Company:
Manhattan Metals is a gold and silver exploration company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, focused on acquiring high-grade, overlooked gold deposits in Nevada
Focus: A pre-IPO gold and silver exploration company focused on developing a mill for a 250,000-ounce gold deposit in Nevada.
Business Model: Instead of targeting multi-million-ounce deposits, the company acquires and develops overlooked or “orphan” high-grade deposits that major companies often ignore. This is straightforward in concept but rare in practice–since everybody is looking for the big ounces or the super high grade. Since mining is often quite capital intensive, few folks try to look for nickels and dimes in their search.
Founder
Manhattan Metals is founded by veteran geologist William “Bill” Sheriff, who previously co-founded Energy Metals Corp and built the largest domestic uranium resource base in U.S. history before that company sold for $1.8 billion in 2007. He’s currently also involved with a uranium-focused venture called Manhattan Uranium Discovery Corp, which trades publicly on the TSXV
Unique Model
The core insight behind Manhattan Metals is that in Nevada, one of the most gold-rich states in the US, there are more than 300 identified gold districts that contain hundreds of viable deposits that sit idle because they do not meet the scale requirements of major producers. In other words, nickels and dimes aren’t worth much, but billions of them are worth a lot.
A deposit of 250,000 ounces of gold is worth over one billion dollars at current prices. Yet without a mill and without institutional-scale tonnage, it generates nothing. This is where they are focusing moving forward as they go public.
Fast food joints don’t get rich because of the cost of their burgers, it’s their scale of how many burgers sold–This is a similar story
Assets and Speculation
Manhattan Metals currently controls seven Nevada properties, including one with a historic resource of several hundred thousand ounces and an under-explored high-grade vein system in their disposal, too. This under explored system has only three drill holes completed, thus far.
They have over 50 other prospects that have interested them as candidates to explore further in their back pocket. They also own an in-house reverse circulation drilling rig for validation of further exploration
Balance Sheet
Since this company is Pre-IPO and pre-revenue, I can’t get my hands on a quick and easy balance sheet because it means there is no publicly filed balance sheet, income statement, or cash flow statement to analyze. Unfortunately this cannot be used as a source of support, but as they go public they will be obliged to upload this for us.
Status
The company has already acquired a 400-ton-per-day gravity flotation mill which is a tangible hard asset that distinguishes it from the majority of junior mining companies whose primary asset is a future promise that access to a mill will soon come. The mill needs to be relocated and re-permitted, a process that will no doubt take years even after it goes public.
The IPO itself is contingent on nailing down a permanent mill site — with no set timeline too.
Closing
I have written about project generators, royalty companies, junior gold miners and seniors–this, is a sort of new category all together, while still operating shoulder to shoulder than the other companies. Being bullish in commodities, specifically for precious metals adds considerable weight to this story but for now, this is only the movie trailer.
As of now, I recommend viewing this as an exciting opportunity with a new type of business model in the mining space coupled with real skepticism until we can see audited financials, a registration statement, or third-party geological reports (NI 43-101 or similar).
I remain at your disposal with updates, to share future interesting opportunities like the following and should you want investment management services 1-1, specific to your broader holistic lifestyle, international portfolio of assets, we can work together on this using Sea Lion Investment Office Ltd. Limited number of investors available.
