The Conference Circuit

Normal service is resumed on the Urbancrows Blog. Lucky you.

October 2021 – the last day of the New Orleans Investment Conference. After 3 long days in the Hilton hotel on Poydrass Street I was into the home stretch. One more day and I’d be heading back to Raincouver and my relentlessly leaky kitchen roof. To maintain my laser focus on the job at hand -promoting my modest silver company- I decided fuzzily through drooping eye lids that a bucket of extremely strong coffee was called for. Off I went to the coffee shop.

Everything was going swimmingly. I’d been in the slow-moving java line for 30 minutes, sipping from a bottle of water, propped up at an alarming angle against a counter full of herbal tea boxes, chocolate covered beans and refillable mugs. I was drifting off into a terminal coma, convinced my time at the front of the line would never come when the man in front of me finally got to the counter. Leaning in close to the perspex-walled counter he uttered the words:

“I’d like a caramel frappacino with soy milk and no caramel. My wife doesn’t like the slimy feeling of the syrup.”

I snorted, narrowly avoiding spitting iced water all over his flabby, sweat-soaked back.

Hi Brien. You Owe Me.

Just before he rudely woke me up, I was idly reminiscing about some of the investment conferences I’ve attended down the years. They’re a necessary evil for junior mining companies. This was my 7th or 8th time in NOLA at Brien Lundin’s annual Fall event (free advertising, you can thank me later Brien) and probably my 40th or 50th retail investor conference over the last 20-odd years.

So why do we go to them?  Well, the idea is to buy expensive dinners and down cocktails by the dozen meet existing investors and possibly attract new ones with a compelling tale of undervalued riches in stable countries (rare). As opposed to overvalued shite in dodgy ones (common). If we want to effectively market, to pitch our stories and tell the investing world why our company is A1-shit-hot we have to attend at least a few each year. Yes, press releases, interviews and social media are an important part of spreading the word but conferences add another layer to our efforts.

From boothy retail investor shows, through nerdy technical conferences replete with dull geological papers, to swank invitation-only institutional get-togethers full of analysts and bankers, like the back streets of Amsterdam there’s something for every taste. I would have to say (modestly of course) that I’m an experienced conference goer. In my 38 years in the business (gulp) I’ve attended them all at least once and some dozens of times. I’ve huddled over tables in hundreds of 1-on-1 meetings, spoken nervously to sleeping audiences in huge halls, and rubbed shoulders with the big-bonus banking suits at manicured golf clubs.  So here goes with a few thoughts on the key types of meeting.

The Mega Industry Conference

It’s PDAC time again! Yay. Break out the Peptobismol. PDAC is one of a clutch of pedigreed industry conferences that traditionally focused on specific geographic regions. Indaba in Cape Town = Africa. Diggers & Dealers in Kalgoorlie = Australia & the Pacific. Mines and Money = er… not sure anymore. And then PDAC which was largely the Americas or anywhere that Canadian companies dared to venture.

PDAC is by far the largest, held every March at the brutalist Metro Convention Centre on Front Street in downtown Toronto. Regular attendees know what March in Ontario means; it’s cold as a witch’s tit and the chances of frost bite as you slip and slide the 7 blocks, hungover, from your hotel to the conference are very real. Front St turns into a frigid wasteland of ice inhabited by thinsulate-clad people running for the Union St station concourse to defrost. But this year is different. This year, thanks to COVID (I knew it would come in handy one day), PDAC is being held in early June. Which means any half competent field geologist will have fucked-off into the bush to actually do some work and won’t be prowling the booths handing out tatty resumes to anyone managerial-looking which apparently isn’t me because I never get given them.

The Unholy Trinity

PDAC has 3 parts. 1) An investors’ hall full of company booths and bored executives looking for someone, anyone, to pitch their story to. 2) The trade show -full of drill rigs, drones and supply companies and the most reliable place come 4pm to swap a business card for a free beer. And last but not least, 3) the technical sessions and short courses where you can learn about the geology of titanium deposits in the Balearic Islands or catch up on the latest thrilling 400-page supplemental information companion policy to the NI43-101 disclosure regulations presented in Dull-o-Vision by a team from our wonderful regulators. Zzzzzz.

I Have To Drink More.

Invitations to outdoor social receptions at PDAC started to arrive weeks ago. For self preservation, I’d normally bin any social event that isn’t within 2-3 blocks of the convention centre, and that reflex almost took over this year. My finger was drifting toward the Won’t Attend button on yet another calendar invitation when it dawned on me that it’s early June and TO is going to be warm WARM I tells ya! So fuck me, yes yes! I’ll be there. Save a cocktail cherry and some of those little pickles for Ralph. Gone is the need for Arctic grade parkas and chemical hand warmers. For once I’ll be able to see properly without taking off a pair of steamed up glasses! I can also get a hair cut just before the conference for the first time in years (I generally rely on my luxurious grey-white mane to keep the back of my head at least partly warm.)

And I am looking forward to that other PDAC constant; the company in booth 23-whatever that convinced itself years ago (godblessum) that a life-sized vibrating rubber waiter -a senile blow up male sex doll- is a good way to promote the company. Depressingly, it blends in well with the aging PDAC crowd and in past years I’ve actually seen a handful of people talking to it hoping for a corporate update.

Watch out Toronto, here I come.

The Retail Investment Conference

Like a familiar cheesy adult-soft rock song or a dull-but-nice friend you run into in the tinned veg aisle at Safeway every so often, the good old retail investment conference (RIC) is reliably predictable. Some conference formats have evolved, some have deservedly gone extinct through chronically bad organization, but the RIC circuit keeps trundling along on its merry way, convincing companies and investors that they have to attend or they’ll MISS OUT ON THE COMING COMMODITY SUPER CYCLE WHEN THE US DOLLAR DIES A SLOW UGLY DEATH GODDAM FIAT CURRENCIES BUY GOLD!!!!!

Fifteen years ago, there was a well-established circuit of 2-day retail investor conferences. We pitched our companies to sleepy investors in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Locked in bland grey conference halls optimised to spread diseases, the company reps spend 2-3 days hunkered down in their 10 by 10 carpeted booths, backed-dropped by colourful pop-up stands waving like tattered standards on a medieval battlefield.

We’re Deluded

The meetings are/were an endurance test of hand shaking, talking, sore feet, coffee and hangovers. The investors who attend range from Joe Normal who’s deluded enough to think they can make money investing in mining company shares, to uber wealthy types (usually old) with multi-million dollar portfolios and some knowledge of the sector who’re deluded enough to think they can make money investing in mining company shares.

Every bull market, junior ExploreCos become easier to finance and the number of companies at the conferences suddenly expands until there might be upwards of 100-150 of the blighters at the more popular ones. Clearly, this makes it very hard for any normal investor to separate the technical wheat from the pumped-up chaff, so the RIC organisers wheel out a bewildering cast of newsletter writers and self-appointed experts to throw investment crumbs to the crowd and edjumakate them. 

When markets are down, like now, the halls are largely devoid of investors with the benjamins to buy shares, and the company people can be seen pacing the aisles picking up business cards to add names to their mailing list, staring jealously at companies with better projects than theirs. And the talking heads wheel out the same old spiel for the grey-haired crowds but it sounds more ominous and convincing in a bear market.

Sex. It Sells.

For a few wonderful years the Vancouver show always coincided with western Canada’s largest sex industry convention which was held in the adjacent hall to the miners; a curious juxtaposition of trades. Our hall had exploration companies, coin dealers and newsletter writers, while next door had dildos, lingerie and flavoured lubes. One was way more fun than the other, although the mining conference was arguably slimier. Happily, many of the young, sexually athletic folk who came looking for tittilating sex aids couldn’t read very well and would take a wrong turn off the main corridor, ending up in the mining hall. Deflated looking couples, clutching bags of free condoms and Bobs (battery operated buddies) would grind to a baffled halt somewhere along Aisle 100. Staring blankly at the mining booths, they were blissfully unaware that the potential for getting fucked was so much higher in our hall.

The Bank-Sponsored Institutional Conference (aka. fight club)

Invite 50-60 junior companies with interesting projects that need funding, add a jigger of major mining houses and put them in a golf resort hotel for 3 days with a heaping spoonful of fund managers and bankers. Then slop in copious quantities of alcohol, lobster and wagu beef, and give it a good stir. That’s a tried and tested cordon bleu recipe for 2 things. 1) Deal flow for the bank with associated mega-fees, and 2) at least one drunken fight as pissed up industry egos clash in the bar after 6 martinis and 5 glasses of red at the pool side social mixer.

Funny enough I’ve always thought these shindigs probably make sound economic sense to the banks. The cost to the bank to hire a hotel and house a couple of hundred peeps, then wheel in trough after sloppy trough of food and wine and throw in a golf game or 2 isn’t actually that much when they may well land an M&A deal or big financing that’s worth a king’s ransom in commissions to the team.

We juniors scramble for invitations to them because they impart a modicum of credibility to our corporate profile: Megabank finds you interesting enough to invite you into their inner sanctum and give you free piss, and fuck me, you might might get invited to give a 10-minute presentation to the red eyed fund managers and analysts. It’s a once-a-year golden opportunity to rub shoulders with important people who might help fund your mine-build 19 years from now. And the beef is amazing.

One on One Meeting Events

If you were to ask me for an unusually effective method of slow torture, first up would be a day in a locked room listening to nothing but country and western music sung in that awful hackneyed twangy Nashville voice. A close second would be cramming in 24 half hour one-on-one meetings into a 2-day “conference” with only the odd pee break to stop your body becoming one with your chair.

These events give the companies what they want most, the opportunity to gaze into the doey eyes of the monied folk for 30 minutes without interruption. Over and over again. By the end of the last meeting on day 2, you know the story so well you could recite it backwards in Aramaic.

Each company is allocated a small room or temporary space, demarcated by thin panels or inflatable walls. The company reps sit and wait for their 10am to turn up, then the 10.30am, then the 11 -ah you get it. A full slate of meetings might be between 24-28 meetings spread over 2 days. And with a crammed schedule it’s always best to have 2 of you to tag team each other so you’re covered when one of you slips comatose below the table, longing for death.

During COVID they were all on-line. The worst ones were a nightmare of lagging internet, echoey feedback and embarrassing incidents usually involving dogs, kids or a lack of clothing; sometimes all 3 at once. Attending the European gatherings meant waking up at 3 or 4 am to take the earlier meetings mid morning UK time, although my colleague and I refused to book anything before 5am PT. Nobody wants to see me, fresh out of the sack, wearing a crumpled shirt and boxers (remember, don’t get up until you’ve switched off the camera folks) and I sure as hell can’t present effectively at 3am.

Anyways, that’s all for now on conferences. I’ve a lot more stories to share (eventually) so long as I can get clearance from my lawyers. I’ll try to send a few updates from PDAC.

And remember…

Next week is PDAC and I’ll be trudging the halls of the convention centre looking for new urbancrows subscribers. So make my day. If you see me, back pack in hand staring blankly at booth 4328, come over and say “Hey Ralph, love your blog, what I want more than anything in life is to subscribe.” Then I’ll tell you your wish can come true if you’d only fill in the small Bauhaus concrete subscription box at the top of this page. Make my day.