EP 87: Finding Gold in the Power of Positive Thinking. Max Porterfield, CEO/President Callinex Mines
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This week on The Millionaire Choice Podcast, Tony talks with Max Porterfield, CEO and President of Callinex Mines Inc. Tony and Max discuss the precious metal industry, sharing wealth, and the power of positive thinking.
Max Porterfield is an experienced CEO with a demonstrated history of working in the mining & metals industry. Mr. Porterfield has over ten years of experience in natural resources and financial markets, previously with Brazil Resources Inc., Uranium Energy Corp. and US Global Investors.
About Max Porterfield
Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, son of a middle-class family, Max learned much of his strong work ethic from his father. After losing his mother at age 21, Max graduated from Texas Tech University with a bachelor's degree in business administration.
Fresh out of college, Max got his first job at a natural resource focused investing firm. A habit of surrounding himself with “successful people” helped grow his experience in business. Having said, “if you control your mind, you control your outcome,” Max believes his success is due in no small part to how he perceived his opportunities. Self-driven towards prosperity, he is now the CEO and president of Callinex Mines Inc. in Canada.
Learn more about Max Porterfield, https://callinex.ca/
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Show Transcript
Tony (00:00):
Welcome back to the Millionaire Choice show. Today, we're gonna be talking about some mining. We're gonna be talking to Max Porterfield, the president and CEO of Callinex Mines INC. out of Manitoba, Canada. The interesting thing about Max is he actually took over the CEO in headship of Callinex mines at age 31. So, he's a young CEO, mover, and shaker, and doing some great things up there. We're gonna learn a little bit about mining, especially around copper and what copper means to the industry in the world. You can't do anything technologically or electrical without copper. Can you, Max?
Max Porterfield (00:38):
No. That's why copper is known as "Dr. Copper." It's the building blocks of the global economy. Copper is used because it's a great conductor, and you're right; it's predominantly used in electrical wiring in your home, your vehicle, etc. There's a lot of things that take advantage of copper. You don't realize it every day.
Tony (01:02):
Now, I grew up the son of a carpenter, so, interesting stories about copper; whenever I'd go on the job site and there'd be some leftover electrical wire. I was scarfing the electrical wire, stripping it down and selling it to the metal salvage guys and making a little side money from copper. But, one thing I didn't realize, and this is sad; the state of the world is that people would actually break into job sites and strip the copper out of HVAC units because they were desperate for drug money. And, as a young guy learning about that, I'm like, "what? That's so, so terrible that that's what people are driven to pull that out!" Just something I learned on the side.
Max Porterfield (01:49):
They're gonna more and more driven to do that every single day. Cause we're at an all time high for copper prices. And, you've had a lack of investment in the copper business and the supply side; discovery and development of these mines, where you are having demand now outstriping supply. You actually only have about a three day supply in the copper inventories right now, which is very, very tight. So, last time you had copper north of $4, it was quite popular to steal copper, and that's just gonna be more and more popular moving forward. It's just like catalytic converts; when all cars were deemed to need a catalytic converter for environmental reasons, that had a huge demand driver for, platinum cause each catalytic converter needs to have a little bit of platinum. Platinum was in tight supply. Platinum was a really performer in terms of investment, cause demand shifts, but that's why you see catalytic converts get out of the bottom of cars all the time; it's because they're actually going for that gram or gram and a half of platinum.
Tony (02:52):
Wow. I would've never known that because platinum's price is north of a thousand dollars. Where's it at right now?
Max Porterfield (02:58):
It's definetly north of thousand dollars. I don't follow the platinum markets candidly. I'm more focused on the base and then just the normal precious metals in terms of gold and silver prices. But, these demand drivers that can shift due to government policy have big ramifications that policy makers don't necessarily look done chain in terms of, "what kind of policy decisions are we making, and what are the ramifications of those policies that we're putting in place?" So, like platinum, copper is gonna be one of those that's gonna be benefiting from government policy, predominantly with the electric vehicle shift, as well as global infrastructure spending, for these charging stations, and rebuilding the bridges, roads, and electrical grids that need to be updated; they're gonna have a big demand on the base metals in particular with this finite supply caused by a lack of investment for the exploration and development of these mines.
Tony (03:57):
It's interesting you mentioned that- I'm more familiar with the silver market, but the gobbling up the silver industry; JP Morgan, Chase Bank has been buying up silver for 10 years, of course, Russia, it's big in the news right now. China and a lot of other countries have been gobbling up gold, but a lot of times you overlook things like copper, or zinc, or some of these other metals that kinda help the industry keep going and society keep going. Now, I gotta be honest with you. I don't know a whole lot about mining. It's one of those things- you look at most investors and future millionaires- I think that's why I love doing the shows. Cause, I learn so much on the show from the different guys we have on, but the go-to thing for most investors when they start investing is gonna be straight to mutual funds.
Tony (04:39):
You got Dave Ramsey out there pushing it. He's one of the most well known financial teachers in the world today. And, mutual funds are his thing. Real estate would probably be his other thing that he talks about a lot. And then, business- some of your other guys, David Bach, "Automatic Millionaire," I think he leans a little bit more towards mutual funds. Robert Kiyosaki leans towards, real estate, but you don't hear very many people talking about mining as a possibility or a play for building wealth or being part of your portfolio. Do you?
Max Porterfield (05:09):
No, it's probably not top of mind for most people, but I think that if you look in terms of wealth creation; there are few places that you can create as much wealth as quickly as you can than in the mining business. Now, nothing comes easy. That's a fact, but you can certainly create a huge amount of wealth in the discovery of these deposits that go on to producing mines. So, in mining, there's three different Sub-sectors; there's exploration, there's development stage, and then there's production. And, obviously, each different Sub-sector within the industry has different risks. Exploration's the highest risk, but that's where you get the highest reward because you're essentially going to an area that you think is perspective, and then you have an "exploration hypothesis" as in terms of why there'd be a large deposit sitting there that you're looking for and then drill testing that. And then, what down my expertise happens to lay in, and what my focus and vision is for our company. But, no, there's different phases; typically exploration's gonna be similar to a biotech company, where we're research and development heavy; just like a biotech stock. You'll be de-risking a biotech stock or a biotech stock will be risking their business through research and development and going through clinical trials to get their drug approved where our research and development and de-risking on the exploration side is our exploration thesis to find a large discovery, which is what we're up to.
Tony (06:54):
I think, what comes to me as an example is; you're looking at how your company can add value at the different stages of development- which you mentioned research, exploration development, and then production. I didn't know that about cows though, but cows are the same way. You have the birthing and they add value there. And then they have ranchers that add a certain amount of weight onto the cow. Then they resell these cows at different stages. It's a weird analogy to bring up.