Pierre Lassonde on Royalties and Exploration - Interview with Sprott

Interview with Pierre Lassonde at Sprott - in full

......when we create a royalty. I’m not talking about a stream; I’m talking about a royalty -- like the GoldStrike royalty or the Detour royalty. We get a free perpetual option on the discoveries made on the land by the operators, and we get a free perpetual option on the price of gold.

we need the exploration companies to get back to making discoveries. Otherwise the whole industry, particularly the gold mining industry, is going to go very flat production-wise. Even if the gold price starts to go up, it could take five or six years before production increases in response. So there’s a real need for venture capital

So do you avoid early-stage exploration stocks? Mostly, yes – though I do have people looking for the next Hemlo, or the next Voisey’s Bay. Whoever finds one of those, the premium they get to their share price will be beyond belief, because it’s been way too long since we’ve had a really significant new discovery – a Hemlo, at like 20 million ounces of gold, or a GoldStrike, with around 40 million ounces, a Voisey’s Bay or a Diamond Fields. It’s been over 20 or 25 years since we’ve had one of those discoveries. The world is just panting for one and I think it would be helpful to bring back the risk-taking attitude that’s completely gone from that sector. But those companies I look at are 1 in a 1,000. You can look at 999 dogs before you find one. It’s very difficult.