Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. (ASM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So thanks for being here today, David. Good to see you.

Good to be back. Thank you for having me.

So could you introduce yourself to the viewers?

David Wolfin, the President and CEO of Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd.

Awesome. And how long have you been involved with Avino Silver & Gold Mines, which your father founded?

My father founded the company in 1968, so I was one year old. I went to the mine in the '70s, worked in the mine as a teenager, learned mining from the ground up basically. I worked in Nevada. He financed the gold mine there. He was a successful stock broker and financed mining operations. So I grew up learning the mining business, then I learned in the field of finance in Vancouver, on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. I was 19 years old during the crash in '87. I was on the floor. I saw that and the carnage that came globally after that, worked in the industry for a few years, and then my father asked me to join him because he had several public companies in his office and he needed help. So I joined him in the early 2000s. And well, actually, no, I joined in mid-1990s. And then we went through the tech bubble and gold and silver went down and the mine closed. And I said to my father, we should buy the other half of the mine. We only own 49% because that was all he could own in the early '70s when he set up the company. And so he appointed me President and I negotiated with the family in 2006, they finally agreed. We gave them shares, so we got 100%. And then I raised a bunch of money privately through my network, and we went drilling. We did 30,000 meters of drilling. And then the global financial crisis happened in 2008. So then the stock went down, but we had enough money. We had $6 million or $7 million still in the bank, and I told the Chief Operating Officer, let's get cash flow. Let's get the mill back up and running. It's been down for 8 or 9 years and [indiscernible] local village people went up there and took a bunch of the stuff, but -- the wires and stuff, but they couldn't carry off the most important stuff, the buildings, the crushers and that. So we reassembled the plant and in 2011, recommissioned it. And then the rest is history. We brought it back up to its former glory and then went through three expansions. And today, we're operating at 2,500 tons per day and 600 employees.

Awesome. So yes, I mean, I was there and saw it at the end of October. And could you tell us -- summarize essentially the past, I guess, 5 months for Avino.

Well, if you look at Q4 and Q3, so in Q3, our revenue was up 44% in Q3, and we had earnings per share of $0.05. In Q4, revenue -- record revenue of $30 million, up 25%, earnings per share of $0.06. Q1 ends today, and everyone is dying to see that one because in January, we sold silver over [ $100 ] an ounce. So -- we're excited to see what Q1 is going to look like, but the last 6 months have been tremendous. Thank you.

So just to cap it off on 2025, did you meet production guidance?

Yes. We produced, I believe, it was close to 2.6 million ounces of silver equivalent. So that was within our guidance range.

Perfect. And what does the capital structure look like roughly?

There's 160 [ million ] shares outstanding, USD 1 billion market capitalization, no debt, 100 million in the bank at December 31, probably add 20% or 30% to that now in Q1. So growing the treasury debt free. So we're in a really strong financial position to meet our objectives, our growth strategy over the next couple of years.

So who are your core shareholders? And what does the split between institutional and retail ownership look like?

Insiders have 6%. Me personally is the largest individual shareholder of the company. And then institutional, 32%. There's also ETFs and indexes in there and then 62% is retail held.

So essentially, you have the institutional ownership is growing or has grown...

Organically, it's not through financings or anything. They've been buying in the open market.

So thanks for being here, Nathan.

Thanks for having me.

Could you start by introducing yourself to the viewers.

Sure. My name is Nathan Harte. I'm the CFO or Chief Financial Officer for Avino Silver & Gold Mines. I've been with the company almost 10 years now and have always been in the mining industry and for, I guess, even longer than a decade now, which is crazy to think about. But yes, had a pretty fun career so far and been able to travel the world.

Perfect. Can you give some sense on how Avino is valued compared to peers? And I guess with peers, other junior mainly silver-focused producers?

Sure thing. So for our valuation compared to our peers, I think if you looked a couple of months ago, we were probably either fairly valued or maybe a little overvalued, overvalued is the wrong word, but a little higher valued than some of the junior peers given our recent success. But now obviously, with a bit of a correction in the market, I think we're trading well below NAV. And I think we've been -- obviously, with being a producer in Mexico, there's been some recent events. So I think we've been painted with a brush a little unfairly and our valuations dipped below some of our peers.

Can you give us an update on the financial position of Avino?

Yes. Remarkable how things change. So at the end of the year, we had about $102 million in cash. So in comparison to the year prior, we had, I think, in the mid-20s, $25 million or $27 million. And as of today, it's sitting around $135 million, $140 million in net cash with probably a similar amount of working capital and actually -- and we are debt-free other than some equipment debt.

By the way, what interest do you get on your cash? I mean, how do you essentially store that because...

Yes. No, obviously, pretty topical now given the position we're in and where interest rates are. So we just have a policy of we kind of ladder things, don't go out any further than 90 days. And obviously, we are a mining company, not an investment bank. So we do have to be fairly conservative, just stewards of our shareholders' capital. So we get about probably an average of around 4%, sometimes -- it's bounced around a little bit over the last little while. But yes, it's pretty good. We're getting about 4% return on all of our cash.

I mean that pays for all of the G&A.

Pays for a lot, if not almost all of it now. Yes, that's kind of what we like to see and then we're able to reinvest that capital back in the business.

Excellent. ATM program, how do you use it?

So we've used it fairly strategically over the last year or so. I think -- and historically, we were one of the first mining companies to have one and now everyone's got one. But we've used it as the share price goes up, not necessarily -- we don't really want to put any pressure on our stock. So we do very low volume and have used it on our way up, for example, the last amount of money we raised was done at, I think, about USD [ 10.50, ] and that was in early January, mid-January, and we haven't used it since. We have no plans to use it at these price levels.

Could you summarize Q4 in terms of production also from a financial perspective?

Good thing. Yes. So production-wise, it was a fairly consistent quarter. I think we did about just between 600,000 and 700,000 silver equivalent ounces. Came in right around our guidance for the year. I think it was just over 2.6 million ounces silver equivalent, and we had some nice contribution from La Preciosa for the first time. So yes, I think from a production perspective, it was quite good. We sold less ounces, and that did impact our all-in costs a little bit, but also with -- because we report in silver equivalent ounces, there's obviously an impact from the rising silver price that hit that in the fourth quarter. So per ounce was a little up, but all the good metrics were very positive. We had record free cash flow, about $15 million in Q4, and that was at an average realized silver price of around $55, $57. EBITDA was around, I think, it was $17 million, $18 million. Adjusted earnings were about the same. And then cash flow from operations was obviously very positive. I think it was right around $19 million, $20 million for the quarter. So yes, we set records for the company in the fourth quarter, and then we're looking at an even better first quarter. So we're excited.

So in Q4, all-in sustaining costs were a bit higher, $31.6 per silver equivalent ounce. What contributed to that?

Yes. So part of that, as I mentioned just now was the silver equivalent ratio. Obviously, silver price skyrocketed compared to -- especially for us, it's comparison to copper because we do still produce a lot of copper from the Avino mine. So that added probably just alone on the conversion and the ratios compared to our budget. That added about $4 an ounce. And then there was a little bit more sustaining capital. I think we had about an extra $1 million, so it was about added $1.75 an ounce. And then G&A was a little bit higher, which we do expect to normalize back in the first quarter. So yes, we're hoping to be down below $30 in Q1.

So if you exclude the purchase of the La Preciosa royalty, how did you meet CapEx guidance last year? Could you also break it down how you spent it?

Sure. Yes. So we had, I think, about $26 million, $27 million in CapEx, including the repurchase of the royalty, which was $13 million, [ $13.5 ] million. So net of that, we had about $13-plus million and -- $13 million, give or take, which is right in the range of our CapEx guidance. I think on the lower end of the range. I think the max was capping at $18 million, I want to say. So -- and what we spent it on really was mostly -- so there's some sustaining capital, but a lot of it was development at La Preciosa. I think we spent about on true mine development of $2 million, $3 million and then equipment for La Preciosa, another $3 million or $4 million. And then the balance was sustaining capital at Avino, and we did do some significant mine development and resource drilling as well at Avino.

Would you summarize production and cost guidance for this year?

Yes. Production and cost guidance, it's very similar to last year as far as the guidance goes. I think we did a pretty good job of messaging the market that we kind of changed the mining method at La Preciosa, and that was going to push out production mining to the second half of the year. But obviously, with that lower grade development material going through in the first half, yes, we don't expect to see much production increase next year. And then '27 is where we'll really start to see some ramp-up. Obviously, silver equivalent prices -- silver equivalent or silver compared to copper and gold did impact. Apples-to-apples, we would have higher production guidance compared to previous years. But with these updated price assumptions, obviously, there's an impact there. So we're excited for this year, and it's going to be a bit of a development year, especially at La Preciosa, but we are also excited to be in a position where we now can put out cost guidance. And I think that's something where we've had pretty consistent costs, especially per tonne over the last number of years. So to now put that out with per ounce guidance for both sites is something we're feeling pretty good about sharing with the market. But yes, so per ounce, I think we're expected to be across the company around just under $20 cash cost and about, I think, $25 to $27 all-in sustaining.

So if you look at the actual metals, how does this year's guidance -- production guidance compared to last year's?

Yes. So silver is pretty similar, I think, just again because we are in some lower silver zones at Avino, and there won't be as much contribution from La Preciosa as initially thought. So it's very similar. Gold is very similar as well. I think it's down slightly, but then copper is higher than what we expected and guided for last year just because we're developing in some higher copper-rich zones, which do have a little lower silver and gold grade. But once we start ramping up at La Preciosa, we expect that to change later in the year and then into '27.

Let's talk a little bit about your drilling at La Preciosa. You published your last 6 holes from last year's program. Could you give us sort of -- which was mainly confirmation and infill drilling. What are the key takeaways from last year's program at La Preciosa?

Well, the key takeaways is the width of the vein and the grades. So the grade that we published our resource grade was given to us by Coeur Mining that was planning a giant open pit mine. So when we went in to go and inspect the intercepts, a lot of the core had been used up in past studies. So we went and redrilled twin some holes and found fantastic results, way higher than the resource grade and wider. So then last year, in the second half, we were just on to the vein. We're putting in the main haulage tunnel and then the first drift along the first level and it's wider. So we decided to change the style of mining from shrinkage stope mining to long-hole mining. So it's going to take a little bit longer to develop. But once we're mining on it, it will be a cheaper form of cost for mining.

Perfect. So you're spending $5 million to $6 million on exploration this year. So you will drill 15,000 meters at the Avino mine and 15,000 at the Preciosa. Could you add some color on the exploration program and what -- essentially, what are the key objectives with it?

Well, at Avino, we're just drilling the obvious areas that were not drilled in the past for good reasons. And so now we've got the resources to go back and drill, so we're doing that. And then over at La Preciosa, we're drilling the obvious areas at both the ends of the veins of La Gloria and Abundancia and at depth. And then also, we are using AI to deliver some targets. So we're going to test some of those as well.

When are you starting to drill? Do you know that?

We started already. There's 2 drills turning, I think, at La Preciosa and I think there's 1 or 2 at ET and Avino.

Perfect. So when do you think you will release the first batch of assays? And do you think it will be from Avino or from La Preciosa?

Probably La Preciosa. Avino is more just condemnation drilling outside the known areas. So there's possibility for expansion. But over at La Preciosa, that's different. I mean that's new for us. And I think probably we'll issue in batches. So second half of the year, probably see some results from that.

Not before the summer?

We'll see. We'll see. I mean, if there's something so spectacular, we have to let everyone know immediately. But usually, we do them in batches. So if all goes well, I don't know the ground conditions could slow things up, a drill could break. There's things that can slow it up. I'm just trying to be conservative and say the second half. But if we can put some news out prior, we will.

Yes. I mean you are a $1 billion company now. So what is sort of required to release is different from $100 million -- yes. So that's -- but so timing -- what's the timing of the updated mineral reserve and resource estimate? And also, could you add some color to it?

The main resource estimate is coming. It's imminent. It's being kicked around right now is being finalized. So I would say within two weeks, you'll probably see the news.

Is this just for the Avino mine or is for La Preciosa?

Everything.

Do you have anything to say regarding that? I mean, have you had material -- are you using materially different metal prices or...

Fairly conservative pricing, realistic. I mean, whatever consensus is with other engineering, whatever one is using in their technical report, usually a trailing average. And I'm expecting it to be significant. It's going to really open people's eyes as to what we've known all along. And so there's going to -- a lot of tonnes are going to be converted. So I think people will be pleasantly surprised. A lot of work has been done. And we never did a desktop before because we just reopened the mine and we used our internal engineers. But now we qualify to put out the reserves. So I think a lot of people will be very happy when we put that out.

How much of the ore material, I guess, came from [indiscernible] in Q4. Was it all development material? Or was it some actual in ore, I guess?

Yes. So it was all development material. I think it was about 12,000 tonnes, give or take. So we're running it through one of our smaller circuits, which maxes out at about 230, 250 tonnes per day. And that's still the case. So I think -- yes, I think it was around 12,000 tonnes. The average grade was a little -- it's a little lower around the resource grade, but it is development material, and it is lower grade than what we're expecting once we get into production mining, especially for the first -- for the Gloria and Abundancia veins that we're targeting for the first few years. So yes, we expect -- even in Q1, there'll be a little bit of grade increase, but also we're not in production mining yet. So we're going to see some much better head grades coming in starting in the second half of the year.

I guess maybe you could give the rationale for -- you have changed mining methods you can mine more in bulk with long-hole sublevel caving. Why?

Well, it's cheaper, first of all. So that's kind of -- it allows for us to extract more tonnage, so a higher tonnage rate as well as lower cost, right? Because -- you're just spending less time mining for each tonne. But what that -- yes, and so that was a result of all the drilling we did at La Preciosa in '25. So we did 14 holes. And I think over half of them, the width of the vein structure was at least 4 or 5 meters. And actually, 13 or 14 of those holes were higher grade than the resource. So what that kind of taught, we knew it pinched and swelled a little bit, but -- and now that we've gotten in there and started development, we're seeing that as well, too. So what that taught us is that we can -- instead of using shrinkage stope mining method or cut and fill, which is usually anywhere from a meter to 3 meters wide, we can use some long hole and some block caving. So that should allow us to mine more efficiently, cheaper. Obviously, milling costs and all that will still be the same, but that should save us on the mining cost side. But yes, again, that takes a bit more development upfront. But you see it's given our financial position, we're not worried about pushing back a few months given the long-term and medium-term benefits.

Let's talk about La Preciosa. As I said, you're changing the mining method instead of shrinkage stoping, which still might use, but mainly we'll be using long-hole sublevel caving. Could you explain this mining method? Obviously, you can mine more bulk, but what are other advantages or with this method?

It's more bulk scale mining, mechanized mining. So you can -- it's less labor intensive, so you can pull up more material. So the unit cost goes down. So there could be dilution that comes with that. But based on the intercepts that we've published, we think it's well -- it's going to be -- it's going to come out well above the resource grade. And so that is economical. And so people will have to wait to see what happens, but we're very excited. I mean if you look -- go back and look at the drill intercepts, 8 meters of 1.6 kilograms of silver and 2 grams gold, I can't wait to see how that looks running through the mill. So there's -- and there's a bunch of them like that. So it's going to be interesting when we get in there. So with this type of mining, though, it requires a lot of upfront development work. So we're putting in one level, then we're ramping down. We're putting in another level. We want to get in a bunch of levels. And then what you do is you go to the bottom level, you panel drill just above the bottom level and the material falls down, gravity drops it down and then a scoop tram can go in safely and pull it out because there's all that solid rock about it, and then you mine up. And so it's a cheap form of mining, which we're -- we know how to do. We're doing it over in Avino. So our tonnage, our cost per tonne at Avino hasn't changed. Our combined with La Preciosa it's gone up because we're developing, but it can come back down with higher grade.

So essentially the same mining method as used at Avino Mine?

Similar, similar. There's going to be several different methods at La Preciosa. And that's going into the reserve estimate like -- so the reserves can only be published if they're economically. And so the internal mine plan has been worked on with independent engineers to verify that the plan is achievable. And so that's another thing that why when people see the reserve estimate, they're going to be pretty excited because it has to be verified that it's economical.

So let's walk through throughput here. You're going to process a little over 2,000 tonnes per day this year or 725,000 to 750,000 tonnes. How much is expected to come from [indiscernible] Avino mine and how much is expected to come from La Preciosa? And also how much is development material and how much is expected to be "ore" from La Preciosa?

So we're expecting from La Preciosa, I believe it's going to be about 50,000 tonnes, give or take. Yes, because we're going to ramp up to 500 tonnes per day later in the second half of the year. And then -- so the bulk of it is still going to be coming from the Avino mine. I think ideally, we get up to 75,000 tonnes at La Preciosa, but we're guiding for a little conservatism on that one. But again, anything we don't fill with La Preciosa gets fed with Avino material. So it's not like we're losing out. It's just -- it will be less -- yes, each La Preciosa tonnes, obviously, you get more silver ounces out of it. So as soon -- as fast as we can, we'd like to be up to 500 tonnes per day running through both circuits. At that run rate, then 500 tonnes per day, we're doing about 12,000 tonnes -- 11,000, 12,000 tonnes per month, and then we'll continue that and try and get well over 100,000 tonnes for 2027.

Do you have any expectation on the second half of this year when you will be at 500 tonnes per day?

Yes, we're working on it now. I mean the goal is beginning of second half. We think we can meet that goal, no problem with the potential to move it up even a couple of months. So we're trying for -- in the second quarter, but realistically, it might be starting Q3 -- beginning of Q3, so second half of the year.

And so 500 tonnes per day -- I mean that will be the run rate going forward if you look at next year or...

Yes, we are trying to do the development to get well above that. But obviously, given our mill set up, to go from 500, the next step up would have to be 1,000 tonnes per day. So we'd have to build up a pretty significant stockpile, we think, to manage that until we get more development phases done and develop more areas. So for now, 500 tonnes per day is what we're targeting and what we kind of expect, I think, into ' 27 as well.

Okay. So the all-in sustaining costs are expected to be between 25, 27. This year, going down. How much of the AISC is actually purely affected by the equivalent calculation compared to last year?

Yes. So I think we did disclose that a little bit and talked about it in our news release for production guidance and cost guidance. So it adds a couple of dollars for sure. It's about around -- kind of around $3. Yes, we expected we'd kind of be around $23 in the middle. And so our midpoint now is $26. So -- and even -- and that was at a specific budget price earlier in the beginning or late in '25. And obviously, silver price has continued to outperform that budget price. So it might even be more impacted. But yes, based on our budget, I think we -- and we put those assumptions out there, the ratios out there. And I think it was a mid-80s silver to gold ratio and then the copper silver ratio was, I think, around -- I'd have to double check, but it was -- yes, it was pretty significant now, it's gone even higher. So hopeful -- yes, again, so while obviously, these high silver prices impact us and it looks on the surface that it does affect our cost per ounce, but our cost per tonne has still been very consistent year-over-year.

Yes. Let's move to the cost per tonne actually. So let's look at the all-in sustaining cost per tonne. What did you average last year? And what are you guiding for this year? Let's just focus on Avino for now.

Yes. So I mean, we were pretty much flat year-over-year, which is kind of incredible. It was right around $78 all-in cost per tonne. I think the difference was a couple of cents, a couple of pennies year-over-year, '24 and '25. And so we're expecting, I think, fairly similar for this year. We'd like to see a bit of improvement possibly. But obviously, the peso has gotten a little stronger compared to the USD and a few other things, too, but we're pretty happy with what our expectations are. I think we put out we're expecting between $70 and $80 for Avino for the year and then cash cost between $55 and $65.

Okay. And for La Preciosa?

Yes. I mean the development material, we did put out cost guidance, and we weren't sure if we wanted to do that, to be honest, because it is development material. There's additional costs that go into that. There's dilution in the grade. There's all sorts of things, but we're pretty sure we can meet this. So it's about -- I think the midpoint is about $127.50 for all-in sustaining and then the cash cost per tonne is about $12.50. So we've got about a $15 range there. And there'll be some impact there. Obviously, the consolidated cost per tonne will go up a little bit. But given the majority of the tonnage is coming from Avino, it should be okay. We should still be well under $100 all-in cost per tonne consolidated.

So your capital budget for this year is $20 million to $26 million. Could you break it down?

Yes. So we've allocated about $5 million for true exploration. So we're excited about that. We've got 30,000 meters of drilling plus some ongoing sampling and other programs, so we're putting 15,000 meters at La Preciosa. On true exploration, we did a lot of infill and kind of confirmation drilling in '25, whereas now we're focusing more on exploration, testing the extremities. And then we've got about $6 million to $8 million earmarked for development with most of that at La Preciosa. And again, that's just getting the mine ready. Luckily, we are developing in ore. So at the current prices every month, we are actually making money on this work, which is fantastic. It's great to develop an ore. That's how we got Avino going years and years ago. And then we'll spend a couple of million on developing at Avino, just some current areas. But then obviously, we are developing down deeper below deeper and deeper at the mine, and that's to get into some of the copper-rich areas. So that's, yes, $6 million to $8 million total for development. And then on the capital equipment side, we've got about $9 million to $12 million allocated with, again, a lot of it -- I think about 2/3 of that is sustaining, just refreshing equipment fleet and doing some rebuilds on some of our Caterpillar equipment. And then we are buying some new equipment for La Preciosa as well some Avino too, just to improve efficiencies. So Sustaining, we've allocated between all 3 categories, about $7 million to $10 million. And then on the growth side, whether it's exploration or future development, we've got $13 million to $15 million allocated there.

Let's actually move to your production growth. So if you look out, what does the production growth trajectory look like?

This year is going to be similar to 2025 because we changed the mine plan at La Preciosa. So as I mentioned, there's more upfront development work. But next year, next year, we feel is going to be the breakout year. Next year, you could add 30% to 40% growth. And this is without an expansion in the mill. This is just changing the feed mix. So the feed mix would be Avino feeding the larger circuits [indiscernible], so that's 2,000 tonnes per day and La Preciosa feeding the 2 smaller circuits, which is equivalent to 500 tonnes per day.

If you look at your 5-year growth plan, is a mill expansion included in that?

Yes. But okay, there's -- we contemplated a mill expansion when we put together this plan prior to the rally. Now what we've done is hired an independent engineering firm, probably everyone's heard of them SRK Engineering, and they're going to look at 4 options for us. So that could change our mind from our current plan. It might come in like a new plan that's better. So we're going to wait for that. And so that -- we'll let people know about that in the second half of this year because there's many things we can expand the current mill. Maybe we want to build a mill over at La Preciosa because at a certain critical mass, it doesn't make sense to haul that many tonnes all that way over to the mill. You just want to have a mill there. So that's a scenario. Open pit is a scenario. And so there's 3 or 4 different scenarios they're going to present to us. And then we'll let everyone know what we decide. I mean we may pick a couple of them to ladder up instead of swinging for the fence and going for an open pit permit, which -- that's a completely different animal, and that's not what we promised the locals. We promised that we would underground mine it. So they gave their blessing on that. Yes. So we're going to look at how big we can go from an underground mining standpoint and limit the surface disturbance because there's farmland around there.

So in the background, you have the Oxide Tailings Project sitting. What's the plan this year for the OTP?

So community engagement. Let's see what was I saying? It was community engagement, tailings expansion, so we want to expand our tailings. So you need their blessing and all that, the local ejidos. They're the coalitions or the people that reside over the municipality where our operation is. So just bringing them up to speed, telling them about job creation and how it's going to help their community. So these are the things we're working on this year, update our layout because we want to expand the tailings footprint. And then at that point, we either go ahead to permitting or we update our technical report to make sure it's accurate up until that time and then make a production decision.

Okay. So also in the second half of this year, you might have -- you might have an update on the OTP.

Yes, we haven't been pushing hard on that because we've been focused on La Preciosa and keeping our costs down. So we have a lean operation. You look at our costs, and they're very competitive for the size of the company we are. And so we didn't want to overwhelm our people. It's not easy to get technical experienced people. You have to train them. So it takes time because we're not bringing in people from out of country or out of state. We're just trying to work with the locals, and that keeps the morale up.

So you're in a stronger position than ever before with $100 million -- over $100 million in cash. So how are you going to deploy that money?

Exploration, equipment upgrades, yes, those are the main two things and waiting for the plan to go forward based on the engineering studies that I told you that we're doing. But building a strong treasury is a great thing for us because once we're ready to let the market know what our expansion plans are, we'll have the financial capability to execute it with a lot of clarity so people know where we stand from a corporate structure standpoint.

So in the past, you have said that you have been very clear, M&A, did you acquire something or merge with another company is very unlikely. Have your thoughts on M&A changed?

It hasn't changed. We're focused on delivering our transformational growth plan already in the queue. So we don't want to take on more than we can handle. We just want to deliver on what we promised and grow our value that way. And once we get our expansions done, then we can look outside for other acquisitions potentially or corporate transaction of some sort.

So with that, what do you envision Avino Silver & Gold Mines in 2 years from now?

Do you know where metal prices will be in 2 years from now? I don't have a crystal ball, but I suspect if metal prices stay where they are now, we will be a more valuable company in a substantial way. I don't want to make up numbers. I don't really don't know. I think we're at USD 1 billion market cap. It would be nice to see two. It depends who you're asking, some of the analysts, the consensus, they've been sort of some of them lagging on their metal forecast, but they're going up. So then the price to net asset values are going down. So now we're looking more competitive. So I think we're at 0.8. I saw in CIBC's comp table earlier this week. So if you look at MAG, SilverCrest and Gatos, when they all got taken out last year, they were over two. So we want to fill that void. We want to get a premium in our stock, and that's what we're driving towards.