FREDERICTON, New Brunswick, Oct. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trius Investments Inc. (TSXV: TRU) (“Trius” or the “Company”) wishes to provide the following details and updates regarding its corporate strategy.
Portfolio Strategy
The Company seeks unique opportunities to create value through its portfolio holdings, via investments and acquisitions that may not be available to individual investors. To date in 2020, the Company has opted to concentrate its portfolio in fewer but larger holdings across two sectors identified as presenting the most promising opportunities.
The Company’s primary focus is currently precious metals, and in particular, gold exploration. Against a macroeconomic and monetary policy backdrop highly favourable for gold, and spurred by a major discovery in the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt by New Found Gold Corp., Trius is increasingly shifting its portfolio composition towards acquiring gold exploration properties in Newfoundland. This growing collection within the Company’s portfolio is referred to as the Newfoundland Gold Exploration segment (“NL Gold”). The Company also owns a small equity position in Pasofino Gold Limited.
The Company’s current holdings within NL Gold are the Gander West property, which was acquired as announced on September 21, 2020, and the Toogood Arm property, which acquisition is pending closing as most recently announced on September 24, 2020. This property package is shown in the image below.
Figure 1 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/781635a2-5327-486a-b62f-2658c92702a7.
Trius believes that its strategy of assembling a property portfolio segment will provide the greatest flexibility for value creation. Trius is acquiring these properties as passive investments, and does not intend to operate its properties directly. However, from time to time Trius may engage third party technical and exploration consultants to advance its mineral property holdings so as to increase their monetization potential.
The other sector in which Trius has meaningful portfolio exposure is e-commerce and specifically ready-to-eat meals, by virtue of the Company’s $1,250,000 secured loan to Revive Organics Inc. as announced on March 20, 2020. The loan remains in good standing and continues to pay interest at a rate of 10% per annum, and matures on March 20, 2021.
NL Gold
The Company’s near-term corporate strategy for NL Gold is as follows:
- The Company currently has two grassroots properties, and is targeting the acquisition of one or two additional, more advanced exploration-stage projects in Newfoundland, which provide exploration upside potential and may generally be expected to increase in resale value as interest grows for gold exploration in Central Newfoundland. The Company has an existing pipeline of such projects which it is already evaluating.
- The Company currently has three Newfoundland-based technical and property advisors. The Company is actively working to add additional geological expertise to its leadership team, and has identified potential candidates, in order to help manage investing activities at NL Gold and any follow-on deployments of capital, such as sourcing external exploration personnel or acquiring nearby mineral claims.
- Alongside the foregoing objectives, the Company’s management team, board of directors, and consultants are consistently evaluating how NL Gold can be monetized so as to achieve a return on invested capital and enhance shareholder value. Options currently under consideration include funding incremental investments in exploration work to develop the properties, or building NL Gold to a critical size and stage of development where it could attract option, joint venture, or investment partners.
Trius President and CEO Joel Freudman summarized: “We’re working hard to add properties of merit at justifiable prices, and to gain access to more local technical expertise, so we can determine the optimal path forward to monetization, whether through incremental exploration and development, spin-out, or partnership. The market is starting to recognize the upside potential of junior gold exploration companies in Newfoundland, and our immediate goal is to develop NL Gold so that it can be valued comparably as an asset package.”
Other
A director of Trius has exercised an aggregate of 175,000 options for gross proceeds to the Company of $28,000. These funds have been added to the Company’s general working capital.
About Trius Investments Inc.
Trius seeks unique value-creation opportunities, currently increasing its exposure to the precious metals sector by assembling a portfolio of gold exploration properties in the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt. Trius’ common shares trade on the TSXV under the symbol “TRU”.
Trius is a portfolio company of Resurgent Capital Corp. (“Resurgent”), a merchant bank providing venture capital markets advisory services and proprietary financing. Resurgent works with promising public and pre-public micro-capitalization Canadian companies.
For further information, please contact:
Joel Freudman
President & CEO
Trius Investments Inc.
Phone: (647) 880-6414
Cautionary Statements
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including those relating to Trius’ portfolio strategy, completing the acquisition of Toogood Arm, corporate strategy for NL Gold, the acquisition of other mineral exploration investments, and exploring, advancing and monetizing NL Gold. These statements are based on numerous assumptions believed by management to be reasonable in the circumstances, including that the Company will complete its purchase of Toogood Arm, and that the Company will be able to execute its overall portfolio strategy and its corporate strategy relating to NL Gold, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including without limitation: mineralization hosted on adjacent and/or nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the Company’s properties; the exploration or monetization potential of NL Gold; challenges in identifying, structuring, and executing additional investments and acquisitions, on favourable terms or at all; risks inherent in mineral exploration activities and investments in the mineral exploration sector; volatility in financial markets, economic conditions, and precious metals prices; and those other risks described in the Company’s continuous disclosure documents. Actual results may differ materially from results contemplated by the forward-looking statements herein. Investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements herein except as required by applicable securities laws.