Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: Gold Stocks

FinEx Metals (TSX-V: FINX) Chairman Tero Kosonen on Finland’s Next High-Grade Gold Discovery, Infrastructure Edge & Drilling On Deck

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is a very special guest for a very special company. He’s the chairman of FinEx Metals Ltd. (TSX-V: FINX) — Mr. Tero Kosonen. Tero, it’s great to have you on. How are you today, sir?

Tero Kosonen: Thank you, Gerardo. I’m doing very well and hopefully you are as well.

Gerardo Del Real: I’m doing excellent. Listen, we talked for about 20 seconds off-air. And I mentioned to you that I thought your timing was absolutely excellent with FinEx. It’s great to be good — and sometimes just as great to be lucky — and I think you have a little bit of both.

Let me tell you what has really stood out to me about FinEx. One, the capital markets experience. Two, the large land package around major companies and active mines, which I think is underappreciated. Three, the infrastructure. And four, the fact that you have drill permits in hand means you have major catalysts.

When I look at all of that, it checks a lot of boxes. There are a lot of other things I like about FinEx, and I want to get into those individually. But before we dive in, I want to start with your capital markets experience and background. 

Then, I want to touch on the technical expertise, which I think is going to be critical in this central belt you’re working in, this belt of rocks that’s already proven to host multiple multi-million-ounce gold discoveries.

Tero Kosonen: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. First of all, yes, I’m Tero Kosonen, born and raised in Finland. That explains the name and the accent. I got a non-technical business degree from Finland, and I spent the first 24 years of my life there.

I then moved to China and ended up spending about 27 years in mainland China and Singapore before relocating to Vancouver about three years ago. Most of my career, I’ve been an entrepreneur and investor. 

I started buying gold in 2003 and then moved into gold major equities and eventually into the most adventurous part — junior mining — around 2014, participating in private placements ever since.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: FinEx Metals is actually my first ever executive position in a junior mining company, and I’m truly excited about it. I’m also a co-founder of a company called NewQuest Capital, which is an entrepreneurial, discovery-driven investment group that focuses on incubating and financing early-stage exploration projects globally.

And when I say globally, for us that means Australia, the Western US, Canada — and, of course, Finland. We’re very selective on jurisdiction. We like technical risk but not jurisdictional risk. And as you know, in today’s geopolitical climate, jurisdictional risk can be very real.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Let’s dive into the technical aspect of it. And then, I want to dive into the jurisdiction and how you ended up with all of this 100%-owned prime real estate with phenomenal infrastructure.

Again, some of that is you and the team being very good at what you do. Some of it has to be luck — and I’ll ask you about that. But first, let’s talk about that technical team because they’re the ones who will ultimately uncover and unlock what Mother Nature left behind.

What we’re hoping for is multi-million-ounce high-grade gold deposits with phenomenal infrastructure. That’s the hope. How we get there is all about the team and the approach. 

You’ve already had a lot of success with your sampling. I believe one result was up to 95 grams per tonne gold. I think there were something like 50 samples — some ridiculously high number. You don’t usually get that kind of early success just from sampling, right?

Tero Kosonen: Absolutely, thank you. And yes, we’ve been very fortunate — I mean, really, really fortunate. That said, as I mentioned earlier, my background is more of a generalist. I’m non-technical — I’m not a geologist — so I’ve always focused on attracting the best technical minds to support our work. I don’t micromanage them. I’m not going to tell them where to drill or what to do. My job is to attract, retain, and motivate the best talent out there.

And I got really lucky with the team we have right now. We have a great Finnish geological team; boots on the ground, so to speak. They know the lay of the land, they know the geology, they know the stakeholders — whether that’s government officials or others. 

More importantly, they know how to operate in the region. They speak the language. They know who the trustworthy and reliable service partners are. That’s absolutely critical for a small company — essentially a mining startup — at the stage we’re in right now.

The whole idea behind FinEx actually started because of Rupert Resources and their fantastic Ikkari discovery in 2020. Let’s be frank, even though I was born and raised in Finland, I never thought, ‘One day I’m going to lead a gold exploration company there.’ That wasn’t the original plan. But Rupert’s Ikkari discovery really changed our thinking.

At NewQuest Capital, we realized we needed to establish a presence in Finland and set up a company focused on gold exploration. So the first thing I did was reach out to some of my old contacts at GTK — that’s the Finnish Geological Survey — and I asked them: ‘Who’s the best available exploration geologist right now?’ I said, ‘Give me a name and number, and I’ll reach out.’

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: They came back with the name Dr. Petri Peltonen. I reached out to Petri and briefly introduced myself, my background, what I’ve been doing, and what I wanted to achieve. As it turned out, he had some availability and agreed to take on a consultant role as our chief geologist. I’m very fortunate that he did and that he was able to help us assemble the land package we have today.

As you mentioned, it’s located in the highly prospective Central Lapland Greenstone Belt. We’re only about 17 kilometers from Europe’s largest gold-producing mine — the Kittilä Mine operated by Agnico Eagle. We’re on the same belt as Rupert’s Ikkari discovery about 53 kilometers away. It’s incredibly exciting. And frankly, I don’t think you could assemble a land package like this today… certainly not like we did about four years ago.

So yes, FinEx has been around for four years but mostly as a private company. As you know, we just listed on the TSX Venture Exchange less than four weeks ago. This is a very young public story. But over those four years, we’ve done a lot of systematic work, and we’re now at the stage where we’ll be able to drill test our flagship, priority gold target.

As you mentioned earlier, we had some excellent sampling results last summer. We did extensive trenching, and that’s another advantage we have. We’re operating on dry land whereas many other projects in Finland are located in wetland or swampy areas. They can’t trench at all, and they can only drill during the winter season.

We were able to trench, and we saw some really spectacular numbers from outcrop. I should emphasize, these are not channel samples — they’re rock grab samples — but they came from an area about 400 meters by 500 meters. And that’s the area we’ll be drill testing actually starting in about two weeks.

Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned jurisdiction being critical. You also mentioned the government support, which is absolutely critical.

Tero Kosonen: Yes.

Gerardo Del Real: But the other aspect to it is infrastructure. It’s great to have a multi-million-ounce high-grade gold deposit — everyone should be so lucky. Let’s see if we get there with FinEx.

Tero Kosonen: Right.

Gerardo Del Real: Rupert has proven it. And they have a project that, at current prices, is approaching a couple of billion dollars in net present value. You have a tiny, tiny market cap. Where is it today?

Tero Kosonen: I think we’re right around C$18 million.

Gerardo Del Real: Right. Let’s call it C$20 million just for kicks.

Tero Kosonen: Okay, sure.

Gerardo Del Real: The difference between C$20M and C$2B means there’s a lot of runway there if you’re successful with the drill bit. And being close to infrastructure is — and this is me looking way ahead, as I typically do — but if you do make that significant discovery at your flagship, you’re going to benefit from that infrastructure. 

And it’s going to make the economics that much more attractive. And when you have major operators like Agnico already in the region, and other big players as well, it makes exploration success a whole lot more fun. Can you talk about the infrastructure in place already?

Tero Kosonen: Absolutely. First of all, let’s start with where we are. We’re at about latitude 68 so pretty far up north. It’s roughly 170 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Now, if you compare that to Canada or many other jurisdictions at that latitude, people might think, ‘Tero, forget about it… there’s nothing up there. It’s just pure wilderness.’

Well, yes, we do have pristine nature. But at the same time, the infrastructure is absolutely amazing. Think about it — we’ve got great road access. Most of it is paved, or at the very least, very well-maintained forest roads.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: For example, from our field office — which just so happens to be located at a ski resort — it’s only about a 55-minute drive to our drill site. And from there, we only have to walk another two or three hundred meters to reach the actual drill location. So I’m just saying that it doesn’t get much better than that.

On top of that, we have power lines, mobile networks, 4G and 5G, water supply, basically everything is already there.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: As you said, should we be fortunate enough to make a real discovery, the capex is going to be very, very reasonable with that kind of infrastructure.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: And I guess the other thing I want to emphasize… because when people talk about infrastructure, it’s usually all about roads, power, and networks… but I also include human resources. It’s very important. First of all, of course, we don’t need helicopters or camps — that’s obvious.

Gerardo Del Real: Yes.

Tero Kosonen: But I’m talking about the quality of the people. There’s a very skilled labor force in the area. We’ve got good geologists, excellent service providers, and the drillers know the terrain, and the geophysics and all of that. The consultants are experienced.

So it’s all there, which is fantastic and really helpful for us. The point is, we don’t need to fly people in from all over the world to do the work. They’re already there.

Gerardo Del Real: What comes next, Tero? The million-dollar question, hopefully. What comes next? How do we see what Mother Nature left behind and how much?

Tero Kosonen: Well, that’s right. Again, your guess is as good as mine at this point. And that’s what makes this upcoming drill program so exciting. As I said, we’re going to be starting in about two weeks — so at the very end of July — and it’ll run for about six to seven weeks through mid-September. We’re planning 2,500 meters.

And again, it’s super exciting, not just for me and our geologists on the ground but also for our senior advisors here in Canada and several geologically savvy investors and institutions who’ve done their due diligence and backed FinEx. Everyone’s excited. I’ll be flying over in about 10 days and will be there on-site.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, let’s do this from the field. You’ve got great 4G and 5G. I’d love to have you on and chat as the drill bit starts spinning.

Tero Kosonen: That would be something. And you know what… maybe we can even get some reindeer in the video.

Gerardo Del Real: Let’s do it! 

Tero Kosonen: What would be more authentic than that?

Gerardo Del Real: I mean, you can’t beat that. Tero, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I really think your timing is perfect, and I believe Q3 and Q4 are going to be exciting — not just for gold but especially for FinEx. You’ve got a lot of catalysts coming up.

We didn’t even get into some of the other projects as I wanted to keep today’s discussion focused on the flagship. Let’s talk about those other projects next time because your portfolio is full of them.

Tero Kosonen: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Gerardo. I really appreciate this. Thank you and cheers.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers. 

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