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Sandy McVey of West Vault Mining Inc. talks to John Kaiser | Metals Investor Forum Sept. 2026

Metals Investor Forum Sep 28, 2026 17:52

Summary

West Vault's Hasbrouck gold project is permitted and build-ready, but the company is deliberately holding off on construction.

Chairman Peter Palmeiro, who says he built a 47% stake near 70 cents Canadian, still controls whether to build or sell.

The last capital figure cited is $66 million from the 2023 report, which the guest inflates to about $100 million today.

Kaiser values the shares at $7 to $11; the guest blames thin trading, a small float and no news flow for the gap.

The guest frames higher gold prices as real price gains, so project economics improve as fast as costs escalate.

Key points on Artemis Gold

  • The interviewer names Artemis Gold once, as his precedent for the build-then-M&A exit pattern he is describing for junior miners: “And we look at Artemis with the Blackwater. It built it, the thing that Peter hates. Hates to be done. It's turned out to be enormously successful.” His expectation that a company which built its mine ends up either acquired or aggregating others is the interviewer's prediction, not an established fact about Artemis, and the sentence is repeated in the transcript.
  • No resource, production, cost, ownership, jurisdiction or financial figure is given for Artemis anywhere in the video, and the remark “the thing that Peter hates. Hates to be done.” is the interviewer characterising a preference he attributes to someone else, not a position Artemis has stated.

Key points on West Vault Mining

  • The CEO's central argument in September 2026 is that not building is the strategy rather than a delay: “That you can actually make more money at lower risk. By not building.” On his account construction, not the asset, is the risk worth avoiding, and the expected way out is a takeover rather than a build.
  • The project is described as permitted and ready to build, and he says the company could be “pouring gold, arguably, in about 15 to 18 months.” That is a projection conditional on a build nobody has approved, not a schedule — as of this September 2026 interview there is no construction decision and no date.
  • The intended exit is to be bought rather than built: “the goal is to be bought out by a producer. Who pays the fair value based on the NPV?” He names the deterrent himself “there's a stigma attached to the project. In that it does not produce 100,000 ounces a year. It's 70,000 ounces.” and says the retail perception is that nobody will ever buy the project out.
  • Every operating and cost number he gives comes from the 2023 preliminary feasibility study, and the video contains no resource estimate of any kind — no tonnage, grade, cut-off or measured, indicated or inferred figure appears anywhere in the recording. On the 2023 study: “Because the first pit has 80% recovery. A very low strip ratio, run of mine, no crushing. The only planned is five carbon columns.” Capital was “Probably the last capex number was $66 million. In 2023, inflate that, say it's 100 million.”
  • He gives two shareholding figures that do not sit together and does not reconcile them — “We have maybe a 25% float, non-institutionally held. And we trade very thinly. People do not trade us.” against “We've got 72% institutionally held.” He attributes the resulting gap between price and value to thin trading and no news flow: “make a $1,000 purchase of our shares. And move our market cap by 5 to 10 million.”

John Kaiser's takeaways

  • Top takeaway The interviewer, not the company, supplies the valuation overlay: he ran the 2023 preliminary feasibility study, a “Base case price you were using. Which didn't produce super numbers.” base case, through his own discounted cash flow model at several gold prices and lands on “Right now we have gold at $4,400. I'm running $3,500 using my rational speculation model. For a project at this stage and taking the halfway mark. Between a 5% and 10% NPV. I come up with a fair value range of sort of $7 to $11.” He notes the stock has tripled since he first adopted it without reaching that range, and this is his own model rather than a company target.
  • He argues gold is in a structural real-price reset rather than a spike about to fade, citing the earlier moves from $35 to $400, then to about $2,000 and now $4,000 plus once inflation is stripped out, and he ties that to a new wave of capital: “'Cause we're heading into a cycle. Where new companies get engineered by the Bay Street guys. Through starting a mine and then doing M&A.”
  • He presses the case for building, arguing the chairman would talk to outside capital, and frames the retail opportunity as a $10,000 purchase at $2 for “you're looking at a potential 3 to 5 bagger. Over the next few years.” He also names the obstacle from the buyer's side “They would get crucified if they made an offer at, say, $8.” so a potential acquirer waits for the price to rise rather than bidding a premium now.
  • He challenges the currency of the study directly “I've been using your 2023 PFS numbers. We've had inflation since then.” and asks the guest to put a range on cost escalation in capital and operating costs, and on what that would do to IRR and NPV at $3,500 and above.

Sandy McVey's takeaways

  • Top takeaway The guest presents the wait-for-a-takeover strategy as his chairman's long-standing position rather than his own: “And we started on that thesis in 2017. When Peter Palmeiro, my chairman President of Sun Valley Gold Fund. Acquired in the market, his 47% position in the company. Peter came in as chairman in 2019.” He relays that the stake has gone from an average cost of about 70 cents Canadian to a share price of about $2 Canadian, “He bought at an average cost of around about 70 cents Canadian. We're trading today $2 Canadian. So there's a three-bagger risk-free.”
  • He refuses to go beyond the 2023 study “I'm not allowed to talk about what's happening today. Because I can only refer to the 2023 report.” Asked whether 2023 costs still hold, he escalates capital and operating costs at 10% a year, which he calls well above realised inflation, and notes that major construction typically runs at double the CPI “I plug in 10% a year. Super conservative. Major construction costs will run typically double the CPI.” His argument is that a rising gold price does more for the project than cost escalation takes away.
  • He says financing is not the obstacle to building: he cites institutional holders of 72%, names Conway and Ruffer, says lenders are already offering debt, and puts it plainly “Getting the money to build a mine, it's not a problem.” Timing is the chairman's alone “He does not give a date when he's prepared to Seriously consider either selling or building.” and “Peter's pretty agnostic about who he talks to. If somebody like that wanted to approach him He would give them the time of day for sure.”
  • He tells investors they really make only one decision: “With Westvault, you might say I only make the one decision because the second decision About when to capitalize on that. It will be made by Peter Palmeiro.” He presents the 2023 study's 15-to-18-month first-gold figure as conditional on a build being approved rather than as a schedule, and “As long as we're making money safely in a secure way We might go on like this for a number of years.”
  • He declines to manage the share price and does not adopt the retail framing “So we don't really look at the share price too much. As strange as that might sound We look at fundamentals, the value of this” He says he would rather the shares tracked gold, points investors at the underlying property value and at whether management holds to its strategy, and calls it “This is a Warren Buffett quality play. And Warren said, "Do not follow the market." "The market is a madman." I might be paraphrasing a little bit.”