interest in toronto, page-14

MK in Toronto

March 3, 2008
Cara's Commentary & Community Chat, Mon., Mar. 3, 2008, 8:46am ET
On Saturday morning I made a decision I kind of regret. It would have been nice to meet Robin Williams, John Travolta, Elton John, Tom Cruise… After all I had been invited to a freebie.

I was asked by PDAC if I wanted to attend, as media, the Bill Clinton-Frank Giustra event at the Westin, but I’ll be (in the Westin hotel lobby) watching the Leaf hockey game over beers with Jock, Aussieontop, Don, Ofer and a couple more. I mean, I have to stay in training for The Big Show.
I also remarked on Saturday, “If you haven’t attended one of these Prospector & Developer Association of Canada events in the past few years, it will be an eye-opener. Enjoy.” But when I said I would be working five consecutive 20 hour days, many of you may have raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

Proof of Concept was getting to bed after 1:30am that night and then opening the media room at 9am Sunday at the convention, already having put in three hours. Returned to my hotel with Jock last evening after midnight and kept working. Got up this morning before six and saw that Jock had been posting on the blog and sending me mail until almost 3am and that Gordie McKinnon (Baltic Resources) had emailed him at 1am with important material regarding a merger that will be approved today at a shareholders’ meeting. I’ll let Jock write about that, but it sounds like an opportunity for you.

This is the world's premier conference of the mining industry. This is a not one of those investor conferences where traders and investors go to hear the subscription newsletter writers and Talking Heads, although most of those people are here too -- at least those who know a tonne from a ton.

You can smell the money as 20,000 people jostle for deals, for information, for another free drink, and so forth. This is networking at its best.

"""My private banker from EFG Bank, Rosalyn Brown, arrived late morning from Nassau via Miami, having cabbed in with a junior gold analyst from Goldman Sachs she met at the airport. She then left her luggage in the hotel lobby and went straight into a luncheon meeting with Michael Kiernan, a very successful Aussie who is developing Monarch Gold Mining Co and India Resources Ltd. """"

Aussieontop, who is mine manager of one of Goldcorp’s biggest mines btw, joined us at that session, along with Vicki Russell who has a TV show on Friday's at BNN. Vicki is a securities lawyer who was VP of Corporate Affairs for Goldcorp when it was run by Rob McEwen. Now she's a deal-maker. After the Cambridge Gold show last fall, she was off to the Gold conference in London, so she gets around to these events.

I’ll get their notes later before writing it up, particularly from Aussieontop, who is a metallurgist.

By the end of her day, sometime between 10 and 11, EFG's Rosalyn Brown had met half the Canadian mining hall of fame. By the end of the week she will have met them all. A highlight was when someone said to her yesterday, “I’m raising over $600 million secured by a bond that I’ll price to yield between 11 and 12 pct. I’d like your bank involved.”

Yes, if you are interested in making money, this is the place to come. The top people in mining come here from every part of the world. You meet so many of them, so quickly, that you need to operate on auto-pilot. At least I do.

Then there is joey. She exclaimed, "Jock gave me a list of three dozen companies to meet. In a whole day, I was only able to get through three and a half." As a lawyer she was trained to dot the i's and cross the t's. She's a real help to Jock's Team Cara in digging out those gems and nuggets we came here to discover. I wish I had her stamina.

During the day I was receiving messages from many of you who couldn’t find me in the swarm of people. But I did get to meet about two dozen of you, from Southern California to New York, Montreal and Ottawa to Vancouver. Too many cities to mention, really, but I thank you all for coming.

I can see that you can’t wait to come back next year, as Jock from St. Louis did this year.

Next year my goal is to have at least 100 you join us here. I’ll try to organize a private room inside the convention center for Caraista meetings and hospitality.

Being so busy, I’ll have to leave it to the others to write up the various companies and situations they like. There is no shortage of them.

There is also no shortage of good storytelling here. Frank Kruzich, a retired broker and mining engineer who I have known for many years, told me his favorite line was from the promoter who told the audience, “Wise investing… (we’re offering) the stability of income, and the leverage of discovery.”

You know, some of these promoters ought to be bloggers. Or fiction writers. (LOL)

And Frank has quite a sense of humor. Noting that my convention badge says Nassau Bahamas, he was asking if I'd give him a lift home.

Have a good day. If it's a good as mine, it will be a great day.