Resource World Magazine

26 www.resourceworld.com A U G U S T / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 8 money to do so. That again trickles down to less liquidity and less investment in the junior mining space. More recently, we've been faced with the green tsunami of can- nabis which is momentum driven and that has pulled in significant investment capital." Cannabis is high risk but the returns have been greater and faster in that sector than in the mining space. "My exposure to exploration and mining is that it is typically six years from time of discovery to construction of a mine based on per- mitting, social interest and various other things to get a mine built and that is pro- vided you even find an economic deposit," said Redcliffe. "You tell somebody you have your LP licence for cannabis and all of a sudden people are beating a path to your door." With the avoidance of high risk junior exploration share buying in bank- governed brokerage companies, are independent brokers trying to take up the slack to take advantage of their indepen- dence to sell their clients junior explorer shares? "Yes, I think independent broker- ages are fiercely independent. Those that remain are proud of the fact that they are not flogging a canned product or one size fits all as you find in the banks and it's their creative minds that are finding good exploration projects," said Redcliffe. Pointing out that security regulators may want to encourage investing in junior miners, Redcliffe commented on buying private placements. "There have been a lot of changes in the last couple of years. I think the BC Securities Commission has being doing a wonderful job and a very supportive job of expanding the range of exemptions available for investors to get into the junior mining space. I think their focus has been on how we can support companies to grow and a good example is allowing venture capital to flow into the sector from a brokerage client who is receiving advice from a broker. They can now tick that exemption versus having to rely upon the more restrictive accredited investor exemption." Redcliffe added, "I think that's an exemption that many brokerages and issuers don't utilize. I think it should be utilized more because how else are you going to create wealth so that the banks can manage it. We can't all be born accred- ited investors." Redcliffe has other ideas that might attract more junior miner investors. "I think juniors should start to take more control over their offering documents. They don't need to be 35 pages long. You can actually provide the services on line and I'm going to put a little plug in here for a great electronic system offered by Capiche.io." On the independent firm side, Resource World interviewed Lisa Davis, CEO, PearTree Securities. Davis, who spent some time at the Ontario Securities Commission when she practiced law, is a Director of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) as well co-chair of PDAC's Finance & Taxation Committee. PearTree has made an effort to "fill the gap" and seek out quality junior explorers for its clients. "There seems to be a major disconnect between the rise in commodity prices and the valuations that markets are giving to junior companies," said Davis. "There are investors out there who see opportunities in undervalued assets, but companies that are able to avoid issuing shares at such dilutive prices are trying to wait it out." She pointed out that PearTree focuses on early stage Canadian projects with its team paying attention to a segment of the market that is currently not followed by many others. "This has allowed us to bring properties and projects to the attention of producers looking for opportunities to expand their resources through strategic investments," she said. Davis remarked that the junior miner sector has not kept pace with the recovery in the market for more senior companies. "There has been a real shift in the Canadian INVESTMENT

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