When Stockhouse Editorial last caught up with
Fission 3.0 Corp. (
TSX-V.FUU,
OTC: FISOF,
Forum)
back in August and its CEO Dev Randhawa, we were just introducing our audience to this uranium value play that really is truly unlike any other. In this exclusive and intriguing video podcast interview, Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson caught up with Mr. Randhawa to get investors and company shareholders completely up to date with Fission 3.0 and its vision looking forward.
(Click image to play video)
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
DR: I have been in the uranium space since about 1996, when a very smart guy named Rick Rule and encouraged by another fine man, Lukas Lundin, were saying that they knew uranium was a great place to be. I could barely spell it. We were in there and saw that bubble and then 2005 and 2007. We have been at this for awhile. I have been very fortunate to be a part of some great teams that made two world-class discoveries and have some great support from the likes of Eric Sprott, Peter Grosskopf, and Mr. Rule. It has been a fabulous ride. I am glad that Mr. Rule and group encouraged me to be in the uranium space to begin with.
SH: Can you update our investor audience and your Fission 3.0 shareholders on any new company developments, especially in the wake of COVID-19?
DR: Absolutely. I think the elephant in the room is what Sprott has done in buying the physical uranium, finding the physical and driving the spot price from 31, 32 into the 50s. I just can't say it enough what he’s done. For some time, I think Rick Rule talked about how it is like picturing an elephant trying to fit inside a vase. That is what is going to happen when general funds try to come into this space. There is just so little product out there and it has been pruned and pruned. Where we are today, uranium is back in favor. It is the flavor and stock prices have gone up. People are raising money. It is a very good time to be in this space.
Now we are going to have some ups and downs, like you are seeing some profit taking going on. I think in the long term the biggest change would be for President Biden to say, okay, we are going to spend $61 billion on keeping the reactors in good shape, that Trump had started, I think that was the big signal. I think people are finally seeing that as much as we attempt green energy, you can't have that conversation, in the real world, without nuclear power. You need baseload power and that means we need crank it up. You can't tell the sun to crank up, you can't tell the wind to crank up, and you have got to have a mix. I think a blessing by Biden's group has made that - look, if we are serious about tackling these Paris Accord or any ESG targets, it has got to be a part of it. I think people see that. It has just been one piece after another, and finally Sprott drove the spot prices up, which has obviously led to our company’s stock doing very well and as we will discuss, doing a nice bought financing that puts us in a position to go after some great targets.
SH: You’ve recently announced a brokered private placement for up to $7 million dollars, along with a warrant extension. This may be news to many investors. Can you unpack the benefits of this?
DR: It is life changing. In a bear market, you are looking to buy. In our world that means staking, looking for people to drop land. Every bull market, people just go online, buy anything. We have been looking at people that drop land that we think is very strategic. We are using the same scientific approach that led us to discover the boulders that led to PLS, which led to Next Gen. We use that approach, we are looking for shallow targets throughout the basin but up to this point with no money, all we could do really was, do the odd program of focusing, now by having this $7 million and we can actually go to 8 and we could have probably done 12. There was so much demand. It allows us to start exploring and the timing is perfect because now we know the money is coming in, and we can start to get the ice thicker in December, so we can go on the ice in January and February and drill on three different targets. This financing puts us back, because at the end of the day that is what we are, an exploration company, which means our goal is to make another world-class discovery, preferably something like PLS.,
SH: For company shareholders and potential investors, what kind of future development and progress can we expect at your uranium various properties and projects throughout the prolific Athabasca Basin?
DR: Our plan is to explore, either using our money or other people's money. We are talking on a daily basis with people who want to be in the uranium space and looking at how they get exposure to it. We are talking to joint venture partners all the time. We have had 18 projects, and what I've learned in my almost 30 years in the business, is that the only two places you can really make money under $70 bucks, which is Athabasca or Kazakhstan doing ISL. Athabasca is the best place to be, because that is a closed game in Kazakhstan, you just can't, you can only earn 49%. The only real business, if you want to make money, is the Athabasca. Our grades are 10, 20 times the rest of the world. Also, we have all the rules in place to make sure you are protected. It is the place to be, and we want to explore these targets we have had for a while. This funding is very crucial to where we want to go.
SH: Can you tell our audience a little bit about your corporate management and board teams, along with the experience and innovative ideas they bring to the uranium exploration and development space?
DR: That is a great word, innovative. It is called Fission 3.0 because it was a company called Fission Energy, we made a discovery with the Koreans. We then took the west side of the basin; we had sold the east side of the basin to Lukas Lundin and Denison. We took the piece out in the left and made another discovery and then spun out all the exploration assets into Fission 3.0. That is unusual, that you would buy a stock in 2007 and today if you look in your account, you own Energy Fuels, Denison, Fission Uranium, and Fission 3.0. I mean you already have four stocks by owning one stock because we have always aligned ourselves with shareholders. That is not a fluke, that comes from a management team that is committed, that writes checks along with everybody else.
Our interests are aligned with shareholders. We have got that attitude, we write checks. I generally am the largest retail shareholder. I have never been given any shares; I have bought every share I have ever owned. It is not like I rolled in a project and got a bunch of shares. Same as Ross [McElroy], same as Ray [Ashley]. The Athabasca is a very unique place and until this innovative idea that everybody said - it was like a little Bible read “thou shall not go west.” Okay. “Thou shall not look outside the basin.” Well, PLS is on the west side of the basin, and it is actually not technically in the basin, the basin technically where you have got sandstone above basement and where they meet is unconformity. We don't have any sandstone over there which is good for prolonging the exploration but also mining. You have wet stuff which as you know caused a lot of problems with Cigar Lake.
That is the key innovative scientific approach that Ray Ashley, Ross [McElroy], the whole team has done. We found these boulders by flying an airplane literally meters off the ground along the lake, when we found and there is really like a Geiger counter running along. Basically, instead of sending out a million students to cover the basin and the rocks and looking for boulders, we were able to do it by flying. That team is still there. I am very happy that we have been able to put it back together in the last week or two. It is the right place, Athabasca. We have the right team of people who have made two discoveries. I don't think nobody else has done that and then finally, we needed money and Red Cloud has been fantastic. Bruce [Tatters] and the group, they have been very supportive and a big fan of Dave Talbot, he has been following us for a long time and he was more excited about boulders than we used to be, so he is a great guy I have. Thanks to Red Cloud and obviously Mr. Grosskopf, we have money now to hopefully make another discovery and maybe you have Fission 4.0!
SH: What separates Fission 3.0 from the competition and makes your business model unique?
DR: I like the project generator model. It says, it is your mines, your property, other people's money, which is what Rick has always said that’s the safest way to explore. You can't possibly drill 18 properties. You need partners. We are different, I guess, because as people look at uranium now, anything with the name uranium jumped up, but as it happens, people will start to say what company is different. I would encourage investors to be careful about looking at jumping on deals that didn't work in the last cycle, but now promoters will find them, put lipstick on them and try to make them look better than they were. They are not. To me, if you really are serious about making money, whatever you have got in your portfolio, you must have an exploration stock in that portfolio and if you are going to do it, you might as well do it with a team that at least made two discoveries before.
To me, we are all about exploring because if you look at any stock, you look at Next Gen, you look at Fission and you look at IsoEnergy. Any of these companies that have made a discovery look what those stocks did, right? Whereas development companies don't, they might go up 20%, 50%, but they are not going to go at 10, 20 times. That is what a discovery does. I think if you are a shrewd investor, you want to have a Cameco, a developer, but you should have some exploration. You are going to do it. Your might as well be with, I think, the team with the best track record of exploration. I would say we are different because we have been in the uranium space, we are not new to it. We have not left it to do marijuana deals, gold deals or lithium, we have stuck to uranium.
SH: I have to mention your stock has had a very nice bump over the last month…nearly doubling in in value over the past 30 days What can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s still a good value buy right now?
DR: Sure. It has jumped up because of the spot price and that is out of our control. The question is what do you do with it? We jumped quickly and grabbed some money. I think that if you believe uranium, and I have heard different people say that you might see Sprott buy this spot stuff up to $65, $70, because they feel it is worth $120. I have heard that from different sources. If that is the case, we have got a long bull market ahead of us. I would say we are a great value at 17, 18 cents because we're one of, I would say, a rare group that is looking to make a discovery. We are not trying to take an old project, dress it up with more lipstick and makeup, make it look better than the last cycle, which you are going to see a lot of. I remember in 2005, I went on a road trip to London with Jamie Strauss, there was five companies, you couldn’t find five uranium companies. Within a year there was roughly I think 198 uranium companies and you are going to see the same thing again. The question is management, management, management, and location, location, location. I think that is what sets us apart. I believe that is why you want to bet on people who have done it before. Do you want to give it to Michael Jordan to throw the free throw or do you want somebody else to throw it? I'll go with Michael Jordan.
SH: What’s the long-term strategy for the company moving through 2021 and beyond, and what should retail, and institutional investors be looking out for?
DR: We are setting up to make sure we have got money and partners to properly develop our projects. Hopefully we make a discovery, and we will spin the rest out again and that is what we have always done. We have three projects we love, another 15 we liked but there are some projects we really love, and we want to put holes in and learn. It takes time. I have just encouraged investors to be patient but when you are a patient exploration stock, you are well rewarded, you know, 10, 20 times the stock, then by development. Be patient, we are raising enough money here to drill our three projects by ourselves, that is if we don't get joint ventures. If we get joint ventures, we should be able to explore five, six properties, hopefully.
SH: And finally, Dev, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate.
DR: It comes down to the spot price in terms of the overall market. I think everybody's going to have to watch that but two, bet on people who have done it before. It is funny, I am like every other investor always looking for ideas to invest. I never looked at so much the idea but the people. We kept our overhead very low in this bear market and as a result we are well cashed up. With this money coming in - I think we might get 8 done. We are close to $10 million, and we still got a very lean group. I would just say you want to do your homework. I think three, four months ago, uranium was off, in the last month it has really been there. Just do your homework on management and to make sure you add an exploration piece here to your portfolio because that is what really makes the difference, I believe.
For more information, visit
www.fission3corp.com.
To view Fission 3.0’s latest corporate presentation, click
here.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.