The Vancouver-based alliance of mining companies that is Discovery Group has seen some serious value creation in recent years with more than $2.4 billion generated from merger and acquisition (M&A) activity since 2016.
Highlights have included explorer Great Bear Resources (TSX-V:GBR) being acquired by major Kinross this year for $1.8 billion and Kaminak Metals, acquired by Goldcorp in 2016, for $520 million.
The latter (Kaminak) was led by highly experienced geologist and executive Dr Rob Carpenter, who steered the company through the discovery and sale of the company's 5 million-ounce Coffee gold project in the Yukon.
Carpenter is now co-chairman at Prospector Metals Corp, another Discovery Group company, which has an exciting portfolio of gold and base metal assets in Canada, and he hopes to pull off the same trick again.
"The idea is simple. We want to acquire exploration projects and drill them, own 100% of them, and sell them," Carpenter told the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in June, 2022 as he outlined the Prospector story.
"We are not miners. We're not trying to put things into development. We are who we are. We're geologists and we're financiers and our objective is to find unloved or overlooked early-stage assets and bring them to drill-stage," he told the conference.
Prospector is a firm, which is looking for new projects - not re-drilling old ones - and it is focused on assets with district-scale potential, which, it knows, are more saleable to majors.
Under-explored or overlooked
It describes its focus as identifying 'underexplored or overlooked' districts which "display important structural and mineralogical similarities with well-endowed mining camps".
Prospector's main assets are the almost 12,000 hectare (Ha) Toogood gold project in Newfoundland (with a strike length of over 28 km) and the 23,000 Ha Savant property in Ontario, where there are several high-grade iron formation-hosted surface gold occurrences.
Also in Ontario, the company holds the Whitton Lake nickel, copper property, which boasts "multiple magmatic sulphide and VMS type targets".
At Toogood, the company has recently received approval for drilling and trenching in the 2022-2023 seasons and results have already been very promising.
In August this year, it reported encouraging drill results from its maiden program at Toogood, with 2,064.5 metres (m) sunk across the Quinlan, Titan and Sherwood zones.
And later in the same month, it reported gold grab samples and two new occurrences, including yields of up to 67.23 grams per tonne (g/t) gold at the newly-identified Vic prospect, 29.51 g/t gold at the Chimo prospect, and 15.29 g/t gold at the Sherwood zone.
"With large areas of untouched ground, we are just getting started and are excited to continue exploring untested areas," CEO Alex Heath had told investors.
Meanwhile, at Savant, the company recently revealed it had defined a second, previously unrecognized, corridor called the Snowbird-Shoal Deformation Zone, following on from its previously outlined Wiggle Deformation Zone (WDZ).
Sampling at the second deformation zone included assays such as 99.6 grams per ton (g/t) gold, 60 g/t and 13.25 g/t. At the first WDZ zone, the company had already previously reported grab sample assays of 2.34, 68.6, 26.5, and 4.3 g/t gold.
"We've identified the first deformation zone with gold in it, upwards 60 plus grams per ton. That was enough of, in itself, to start a drill program. Since then, we've done a second program, we've found more, so it looks like, rather than go straight to drilling, we'll do a little bit more work, then we'll start drilling," said Heath in a recent interview with Proactive, adding that drilling could start early in 2023.
Different approach
He also explained that the company, in keeping with its business model, was taking a different exploration approach at Savant.
"Previous operators here had looked at geophysical targets, then drilled them, whereas we are trying to look for areas the gold might be present, so we're looking at these deformation zones and this is exactly what we've identified," he said.
Prospector is earning into 70% of Savant following a joint venture deal with Capella Minerals and is back on the ground currently, focused on more field work, including laser imaging surveys over the whole property.
The asset has seen little previous exploration and Prospector is keen to get a better understanding of the geological structures, which dictate the presence of mineralization.
So pardon the pun, but the prospects for Prospector look pretty good.
It is operating in a proven jurisdiction, has a portfolio brimming with potential and boasts a very experienced board of geologists and financiers.
For an investor, it could well be an explorer to keep tabs on.
Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com