MUNICH – EUROPE's biggest gold show welcomed about 6,000 retail investors today (Friday), most of 'em chanting, not F- You Papandreou, but Love You, Paps.
“The Germans love their silver and gold,” specialist trader and market maker Michael Kott says, as he shows a group of Canadian prospectors and execs the current and wildly hilarious YouTube video of the Greek PM. (Germans bring their euros to buy this stuff, sometimes briefcases of it … the euros that is – Thom Calandra photo)
The German hoi polloi are loving Paps and Greece because this latest European Union and G20 debt crisis is foaming the precious metals. The common folk before our eyes are buying loads of silver and gold coins and bars at the Munich Metals Show.
“It may not be like it was in 2008 (when bullion dealers at this show literally sold out their inventories in the first hour or so), but people still line up for their silver in wheel barrels,” says Cary Pinkowski of Astur Gold, a Spain prospector exhibiting here.
I swear, when Eric Sprott just minutes ago told a truly SRO crowd “the central banks are surreptitiously leasing their gold,” generally staid and straight-laced Germans went blotzo. The Munich Metals Show, a two-day November-fest, also goes by the name Edelmetallmesse Munich.
Canadian and British and USA junior prospectors say Germany' sensible citizens are accounting for 10 percent and more of the shareholder base. Some of the CEO and attendant characters here include Great Panther Silver's (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) Bob Archer, Minaurum's Darrell Rader, Miranda's (TSX: V.MAD, Stock Forum) Ken Cunningham, Riverstone Resources' Don Mosher, Goldgroup (TSX: T.GGA, Stock Forum)'s Keith Piggott and Gregg Sedun and Zimtu Capital's (TSX: V.ZC, Stock Forum) David Hodge.
Also waving their flags: Scorpio Gold's (TSX: V.SGN, Stock Forum) Peter Hawley (in photo here laying out Nevada mine to two German attendees) the folks behind Portugal gold and tungsten prospector Colt Resources, Saskatchewan's Western Potash, Arizona's Passport Potash, tantalum developer Commerce Resources, Mexico's Corex, John Shanahan's Revett Minerals (TSX: T.RVM, Stock Forum) … you get the picture.
Germans at this conference are starting to take greater interest than they used to in miners and prospectors. There are even a few companies, their booths crowded with questioning investors, who have yet to go public.
That's rare for the retail crowd.
Tamaka Gold is one of those privates, poised to trade publicly after Howard Katz's Ontario property developer raised $12 million a couple of months ago. Mr. Katz says Tamaka is a lot like another company he assisted in its early days, Guyana gold and copper developer Sandspring Resources (TSX: V.SSP, Stock Forum).
“We have an open pit project, an existing compliant resource of 1.1 million ounces (1.7 million in all categories), and money in the bank,” says Mr. Katz, a Toronto financier.
I think Tamaka is a moonshot when it has its debutante ball later this year or early next, just as Sandspring caught fire two years ago. (Don Mosher of Burkina Faso's Riverstone also had some eye-popping metrics for me, more about that later.)
A longstanding German investor in resources, Ralf Sommer, owns shares of Miranda and Colt, among others. Mr. Sommer, having to raise his voice so that I can catch his drift in the scrum of the Olympia Park conference venue here, says his fellow citizens might have a longer time frame than trigger finger North Americans and Brits.
“It has not been a tough six months,” he says about the metals equities worldwide, “it has been a tough five years.”
Mr. Sommer, well known from years of Frankfurt based investing, says “the Papandreou f***-ups make places where my investments are, Miranda in Nevada, Colt in Portugal, look politically safe, so he and all of the rest of these jokers can go on f***ing up fiscally, I'm somewhat protected.”
Mr. Kott, the broker and market specialist, who was blasting that Paps video from his CM. Equity offices downtown in old Munich, has enjoyed a booming business in Canada juniors, thanks to investors such as Ralf Sommer. That's Michael Kott in this photo, with me on the left and Canada conference organizer Joe Martin on the right. “I find these companies want to maximize their European shareholders because they are, let's say, more predictable than some of those in North America.”
Mr. Kott, age 45, has been distributing shares of junior resource companies for 10 years. He says all of Germany's regional exchanges have about 1,000 dual or triple-listed Canada junior resources companies trading.
Michael just went to see a couple of gold companies in Colombia, including CB Gold. He invests and places shares with clients who control about $45 million of assets and is a selling agent for private placements.
The tour I am on, led by Zimtu Capital’s portfolio of private and public metals prospectors,is crisscrossing Switzerland, Germany and Austria in a big sporty bus.(Pleasesee tour stops.)
NOTES: I am a partner of investor outreach firm Torrey Hills Capital in Del Mar, near San Diego, California. Great Panther in the article above is a Torrey Hills client. So is Goldgroup. So is Revett Minerals (RVM). So is Scorpio Gold.
Stockhouse members – the service is free – can see my entire portfolio online. It is under the portfolio function and my user name, which is TCALANDRA. Aside from Central Fund of Canada (TSX: T.CEF.A, Stock Forum), there is little to nothing in my portfolio suitable for risk-averse investors. I am not a financial adviser or planner. In this article, I am a shareholder of Great Panther and Scorpio Gold and Revett Minerals.
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