Agnico Eagle Pays C$57M for 10% of Radisson Mining as O'Brien Targets Four Million Ounces

Radisson Mining's story changed this year. Agnico Eagle, the gold major next door, paid C$57 million for a stake of roughly 10%, and Radisson now plans its first modern underground access at the O'Brien Gold Project in Quebec. Speaking with The Deep Dive at the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit, CEO Matt Manson explained what the money buys, how big he believes O'Brien can get, and why an updated economic study can wait.

## A C$57 million endorsement from next door

The investment, announced about a month before the interview, gave Agnico just over 10% of Radisson, according to Manson and the host. Agnico also owns what Manson called the closest neighboring asset to O'Brien: the Laurent mine, roughly three kilometers away.

Manson framed the deal in two ways. First, as validation. He noted that Agnico runs deep technical due diligence before it invests, so the purchase signals confidence in the Radisson team and the asset. Second, as strategy. He pointed to Agnico's long-standing "camp" approach — growing districts around existing mines — and placed O'Brien in what he called the original Agnico camp in the Abitibi region. By his telling, when Agnico was a one-mine company about 25 years ago, that mine was Laurent, the property next door.

The money has a specific job. Manson said it funds an advanced underground exploration program centered on a new ramp — a sloped tunnel that gives crews and equipment access to a deposit below the surface. The plan is to descend roughly 300 meters, drive through mineralized zones, recover rock, and test how continuous the mineralization is, how the ground behaves, and which mining method might fit later. Manson called the ramp a major de-risking exercise, and said the two companies will form a technical committee to oversee it.

## Growth first, studies later

The drill program is the engine of the story. Radisson is running eight rigs on a program Manson sized at 140,000 meters. He traced the resource from about 900,000 ounces in all categories in 2023 to roughly 1.5 million ounces in 2025 and 2.3 million ounces this past March. The "all categories" framing spans confidence levels, from well-drilled ounces to earlier-stage inferred ones. Official guidance, he said, is upwards of four million ounces, and the company is optimistic about that range.

Drilling style matters here. Manson described the work as step-out drilling — holes punched past the edges of known mineralization to test how far the deposit runs — rather than the close-spaced drilling that converts ounces into reserves. The question, in his words, is whether O'Brien holds two, three, four, or five million ounces, with mineralization he expects to extend over two kilometers.

Funding does not rest on Agnico alone. Manson said Radisson held $100 million in the treasury at the end of August — its strongest cash position ever, by his account — with roughly half allocated to the eight-rig program. The host noted the stock is up about 400% over five years, most of it around two years ago, and Manson credited the accelerating drilling for driving the share price.

The ramp also sets a timetable. Manson said the Agnico investment establishes the project's first real development schedule, because any future mine will need that kind of access. Engineering and permitting start now, with groundbreaking on the portal targeted for early summer 2027. Ramp development should take about a year and a half, putting the infrastructure in place by the end of 2028 or the start of 2029.

## What happens to the PEA

Radisson published a Preliminary Economic Assessment — a PEA, an early and rough sketch of whether a project can be mined at a profit — about a year before the interview. Manson was candid that it is a snapshot. It rested on a much smaller resource and assumed ore would be trucked to a neighboring mill at what he described as the Westwood complex, under a public memorandum of understanding in place at the time.

That logic has aged. The resource is far larger, and the owner of the other nearby mine now sits on the share register. Manson said the priority is not an updated mining study but growth: more ounces first, reserve definition later. The company, he said, is not yet trying to delineate reserves at all.

## The investor take

For investors, the interview offers three checkable signposts. The first is resource growth: with eight rigs running and about half the treasury committed, coming updates should show whether Radisson closes the gap between 2.3 million ounces and its stated target of upwards of four million. The second is the ramp clock: permits, portal groundbreaking around mid-2027, and underground development through 2028 give the story hard dates. The third is Agnico itself — a strategic holder with a stated camp strategy on this ground and a seat on the technical committee, though Manson described no next step beyond collaboration.

Manson also offered a read on the wider market. He called this the best-attended Beaver Creek he has seen, with about 80% of his meetings held with investors, including high-net-worth individuals moving out of real estate and tech into precious metals. That appetite shapes the backdrop for every story at the conference, including this one.