Japan Gold Corp. (JG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to Japan Gold's Investor Webinar. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Proust, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Thanks, Brock. Good day, everyone, and welcome to our slightly delayed Japan Gold Investor Webinar. Very pleased that you can join us today, and thanks for your continued interest. Before we move into a slide presentation that I'd like to take you through, we had an important development at our recent Annual General Meeting last week. And that was that after an extensive search and careful consideration, we put forward nominees to diversify our Board of Directors and to bring significant skill sets to our Board in the areas of international relations, relations with Japan, significant business transactions and mining experience and the legal aspects, not only relating to the mining and mineral exploration field, but also ESG and a real focus on ESG. And so with that, I'm pleased to say that I have 3 new directors with us today. And that's Ian Burney, Michael Carrick and Tanneke Heersche. And what I've asked each of them to do is just to take a few moments to introduce themselves and give you a little bit of their background and interest in Japan so that you can meet them personally before we move into my remarks. So with that, I'll introduce Ian Burney first.

So thanks very much, John. Good afternoon, everyone, or evening. And if anybody is joining from Japan, [Foreign Language]. I have to say, I'm delighted to be joining the Board of Japan Gold, and I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to briefly introduce myself to you. I say brief, but be aware that you run a risk anytime you cede the floor to an ambassador or a former ambassador, we're not noted for brevity in our remarks, but I did promise to be short. So my career has been with the public service of Canada, over 3 decades of experience in international affairs, almost all of which has been as a diplomat with Global Affairs Canada. Although the department changed the name, I think about 6 times during my tenure. Most recently, I served as Canada's ambassador to Japan for 5 years, that ended a few months ago and just this past summer. And for me, that was a bit of a coming full circle experience in that I spent much of my childhood in Japan. I grew up in a diplomatic family myself, and so I lived in Tokyo for over 7 years as a young child. And I developed a lifelong affinity for Japan, which I cultivated throughout my professional career. So I pursued a geographic focus on the Asia Pacific region and a functional focus on trade policy and trade negotiations, particularly with the Asia Pacific part of the world. But I was deeply involved in the TPP negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has resulted in a state-of-the-art trade and economic framework between Canada and Japan. And I led any number of initiatives designed to stimulate economic relations between Canada and Japan over the years, including serving as Chief Negotiator for our bilateral FDA negotiations with Japan. So all that to say, I've been around Japan issues and interest all of my career, traveled extensively in Japan, even being appointed -- before being appointed Ambassador. I have decided to step down from a public service, that will take place next month, in order to pursue opportunities in the private sector, including this one with Japan Gold. And this appeals to me for many reasons, not least that I will be able to maintain my involvement in promoting business ties between Canada and Japan, which remains quite a passion for me. But I also have to say, I was quite impressed with everything I saw and heard about the company from my vantage point in Tokyo. I had the opportunity to meet with John and a number of his colleagues when they came through. Yamada-san and a number of his colleagues from the Japan team. And I was intrigued by the story of a dynamic Canadian firm looking to establish a first-mover advantage and rekindling the Japanese gold mining industry. I'm genuinely excited by the prospect of being able to leverage my experiences, skill set and networks to build towards what I hope to be a successful future for the company in its own right. So I'll stop there, and thank all of you for the confidence you've shown in supporting my nomination to join the Board. I look forward to working in concert with all of you in the period ahead and with my fellow directors. So thank you [Foreign Language].

Well, Ian, thank you very much for those remarks, and a very significant background and a set of experience in Japan. With that, let me turn it over to Michael Carrick, who is reaching us today from Perth, Australia. So Michael, over to you.

Thank you, John. I'm a chartered accountant by professional background. I was a senior partner in the largest professional services firm in the world at the time and I headed up the corporate finance practice for the Asia Pacific region of the world. After being a partner for almost a decade, I retired from the practice at the age of 36 and accepted an invitation to lead a mining company which I had established. Since then, I have been responsible for the development of 7 major gold mines in 5 different countries around the world. Those mines have now won over 40 awards, and we were the first movers in both Tanzania and Mongolia. And our most recent mine was the largest gold mine in the Philippines, which we later sold to B2Gold for USD 1.2 billion. I was extremely attracted to the invitation to join Japan Gold Corp. Board for 3 reasons. The first is I've had a very deep and fond love for the people of Japan, having owned a property there for over a decade. Secondly, I thought the strategy of Japan Gold was exceptional. Understanding, as I do the first-mover advantage, I thought the ability to secure 32 projects in the country was outstanding. And thirdly, I thought the execution was literally first in class. And that's evidenced by bringing on 2 of the most respected names in the mining industry in Barrick and Newmont. So I thank the nominating committee for my nomination and the shareholders for supporting my appointment to the Board, and I look forward very much to working with the company through this very exciting time. Back to you, John.

Well, thank you, Michael, and thank you for that background and extensive experience. We look forward to drawing on that as we advance our prospects towards mines and partnerships with others. So thank you. The third new director that I'd like to introduce you to now is Tanneke Heersche. Tanneke is coming to us today from Toronto. And so Tanneke, over to you.

Super. Thanks very much, John. And good evening, good afternoon, good morning to everyone who is attending. Like Michael, I have a professional services background, although unlike Michael, I'm still there. I'm currently a partner at Fasken Martineau and the Global Mining Group, and I also head up their ESG Steering Committee, which is a firm-wide committee dealing with ESG issues, both from the service and internal point of view. Prior to that, my career, although starting in Toronto, it's taken me to London and Johannesburg. I was Co-Head of White & Case's Global Metals & Mining practice out of London. And subsequently, I was Executive Managing Partner of White & Case's Johannesburg office. The -- my personal experience in mining started or is grounded literally in the ground with various commercial agreements, earn-ins, joint ventures, options, royalties, a very good way to get to know the industry from the ground up. Subsequently have done a lot of work with both governments, senior development groups, lenders and quite a few Japanese trading houses in various types of transactions, acquisitions, project development and investment agreement negotiations, investment treaty issues. I, like Michael, was intrigued by Japan Gold's story, and I have enjoyed tremendously working with Japanese professionals over the course of the years, primarily with their outbound investments. But nevertheless, that has provided a real insight into their culture, their way of doing business and their priorities. I look forward to working with my other Board members, the management team on pursuing Japan Gold's story within Japan, its relationship with its partners and its relationship with the Japanese communities within which they operate. I'd like to thank you all for your support, and I look forward to many interesting years with the company and in Japan. Thank you, John.

Tanneke, thank you so much. We look forward to drawing on your experience and skill sets as well. So I think we've assembled just an outstanding group. And along with the 3 directors that have introduced themselves today, we also have Mr. Yamada, who has been one of our foundation -- one of our founding directors and, of course, is our representing director in Japan. But also has been a key mentor of mine and leader in terms of government relations, relations with all the stakeholders throughout Japan and utilizing his extensive career as one of the most senior mining executives in the country. Paul Harbidge continues to provide excellent ongoing technical advice and guidance to us through his extensive experience not only with Randgold and Mark Bristow in Africa when they made 5 world-class discoveries, which made them the leading mining company on the London Stock Exchange for a number of years, but also in the leadership role initially at Gold Corp. when we first encountered Paul and then on to new endeavors that he's leading now. So he's been an excellent support. And then Murray Flanigan is outstanding from the financial side of things as well and has done a great job in terms of leading our Audit Committee. So with that, I'm going to move to my presentation and take you through that. And at the conclusion, we will have a question-and-answer session, and we're happy to take questions from any of the participants. I know that the operator described to you how you could potentially do that. But if you ultimately want to just ask a verbal question, the easiest way to do that is to phone in on one of the 2 lines. There's an international dial-up line that's toll free -- or pardon me, I think this would be a North American toll-free line, I'm sorry, which is (877) 269-7756. If you're unable to come in on that line because you're coming in internationally, you can just dial +1 (201) 689-7817. So those are ways that you can ask questions. And of course, you can send in questions through the computer as well. So I'm going to move my layout from where we are now to a new layout. And so now what you'll see in front of you is our corporate presentation that we have dated October 25, notwithstanding the fact that our AGM was held on October 21. And so I'll just take you through a few remarks here in terms of how your company, Japan Gold, has performed over the last year and what we might look forward through the end of the year and into next year as well. So let me just move on here. We do have some forward-looking statements contained in the presentation and in my remarks. So I'll refer you to this second slide. And we'll now go on to some highlights. So the highlight slide is one I put together really to show you a cross-section of different activities that we are doing and how those impacted our company. The first one that I've highlighted is that in April of this year, as part of our Barrick Alliance review of 29 of our 31 projects, we were evaluating a project called the Togi project. And that -- on that project, which at that time was approximately 8 kilometers long by about 3 kilometers wide, we identified a consistent high-grade gold train from our surface sampling across the 8 kilometers. And so in conjunction with our partner, Barrick, we made the decision that we should pick up all the surrounding geology so that we could really encapsulate that area. And so we made an application to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry who grants the permits to us and -- for what was 145 square kilometers surrounding it. And we're very fortunate that if you go to the fourth bullet on this slide, in August, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry reserved those areas for us. So very pleased that we've been able to not only identify a highly prospective project, but expand on it to pick up other very interesting ground that surrounds it. The second bullet refers to 1 of the 2 projects that are outside the Barrick Alliance that are our 2 most advanced projects and that are supported on a technical basis by Newmont. Those 2 projects, we commenced at the end of May our first active drilling program of one of the prospects that we are going forward to evaluate now. And so we drilled 3 initial holes and that we had quickly tested in the laboratory, quickly assayed, and we came up with very positive results. And so we're now building on that, and I'm going to talk about that in a few moments. And then finally, the third bullet. In July of this year, we came to a decision of whether we should, for those 2 projects, go to Newmont or other parties and seek joint venture partners and use their funds to advance them or whether we should capitalize ourselves to a greater extent and expand those -- explore those projects ourselves or advance them ourselves. And so we made the decision that we would go ahead and do the latter. So we went to the market to the institutional investors to seek financing, and we were really looking for $10 million to $12 million to test the markets. We were very gratified that we were offered $35 million from a number of institutions. And so ultimately, we evaluated those 2 projects in terms of what capital we would need and we completed the financing of $17 million, which will carry us through this year and through next year to advance those projects. We also did that financing at a good price level in terms of our share price. So it was done at $0.35 a share, and we didn't attach any inducements like warrants or anything like that to the financing. So we think that was a well-placed financing. And currently, our shares are trading at approximately $0.30. So just to move on, I believe that most people that have joined the call today understand our investment rationale. But very quickly, as was mentioned in the earlier remarks by some of our new directors, we went to Japan in 2012 when the mining law changed for the first time in Japan's history to allow foreign companies to come in and hold prospecting rights, mining rights or own mines. And we were fortunate to be the first mover to go there, and we were the only party that went for 4.5 years. And so through that time, we have the opportunity to evaluate the country and the 5 major gold provinces in Japan to review the 64 closed gold mines that have not reopened since the government closed them in the Second World War, and to really understand and assist in the structure of the permitting process in Japan so that we could navigate it very carefully. And once we did that, we then moved quickly to start building our project portfolio. And so we now have 31 projects that cover over 40 -- it's actually 47 historic mines. And we've been able to attract the 2 largest gold miners in the world, Barrick and Newmont, and build a significant shareholder register and a very strong team. So we'll go forward and have a look at that. Now on -- this slide is one that many of you have seen before, and really, it just highlights the main islands of Japan, starting in the north with Hokkaido and then the long central island of Honshu and then the Southern Island of Kyushu. The projects that are outlined in red are Barrick Alliance projects. And then you'll see that there's one project in Hokkaido outlined in blue and one down in Kyushu outlined in blue, and those are our 2 projects that Newmont is technically supporting. One purpose for putting this slide up was to say that we not only have 31 projects. But as we're now going through and evaluating these projects, we're finding other areas that are highly prospective. And so we've expanded those projects now in just this year alone by 15% to now cover over 2,200 square kilometers of the best mineral rights in Japan. And so that's -- and we're not finished yet. We're continuing to find things that are attractive to us, and we'll continue to move on those as we can. So to touch on the Barrick Alliance. So with the Barrick Alliance, we entered into the Barrick Alliance in February 2020. And we really negotiated 3 things. And from a public company standpoint, it was very important that we had, what I call, freedom of information. So we wanted to make sure that we had the ability to not be suppressed by a major like Barrick when it came to putting news out about the projects, the programs we were working on or results. And so we're unfettered from that standpoint. We're able to put out that information. So that's one important piece. The second piece is that we wanted our alliance partner, and it was a competitive alliance process to figure out who was going to be that partner with 5 companies competing. But we wanted to whoever our alliance partner was, to be clear that they were going to evaluate all 29 of the remaining projects so that we could get a, what I would say, a free look-see at all 29 projects and evaluate it to a Barrick standard. So that was important. And finally, we wanted to make sure that our partner was funding -- fully funding it. So Barrick is fully funding the advancement on the valuation of the 29 projects. Now the way it works is that Barrick was given 2 years to evaluate the 29 projects starting in February 2020, and that 2-year period expires in February 2022. Following that, Barrick has to make a decision. Right at the end of that 2-year period, Barrick has to make a decision on which projects they want to advance and which projects they want to decline. If they decline a project, all the work that they've funded on those projects that we have done -- that Japan Gold has done as operators, is ours to keep. And we can then take those projects and add information unfettered -- without Barrick having any residual interest, and we can show those projects to other third parties or advance them ourselves. Now if Barrick likes a project, the only way that they can earn an interest in that project is by completing a pre-feasibility study. So if they complete a pre-feasibility study, then they earn a 51% stake. And when they complete a -- then fully fund a bankable feasibility study, then they can move to a 75% interest in a project. So we're fully carried through bankable feasibility on those projects and retain a 25% stake. So what's happening right now? So right now, and we've been reporting quite regularly on this, the Barrick Alliance has been using 2 methods to evaluate all 29 projects or about 2,000 square kilometers. We've been using geochemistry and geophysics. Now the geochemistry has been quite simple. Our teams -- but a lot of work. Our teams will be walking up all the streams and catchments, taking stream sediment samples and rock samples. And then we're assaying those for gold and silver and multiple elements, and we're determining areas of Japan that are highly anomalous in gold. The second piece that we're doing is we're doing geophysics. And one of the types of geophysics, gravity, identifies gravity highs or areas where there are structures underneath the ground that may have been the pathways for the mineral-rich fluids that are deeper in the earth to flow up to the surface. So we're looking at all 29 projects and identifying where all the gravity highs are. And when you take those 2 maps and you overlay them, you'll find highly anomalous areas of gold and good-looking structures underneath them, that becomes the key areas of focus. So what are the results of our work to date? Well, the good news is -- and I'll just go back. The good news is we've covered 95% of all projects with geochemistry. And you can see that in this gold box and 91% with geophysics. The results have been pouring in and we've been evaluating all those. And I'll tell you, if we'll go to the third bullet first, which is that we have now got the data in from 20 projects -- 20 of the 29, and we've already identified 39 significant gold anomalies of high interest. And these anomalies are actively being followed up by specialist teams that we have now in the field. With regard to -- we get questioned off and how much is Barrick spending? Well, when we started the alliance and going to our first bullet on this slide, when we first started the alliance in 2020, Barrick spent USD 2 million in 2020 to move forward. This year, they spent an additional USD 4 million. And so they are certainly committing their funds. And not only funds, but their key personnel and resources to advancing this project. And so to give you a sense of that, we're going to be gathering now in November -- originally, it was scheduled for Japan. But because of travel restrictions, it's now going to be held in Vancouver, and we're holding a Barrick Alliance workshop or summit from November 22 to November 24. Currently, we have approximately 20 people from around the world, a large number of those from Barrick with various disciplines and skill sets, coming to Vancouver, and we're going to systematically review all 29 projects and start working towards Barrick's decision on how they are going to advance projects or which ones are going to advance. So we're really, really looking forward to that, and that will be a really important gathering going forward. I will say, as operators in Japan, we've been very fortunate to be able to be extremely active through the pandemic. At the very onset of the pandemic, we formed the Japan Gold COVID-19 operating plan that was guided by Barrick. We've had no incidents to date, and Barrick has recently said that Japan Gold is one of the best companies in the world, in their universe, that's been able to be very active throughout the pandemic, complete meaningful work programs and come up with significant results. So very strong remarks or higher -- high praise from Barrick, and we really appreciate that, and our team does. So to move on, this is the one project -- and again, I'll just give you a quick visual reference, whoops, some quick visual reference. On the long central island of Honshu, you'll see a single project on the north side, on the Noto Peninsula, called the Togi project. And the Togi project is the one that I referred to a little earlier that we've expanded recently. And I just wanted to give you a visual of that because I'm a visual person, and it's important for us to see that. So this is the Togi project that's originally stood about 8 kilometers from the Southwest to the Northeast and about 3 kilometers in the opposite direction. And you can see by the brighter colors, those are areas of high-grade gold that we were identifying as we did our sampling across this 8-kilometer stretch. What we did next was make that application, as I mentioned, for the other 145 square kilometers, which surround the area, the Togi project area to expand it to cover all the similar type of geology. And we're very fortunate that that's been reserved for us. In addition now, Newmont and their alliance partner have come into this peninsula as well and have picked up 4 additional properties. So this is becoming a hot area of Japan. But we're very fortunate to have been there first and to have picked up the Togi historic gold field, that's really the central focus of this region. So now we're going to just move on quickly to the 2 projects that are outside the Barrick Alliance. And as I mentioned, 1 in Hokkaido and 1 down in Kyushu, and these are our most advanced projects. Now the relationship with Newmont here, to be clear, is as follows. Newmont is a significant equity shareholder in Japan Gold, and I'll show you a slide on that in a moment. But Newmont also has -- we granted them the right of first refusal to be our joint venture partner should we want a joint venture partner. And so the way that would work is that we would design joint venture terms, we would take those to Newmont and see what they were interested in those terms. If they were, great. And if not -- oops I'm just going to, I don't know how we skipped there. If not, then we would basically go from Newmont, we would then take those same terms to Barrick. And if for some reason, Barrick didn't want to participate, then we would be free to show them to any other third parties that were interested. And we have had very strong interest from other third parties. So that's the way the Newmont relationship works. So let's have a look at the project in Hokkaido, which is where all of our activities in the field with the non-Barrick project are focused right now. So the Ikutahara project is one that is -- and we've spent a lot of time and money on this project with Newmont's careful guidance. So we spent over $10 million advancing it with the mapping and the geology and the geophysics, the geochemistry, and we've identified a number of significant prospects, and it's all about drilling now. And so we're going to be systematically drilling those. And our drilling progress is really guided by success. And so I'll show you a slide of that project. A number of you may have seen this slide before, but a quick review. This is the geology slide that basically shows you in blue the deeper basement rocks. And then in yellow, the younger volcanic rocks, which sit over top of the basement. And then it highlights what the mine markings, the red xs highlight 20 historic mines that are dotted across this 200 square kilometer project area. A number of the major past producing mines, and the currently producing Hishikari mine, which is producing down in the Southern island of Kyushu, are all found close to the margin between the volcanics and the base where they intersect. And so we look for areas where the volcanic -- younger volcanic package thins out so we can actually get down through that and into the older basement. And so this is one of those specific areas of Japan that demonstrate those characteristics. In red, the red ovals that you see on this slide, starting with the Ryuo prospect up in the Northwest, are the highlights of our prospects. Those highlight our prospect areas. So you've got the Ryuo prospect area, the North Kitano-o prospects, which cover 5 mines. Then the central -- or the Kitano-o gold prospect itself is another area that's important. And then you move further south to the Saroma valley, which is very interesting because this is an area where the basement rocks are sort of in the size -- into the volcanic area. So it's purely in the basement, but it does cover over a 4-kilometer valley, approximately 4 kilometers, 3 historic mines. So these are all important areas for us. We started drilling at the end of May at the Ryuo prospect. As I mentioned before, I'm going to show you the Ryuo prospect now and what we've found so far. Oops sorry, one moment. There we go. Okay. So this is a blowup of the Ryuo mine prospect. This was a mine that was closed in 1943, and it was actively operated at that time. And in this mine, they were actually bringing ore out of 5 discrete areas. So you can see up in the north, the Jinja vein. And then sort of southeast of that, you can see the Shouei vein. And then the Taisei vein going further south. And the Ryuei vein and then Buryu vein down at the further south end. So quite an interesting area. The pink color is a type of rock called rhyolites which we think are actually hosting the mineralization. So that's why we've highlighted it. And we are very carefully evaluating this area now. So what we decided to do with just our first 3 scout drilling holes was to drill under old workings because often these old workings were stopped by the water table, they couldn't go below the water table because they didn't have the pumping capacity. And -- or they were stopped because of the withdrawal of the workforce in 1943 by the government. So we've drilled under these areas. So our first 3 holes were drilled under the Jinja vein and then at the north end of the Shouei vein. And then we went 550 meters to the southwest to the Ryuei vein and drilled a hole there as well. And I'm pleased to report, and our drill results evidence this, that we had very good results under the Jinja vein. We had very good results under the Ryuei vein. And at the Shouei vein, we were at the north end of that, and we determined that this was the end of the mineralization. So we're starting to put some constraints around this area. And so I want to show you the Jinja vein area now and what we actually encountered there. So this is the Jinja vein. This is a cross-section of the mining activity that was active in 1943. And so at that time, 6 different levels were being mined, you can see on this slide. Now after the war in 1951, Sumitomo entered this mine and they sampled the tunnels or adits that they could get into, and they came into level 4, which is where they sampled. And you can see an area of -- highlighted in red that basically shows you an area where they saw a vein that was approximately 0.5 meter wide, but it extended for over 72 meters. That's the red highlighted area. And when assayed, it ran over 40 grams per tonne. So these are similar grades to the Hishikari Gold Mine, which I mentioned is -- well, it's one of the highest grade Tier 1 gold mines in the world. It's been operating since 1985 under the leadership of -- and ownership of Sumitomo Metal Mining, and it's mined over 8 million ounces of gold at between 30 and 40 grams per tonne and still has over 5 million ounces of reserves remaining. So obviously, our objectives in Japan are to try and replicate that or to try to find similar opportunities. And so we're delighted to see this historic work that had been done by Sumitomo. And so what we did is we drilled the hole under the deepest workings. So basically, we penetrated the same vein at about 50 meters below the level 4 intersection that I referred to. And what our testing was basically looking at, a fairly vertical vein and going, what happens when it gets deeper? Does it get narrower? Does it pinch out? Does it get wider? And what happens to the gold grade? Our indications from our surface sampling was that as we get deeper, things should be getting better. And this first hole proved that out because the intersection we came -- when we went through the vein, it was a much wider intersection, almost 5 meters at 12 grams. So you might intuitively say, "Well, that's only 12 grams and not 40 grams." But within that 5 meters at 12 grams, there was an interval that was just over 0.5 meter at almost 60 grams per tonne. So what we found is the vein is getting wider, the grade is getting higher. And there's also wall rock that's outside that vein that does appear to be carrying gold as well. So this bodes well for the future. So with results like that, we -- and with the first 3 holes -- and by the way, the Ryuei hole also intersected significant veins with high grade. We immediately moved to drill an additional 3 holes. So 2 of them are either side of that first hole at the Jinja vein, where we're extending along the vein of about 50 meters in either direction. So we'll know what 100 meters of the length of that vein will look like. And then we drilled another hole under the Taisei workings just south of the Jinja vein. Those 3 holes are now in the ALS laboratory in North Vancouver, they'll be assayed and we'll have those results out before Christmas. Because of the success that we've been having on this drilling program, we've now immediately initiated another 5 drill holes, and those are underway. And we're very fortunate to have our own set of drill rigs. We have 3 diamond core drill rigs stationed up in Hokkaido alone and 1 down at Kyushu. And those 3 drill rigs and our drilling team, our drilling division of 20 people are actively advancing those 5 drill holes as well. So we hope to have more results coming out soon, and we're looking forward to those results and advancing the Ryuo prospect. Here is just a cross-section of that vein, by the way. So here's that Jinja vein. And what I'm showing you here is that you can see, as you follow that red vein, which is fairly vertical down, there's some dash lines that show you where the bottom of the old workings were. And then you could see below that, the drill hole that we drilled and where we intersected the vein and how it's getting wider. So that's just sort of a visual for you there. I'm going to move away from our drilling programs and our activities, just to talk about our share structure. So as I mentioned in the earlier slides, we completed a financing, a $17 million financing in July of this year. And the financing really expanded our institutional investors to now hold 55% of the shares of our company. And our institutional investor roster is a very strong one with BlackRock, with Resource Capital Funds from Denver, Libra and the Donald Smith Value Fund from New York. We've got Regal from Australia. We've got Equinox from the U.S. And we've got Rothchild's from Europe. So there's -- and those are just some of the institutional investors, but we've got a very, very strong group together there. Now these institutional investors, we've built this base because it's great to have institutional investors there, but these are really toehold investments or small investments for these groups of this size. What they're looking at and what they're aligned with us on is that as we go forward and hopefully make discoveries and go on to build mines, we'll have to come up with the capital for our portion to build the mines and whether it's with Barrick or Newmont or others. And so we now have a very strong institutional base that we can go to for that type of capital. In yellow, you can see the Newmont holding of 10% in our company. And again, management owns a 7% stake in Japan Gold. Our public float has been shrinking. We're down at 28% now, and that's because institutional investors have been stepping into our public market and buying on market and collecting up or sweeping up some of the public float. Our market capitalization is just over CAD 60 million today. And we have warrants and options outstanding and the strike price across the warrants is $0.40 a share, and the options are in the high 30s. So that's our share structure. A couple of final slides for you. Japan Gold is a very unique company. It's unique in all exploration companies. First of all, because we have the 2 largest gold-producing companies in the world deeply embedded in our business. And we're fortunate to be in a country that is very geopolitically safe. We are fortunate to have that first-mover advantage and to be able to build an enormous portfolio of 31 projects. And we're well funded not only with Barrick covering the 29 projects, but also with Newmont, the 2 projects outside the Barrick Alliance. Those 2 projects being funded by us through our recent $17 million financing. We've built a team, a significant team that's capable of doing the work, and it has the confidence of the Newmont technical group and also the Barrick technical group to get the job done, and we've been doing that. And so just to touch on that, we've gone through our Board review today, so I'm going to move on with that, but it is an outstanding Board, a diversified outstanding Board. Our leadership team is very strong, and I'll highlight for you a couple of individuals. One is Tim Sharp -- Dr. Tim Sharp, who joined us just recently as our Chief Geologist. He's been working with us since the beginning of January, and we announced him just a couple of months ago in terms of his new position as Chief Geologist. But Tim came to us from Barrick. He was Barrick's Principal Geologist in Africa and the Middle East. And with their support, he left Barrick and joined Japan Gold. So he's a real welcome addition to work with. Andrew Rowe, our Vice President of Exploration, and really advanced with Barrick the evaluation of our Barrick Alliance projects. We also have Takashi Kuriyama, our General Manager of Exploration. Takashi Kuriyama is the best I could have possibly hoped for. He came to us from Sumitomo Metal Mining where he had been the Head of Global Exploration at Sumitomo Metal Mining. He was also on the Teck Resources' Board of Directors for 10 years. And prior to that, he was the General Manager and Chief Geologist at the Hishikari Gold Mine. So a wealth of knowledge and experience in Kyushu and Southern Kyushu, which is the most prolific gold-producing area of all of Japan and in which we now control over 84% of all prospective ground in the region. So very, very pleased to have him on our group. Our Board of Advisers has expanded since our last presentation and that our 3 past directors that didn't stand for reelection Dr. Mike Andrews, John Carlile and Bob Gallagher, all joined with Steve Garwin -- Dr. Steve Garwin to put an excellent technical team together to give us further background, advice and reputations and history to advance our projects. So great to have them on with us as well. So with that, I am going to pause. I'm at the conclusion of my presentation. And I see that more people are continuing or have been continuing to join our presentation through today's activities. And so we'll now turn it over to the operator, and we'll take questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions]

So operator, while we're waiting to see if questions queue up, I will point out just a couple of items that I think are relevant. I've had a number of inquiries asking us how much -- we picked up 31 projects. That was very aggressive. It must be costing us a lot to hold on to those projects. What are the carrying costs? How much does it cost us to hold on to those projects? And I will say that we're very fortunate. And we learned this early on, as the permitting process was being advanced in Japan, that there are very, very low carrying cost in the country. And so I can tell you that with our 2,000-plus square kilometers of mineral rights in Japan, the annual carrying cost or holding cost for those -- for that large, large area is approximately USD 40,000. Now the comparison with other first-world jurisdictions is really relevant. A country that I'm very fond of, Finland, is a country that's had some great success recently. A number of you may be familiar with Rupert Resources and other companies that have been active there. If we had a similar holding in Finland, it would cost us tens of millions of dollars a year to just hold on to that portfolio. So it's a dramatic difference, and it allows us the time and ability to work with Barrick and with Newmont to really unlock and identify new prospective areas and make discoveries. So that's a very important piece for us. Another point that I'll make is that with regard to news flow because everybody wants to know about news flow, and that's really important. As you can see, with our few slides today, we're drilling and drilling consistently. So we've got drilling results coming out between now and the end of the year. We'll have drilling results coming out early in the new year. And then we'll be continuing to advance on the other prospects that we've identified with consistent drilling starting in the north, in May of 2022 and down in Kyushu perhaps earlier than that. So drilling and drilling results. The second piece is that, as I mentioned, our Barrick Alliance review of the projects. We're having our summit in Vancouver in November. And I hope to come up with an announcement after that, that will give a good fulsome update in terms of how the Barrick Alliance is advancing. And we'll give you an indication of Barrick's views on the portfolio and their interest. So we hope to be reporting back to you fairly immediately after the summit. So there's a couple of items. So I'm seeing from our operator that either we must have done a very -- we must either have a very shy audience or we've done a very full explanation of our current activities in the country. And so I'll just conclude with saying I'm really pleased that you could join us today. I think it was very important. And for some of you that came in a little bit late, we'll post this webinar on our website at japangold.com. But I was very pleased to hear directly and I think it was very good for you as our investors to see our 3 new incoming directors and to meet them personally over the screen. Again, very diversified Board. I'm very pleased to have this esteemed group working together. We look forward to bringing you more news and positive news as we advance your company. And I thank you for participating with us today and your continued engagement and interest. So thank you for your time. Have a good day.