
Having lunch with Peter requires a formidable liver.
Tommy (01:14:20):
He's such a trove of material like you that you could mine it for a long time, and I hope to do that and I'd love to come back to you and do this again.
Rick (01:14:30):
Great. I look forward to it. I love talking about these old guys. They're great.
Tommy (01:14:34):
Thanks for being so generous, Rick.
Rick (01:14:36):
Pleasure. Pleasure. They were all generous with me, Tommy.