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Takeover Talk with Michael Fowler
Source: Brian Sylvester of The Gold Report 02/18/2011
Michael Fowler is a senior mining analyst with Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon in Toronto and he was more than willing to speculate on potential takeovers in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report. "All of these gold producers are going to be active in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market. They are going to acquire because there's a huge amount of cash on their balance sheets," he says. Michael also talks about some undervalued names in his coverage universe, including one junior he thinks could climb 210% before year-end.
The Gold Report: Michael, please tell us a little bit about Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon (LOM).
Michael Fowler: LOM Ltd. is the oldest independent research boutique on Bay Street. It's been around for 40 years or so. What we are today is an institutional broker that focuses on small- to mid-cap mining issues. We also do high tech and biotech.
TGR: You have a Speculative Buy rating on Fire River Gold Corp. (TSX.V:FAU; OTCQX:FVGCF) with a 12-month target price of $1.40. Considering the company is currently trading at around $0.53, that would be a gain of more than 210%. FAU is scheduled to relaunch production at the Nixon Fork Gold Mine in Alaska later this year. It bought the property after Saint Andrews Goldfields (TSX:SAS) was forced to close the mine in 2007 due to production problems. What makes you think Fire River has solved those problems?
MF: First of all, let's talk a little bit about St. Andrew. These comments are not really about today's St. Andrew because it's a different company now than in the past. But previously, St. Andrew had a pretty poor mining record. It also had problems with another project in the Timmins area of Ontario. I think that in those days St. Andrew's management was heavily weighted toward miners and less so toward geological engineers. The real problem at Nixon Fork was the lack of understanding of the deposit's geology. By the way, St. Andrew wasn't the only operator of the Nixon Fork Mine. Consolidated Nevada Goldfields Corporation (now Real del Monte Mining Corporation, a private company) operated the mine in the 1990s and actually made profits.
Moving forward to today, what can Fire River do differently from St. Andrew? One point is that it has a little bit of time. Financial obligations forced the company to produce, but Fire River actually has time to do some drilling. It's currently doing 28,000 meters of drilling in order to really understand the Nixon Fork ore body---that is the key to that operation. It's a very low-tonnage mine, so the company needs to have good control over the geology. That's the focus that Fire River is taking and I'm betting that it's going to get that right. The mere fact that there are very high-grade resources is going to give Fire River some leeway if it has any problems associated with the grade.
TGR: In your discounted cash flow (DCF) model for Fire River, you used a 5% discount rate and a $1,400/oz. gold price. I would say, generally, that the discount rate is a little bit low and the gold price is probably a little high. Why did you choose those numbers?
MF: The discount rate has always been a topic of conversation in the industry. What discount rate does one use? Traditionally, analysts use 5% discount rates for gold companies; and, actually, some use 0% as a discount rate. The reason is that the DCF method is very inflexible. It doesn't really tell you the potential for increases in reserves or resources or the potential for rises in the gold price. Therefore, if you do a DCF of 5% on a lot of producers, you'll find that they actually trade at premiums to that discount rate. In fact, I use 5% on just about every company out there.
TGR: What about the $1,400/oz. gold price?
MF: I don't think that's a bad gold price to use. I think we're going to soon see gold closer to $1,400/oz., and then a year later, it will be over $1,400/oz. I'm bullish on gold. I don't see any reason to change that view. I guess the biggest risk on gold is interest rate hikes. I just don't think that's going to happen. I think that $1,400/oz. is a very good price to use; but, even if gold went to $900/oz., I still believe Fire River would make a small but reasonable profit.
TGR: Fire River released its Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) of the Nixon Fork Project on February 17. We can also expect to see drill results from that 28,000m drill program you mentioned. What are you expecting from that scoping study?
MF: I'm expecting a robust scoping study. It may not show the same level of net asset value (NAV) that we calculated because the NAV that we calculated assumes some additions to the resource. So I think the scoping study will be a little bit less than the NAV we've used. The other thing is that the scoping study will use $1,200/oz. gold, not $1,400/oz. gold. Nevertheless, I think we're going to see a fairly robust situation. I do have to warn people that we may not see the same level of value that we calculated because we used a higher gold price. We also assumed that Fire River would find extra resources through the drilling that's taking place.
TGR: You're projecting $36 million in cash flow in 2012 once Nixon Fork reaches production. Do you believe Fire River could become a takeover target at that point, or is that scenario is more likely before Fire River reaches production?
MF: No, I don't think it's going to happen before the company reaches production. I want to point out that there's a lot of skepticism out there about this story. We're banking on it working out. That is probably one of the most fundamental reasons to buy the stock right now. It could be a takeover target if it's successful in production. But I have a feeling that it might be the acquirer down the road rather than the acquired. Fire River will be a relatively small producer; if it works out as we expect, the company may be in the market for a merger with another small producer |
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