Fury Gold Mines’ New CEO Tim Clark Shares the Path Forward
Fury Gold Mines (Ticker: FURY) just announced that it has appointed Tim Clark, a current director of the Company who also serves on the Audit committee, to the position of Chief Executive Officer and Director replacing Michael Timmins. Mr. Clark brings 23 years of global capital markets experience with numerous major US, European and Canadian banks. Over the years, he has developed strong working relationships with Tier 1 institutional investors throughout the United States providing corporate strategy, and peer and financial analysis and insights on corporates within the materials, commodities and mining sectors. Mr. Clark holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and a Master of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from Vanderbilt University.
Fury’s Chairman Ivan Bebek stated: “With Tim assuming the senior leadership role, the Company which is undertaking aggressive gold exploration programs with several high priority assays pending and his strong capital markets background the outlook is extremely well served to realize full value for all stakeholders in the Company’s high quality high grade gold assets and continues to carefully consider opportunities to grow its business in a manner that enhances our shareholders’ investment.”
Fury Gold Mines is a Canadian-focused gold exploration company strategically positioned in three prolific mining regions: James Bay, Quebec; the Kitikmeot Region Nunavut; and the Golden Triangle, British Columbia. Our vision is to deliver shareholder value by aggressively growing our multi-million ounce gold portfolio through additional significant gold discoveries in Canada.
TRANSCRIPT:
Bill: Thanks for tuning in. I’m Bill Powers. This is Mining Stock Education. In today’s episode, we’re going to be getting an update from Fury Gold Mines. There’s been some management changes–a new edition. Here to talk about that is Ivan Bebek. Ivan, you and the board have brought on Tim Clark. He is a board member, but now he’s going to be the CEO. So, let’s just get right into it: tell us why you and the board have confidence in Tim and what he brings to the table.
Ivan: Sure, Bill. It’s great to be back. This is a huge change for the company, and a very positive one. We’ve been through a fairly tough 10 months in challenging markets, and our share price has certainly not performed the way that we felt it should. We came to a crossroads as a board and where we wanted to be: exploration or development. As you know very well, this is not the market to go build a mine. Prices aren’t there; capital’s not readily available.
Naturally, we got to, I guess, a crossroad there with that strategy. Mike Timmins actually resigned as we decided to make a much stronger push towards exploration. Tim Clark was introduced to us by Mike back in March. He joined our board and the whole board has had the luxury of getting to know Tim and see a lot of his strengths and what he brings to the table. Tim’s been in this business for over 23 years. I know I won’t do justice, but he’s worked with some of the top banking and brokerage firms as well as some of the top CEOs in the business, giving them a lot of corporate and financial advice along the way.
As these companies don’t have revenue, Bill, we need to balance out our ability to finance, monetize our assets, and go get capital. That’s something I think that we can do tremendously more effective here, and that’s what Tim’s really going to bring to the table outside of his great, great experiences corporately and some of his experiences with other companies in his banking career. So, I think it’s an exciting flection point. There’s a big shift in the company’s focus to be exploration for the time being, and look to go and multiply some of these discoveries we believe we’re just getting into. With that, it’s an absolute honor to have Tim take the role. The whole board was very excited for him to step in here and take it on. Tim, we’re real honored to have you join us in the capacity of CEO.
Tim: Thank you, Ivan.
Bill: Tim, you were a director, but it’s one thing to be a director; it’s another thing to be an executive. Give us your assessment of Fury, where it’s at, and your action steps to create value for shareholders.
Tim: Well, when I first stepped in, I recognized very early on that this was a great team and a great resource of individuals with a lot of experience. Mike brought me in. He’s been a friend of mine for 15 years, way back when he was at Agnico Eagle. I think that we would have been a great, compatible team, but he was looking more for a developing situation. Effectively, I think the company should be an exploration. It’s the right call at this time in the market. I think our focus should be on drilling and lowering costs–putting money in the ground. I feel very comfortable in the spot. I think it’s going to fit well with what my background is in the capital markets and raising money.
As Ivan mentioned, I’ve spent a career working with CEOs across the board, not only just mining, but generally I’ve sat through my share of 20,000 meetings with clients as well as you have. As we talked about earlier, it’s really understanding the portfolio manager and investor, and the individual–what they’re looking for. I think we have a really great recipe. The stock, to me, and I’ve seen this before: it’s lost momentum. It’s been down with the market, but I think there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit. I’m very excited to be in here. I feel very fortunate to come in at a timing like this. What we’re planning is to try and shore up our treasury, raise some money, and get back to drilling and focus on that.
Bill: Tim, are you going to be raising money or are there any ways to self-fund with the assets you have within the company?
Tim: Well, I think we’re going to look at both options. We’ve got three great assets. We’ve got Homestake out in BC, we’ve got Committee Bay up in Nunavut, and then we’ve got Eau Claire up in Quebec. Our two main focuses are going to be in Quebec and Nunavut. I think there’s a lot of upside in the drilling. We’ve had good results. Then there’s a lot more coming out this fall. Homestake is something that we really like. We wouldn’t want to sell it, but I think our focus is better in really identifying where the most upside is for the company and not get too complicated. Look, this is a very simple story. It’s about raising enough money and putting in the ground in the right spots, and being thoughtful about where we want to be. If we can raise some money off of Homestake, I’m all for it. We’ve talked about it and I think that’s probably the general direction we’re going to go. But I think it’s going to set us up for a lot of upside, as investors want a clean message, and that’s what we’re going to get to.
Bill: Ivan, do you have anything to share on the capitalization of the company?
Ivan: No, I echo what Tim said here. There’s two core assets: Eau Claire and Committee Bay. Although we love Homestake, if it finally goes, then we cash up off that grade. I think we’re in a really, really good position here because we have some of our best holes we’ve drilled to date pending. Though we’ll be out in September, that’s the Committee Bay drilling, as well as the holes from Eau Claire’s Limb extension. Something we haven’t talked a lot about is Percival. That’s coming to light here as well this fall.
I really just want to hang off everyone’s patience here. There’s big holes pending, and there’s a really exciting exploration to come around the corner. Market opportunity is huge, as Tim pointed out. The deep value discount is massive. For my friends, family, and anybody that follows things that I’m involved in, this is where I pound the table and say average down or take advantage of these low prices. We’re at the end of August–which is a seasonal, soft point in the company–and the change is going to be meaningful. I think you’ll see a reduced burn rate going forward, a considerable one, and you’ll see a hard line focused on things that are going to make the share price perform.
It’s really cool to be at the stage where we’ve had 10 months to learn about Eau Claire, to learn about where to make it bigger, to learn about what else could give…There’s nine targets in the Eau Claire land position that we haven’t talked much about with the exception of Percival as of lately–a lot to come. Really, really excited to have Tim here. I think it’s time to raise the profile and simplify the story as Tim pointed out.
Bill: Tim, we brought up divesting, but are you also considering acquiring beyond the projects you have?
Tim: No, I think we’ve got enough on our hands right now. We’ve got a great geology team. I have to say it’s one of the better teams that I’ve come across and one of the resources I think is worth leveraging. That’s why I’ve been excited about it, but we’ve got a lot to handle already. Our intention is to make the best of it and just drill as much as we can because I think that’s where we’re going to add value to the story and be attractive down the road.
Bill: Fury did have a huge drill program this year, but the assay labs were kind of slow. Is there any update in that front or is it just ‘it is what it is?’
Tim: I think it is what it is, but we’re trying to improve it. Ivan, you probably have a little more experience in that from the feedback but I think that effectively, we’re going to get better at what we do with everything.
Ivan: I think the only comment there for me, Bill, is we’ve had four drills turning through the summer. They’re just finishing at Committee Bay now, so a lot more results in that slow pipeline per se. Their scheduling to come out through September here, so the next 30 days are going to be awesome from a results perspective. There’s no real way to fix slow assay labs, and that’s largely in part due to the current environment with COVID and new restrictions and rules. There’s a lot of unexplainable things with assay labs in all parts of the business, but as Tim said, we’re going to just create a pipeline of news that can really drive forward and keep the catalysts ongoing. We’re at a log jam now waiting for a lot of results that will be coming out, so it’s an exciting time for us.
Bill: Next year, coming up with your drill program that you plan beyond what you’ve already planned, is there anything different we should expect when you’re saying we’re an exploration company? Is there a different exploration thesis that you’re going to develop, or could you elaborate on that a little more, Ivan?
Ivan: Sure. Absolutely. This year, we drilled a lot of holes nearby Eau Claire, the deposit. We were looking to incrementally add ounces, as well as we did the step outs. But as you and everyone’s seen, Snake Lake has given us a really good place to go. I mean, there’s mineralization 95 grams over half a meter–a kilometer down from the surface resource. That’s our potential deposit that’s there already. Then if you look at polls pending from Limb extension–what we drilled with the Hinge–these are all places we can go back and we can multiply the size of Eau Claire. But you’re going to see Percival get drilled sometime this winter or this late fall. When that starts happening, I mean, it could re replicate or multiply what we have at Eau Claire. It’s a huge target for us.
I think next year, you just get a lot more of new ounces that are in new places. I think our confidence is much higher now than it was this year. We’ve re-processed all the data that we had, which was a huge amount of data from the Eastmain Group before us. I think probability of adding ounces goes up in areas we’ve seen already, such as Snake Lake, and the Limb and possibly at the Hinge. I think just look for new targets, and we might have our discovery at Committee Bay that we talked about for five years at Auryn.
We’ve most certainly drilled the best looking rock that we have in those five years, so if those two things work out for us, Bill, and we’re we’re well on our way, the theme is going to be different. I think when Tim talks about exploration, it’s a lot cheaper than talking about development. It takes away that huge capital requirement of the company in a rushed timeline, where you’re going to be forced to raise capital in challenging markets. We now have the luxury of drilling at our pace. I think the luck’s going to come into it through the drill bit and expect more exciting exploration. That’s our thing.
Bill: Tim, any final words as you’re being introduced here? What more would you like to say to investors?
Tim: Well, I just think it’s an exciting time in the market for gold. I think we’ve seen a pullback here. I’ve seen this many times. It’s a very seasonal event and it’s not going to take much to push the stock upward, assuming we can get a little bit on the price of gold. But at the same time, we’re adding value, not only through a drill bit, but execution on our side. There’s a lot of companies out there to choose from. I think I lucked out and got a great group. It’s as much about leadership as it is about finding the right spot to drill.
