Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 10, 2025) - Olive Resource Capital Inc. (TSXV: OC) ("Olive" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a recap of its 2024 investment performance and provide investors an outlook for 2025.
Highlights:
Investment returns were up 33% in the last two years, beating most traditional resource funds
Portfolio is well positioned for a new resource bull market
Working to expand the asset base, so that investment returns have a larger impact on Net Asset Value ("NAV")
Plan to further expand marketing efforts to attract new investors to the Company
Samuel Pelaez, the Company's President, CEO, CIO, and Director stated: "We have a positive outlook for natural resource stocks in 2025 yet expecting higher volatility throughout the year. The major commodity themes remain intact; major underinvestment, growing electrification demand, deglobalization and resource nationalism, and risk of global monetary debasement. New catalysts in the form of tariffs and impediments to global trade could redirect capital flows to real assets, including commodities. At Olive, we remain well invested and have been increasing the weighting into the highest conviction companies, and reducing the overall number of investments."
Derek Macpherson, Executive Chairman stated: "Over the last two years, the Company has delivered exceptional returns on its investments relative to other traditional resource funds. This is a direct result of our better structure (investment issuer, versus fund), our portfolio construction (Liquid plus fundamental) and management's ability to select undervalued resource equities. Now that we believe that we are on the verge of a new resource bull market, shareholders should start to see the benefit of our performance translate into the share price."
2024 RECAP
From an investment perspective Olive had another strong year, with its investments being up 33% in the last two years (up ~9% in 2024), outperforming most traditional Canadian resource funds (Figure 1). This performance is partially driven by the Company's approach to portfolio construction which splits our assets between both liquid large cap companies and fundamental investments. This construction provides flexibility to react to both changes in the macro environment and opportunities in individual equities. Some of the best performing investments in the Company's portfolio in 2024 included; Omai Gold Corp. returned 220%, Mawson Gold Limited returned 207%, and Midnight Sun Mining Corp. returned 131%.
The Company continues to work to expand is asset base. Larger scale would result in the strong investment returns having a larger impact on the Company's NAV per share ("NAVPS"), with corporate costs spread over a larger pool of investments. The Company pursued growth in two different ways in 2024. First, via assets acquisition and while there were preliminary discussions none resulted in a transaction. Secondly, the Company is working to create its own rollover flow-through fund, that at the end of its life would rollover into Olive, expanding its asset base.
Figure 1: Olive Performance versus Select Canadian Resource Funds
1 Past Performance is not indicative of future returns. Performance shown for calendar years 2023 and 2024.
For the first time, the Company initiated marketing efforts, beyond our monthly NAVPS updates and social media efforts. This effort is at an early stage, but plans are to continue with the objective to eventually close the discount to NAVPS.
The Company had an active Normal Course Issuer Bid ("NCIB") for the majority of 2024. During the year, the company repurchased, 3,030,000 common shares of the Company. These shares have been submitted for cancellation. As of the date of this release Olive Resource Capital Inc. has 109,174,709 common shares outstanding, and upon cancellation of the repurchased shares it will have 106,144,709 common shares outstanding.
2025 OUTLOOK
For 2025 the Company has five key objectives:
Continue Strong Investment Performance - The Company plans to continue its current investment approach, which has demonstrated strong returns over the last two years.
Expand the Asset Base via Acquisition - The Company plans to continue pursuing opportunities to acquire assets, and to expand the asset base.
Roll-over Flow Through Fund - The Company plans to launch its first sponsored roll-over flow through fund in 2025, aiming to complete a first rollover in 2026 and expanding the asset base.
Merchant Banking - Management is on the lookout for good assets and teams it can support in the early stages, and to create new mining companies.
Marketing - Management plans to work on closing the gap between the share price and our NAVPS by increasing its efforts to introduce new investors to Olive.
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures:
This press release contains references to NAV or "net asset value per share" which is a non-GAAP financial measure. NAV is calculated as the value of total assets less the value of total liabilities divided by the total number of common shares outstanding as at a specific date. The term NAV does not have any standardized meaning according to GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. There is no comparable GAAP financial measure presented in the Company's consolidated financial statements and thus no applicable quantitative reconciliation for such non-GAAP financial measure. The Company believes that the measure provides information useful to its shareholders in understanding the Company's performance, and may assist in the evaluation of the Company's business relative to that of its peers. This data is furnished to provide additional information and does not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP. Accordingly, it should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with GAAP, and is not necessarily indicative of other metrics presented in accordance with GAAP. Existing NAV of the Company is not necessarily predictive of the Company's future performance or the NAV of the Company as at any future date.
About Olive Resource Capital Inc.:
Olive is a resource-focused merchant bank and investment company with a portfolio of publicly listed and private securities. The Company's assets consist primarily of investments in natural resource companies in all stages of development.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way approved nor disapproved the information contained herein.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, identified by words or phrases such as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "is expected", "scheduled", "estimates", "pending", "intends", "plans", "forecasts", "targets", or "hopes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "will", "should", "might", "will be taken", or "occur" and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.
This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of Olive to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. Although Olive believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: past success or achievement does not guarantee future success; negative investment performance; downward market fluctuations; downward fluctuations in commodity prices and changes in the prices of commodities in general; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations; changes in economic and political conditions that could negatively affect certain commodity prices; an inability to predict and counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the business of the Company, including but not limited to the effects of COVID-19 on the price of commodities, capital market conditions, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains; and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Olive does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
This commentary is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, legal or accounting advice nor does it constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities referred to. The information provided in this recording has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable and is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing but we do not represent that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such.
