[REPLAY] Jason Jessup (Pt. 2): Thinking Bigger Than FNX Mining

Brandon Beylo (0:01)

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That's macro-ops forward slash collective. Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to talk to you about MIT Investment Management Company, also known as MITMCO, the Investment Office of MIT.

Each year, MITMCO invests with a handful of new emerging managers who it believes can earn exceptional long-term returns in support of MIT's mission. In order to help the emerging manager community more broadly, they created emergingmanagers.org, a website for emerging manager stock pickers. For those looking to start a stock picking fund, or those just looking to learn about how others have done it, I highly recommend this site. You'll find essays and interviews by successful emerging managers, service providers used by MIT's own fund managers, essays MITMCO has written for emerging stock pickers, and more. MITMCO also occasionally and opportunistically hires new members for their investment team. To view the job description, please visit mitmco.org/globaldashinvestor.

That's mitimco.org/globaldashinvestor.

The MTIMCO team spends their time learning about great businesses and investments, working with exceptional investors around the world in order to support generations of MIT innovators. In November of 2024, which is crazy to think, I interviewed Jason Jessup of Magna Mining, CEO of Magna Mining, for the first time. And the title of that podcast was Building a $1 billion plus mining company with Magna Mining. And we're a lot closer now to that $1 billion than we were when we recorded, which is crazy to think about. And in that time, just for full disclosure purposes, in the first podcast, I said it was one of my largest positions.

Depending on where price swings between one and two, it's either my largest still or my second largest. And I've been adding along the way, just because Jason, great execution on your part. But I think where I want to start this podcast is so much has changed. Like everything has changed really about the business, about exploration potential, the metals prices, where we are geopolitically in the world, even nickel, I feel like nickel is starting to change. So as CEO, you take a trip around the sun, it feels so fast. What do you do to find your north as you start a new year?

Jason Jessup (3:19)

That's a lot of good questions to get started on. But this last year has been just a whirlwind. I think one of the things you say, a lot has changed since our last podcast in November of 2024 But one thing has remained the same, is we've always been Sudbury focused, who's always been growing on three pillars of growth, production, exploration, and acquisition of non-core assets. With all the excitement and all of the progress we've made, we've always stayed focused on that. That's the North Star that just keeps me pointing on what we need to do, how we're going to grow. At different times in the last year, year and a half, there's been different pillars of those three pillars of growth that have really kind of led the way.

But all three of them, I think, have had a big part to play in our growth and our excitement. And we keep pushing on that. Now we really have a bigger team, I think a really well-rounded team that are pushing on those different parts and driving them forward. And I'm there to support them and encourage them and continue that vision.

Brandon Beylo (4:34)

And the good thing about growth is it shows that the company has a future and the future looks brighter than the past. But there's always growing pains when it comes with that, especially as you scale a business and even something as capital-intensive as mining. And when you have all these different options, going after Crane Hill, the R2 zone, you've got a LVAC restart potential. What are the pains in growing with so much optionality? Where it's almost like you've got paralysis by choice, basically.