Billionaire mining entrepreneur Ross Beaty believes gold is going to ‘blow through’ previous highs set in 2011.

“The quicker we can build a big company, the more exposed we're going to be to that run when it comes, and I think it will come quite soon,” Beaty told CEO.CA Nov. 7 in a wide-ranging conversation on the mining sector.

His Equinox Gold (TSE:EQX, NYSE:EQX market cap C$915 million) has lept from a developer to a mid-tier producer in under two years.

“I want to make it very clear that Equinox Gold is not building itself to be sold, it's building itself to be big.”

“It's a very strange time, relative to my last sort of 30 years I've been in this business, right now. You have a very strong gold price that actually makes great profits for most companies in the business, and yet, investors just simply are not buying gold companies.”

“What Equinox Gold has as one of its advantages, is a very strong shareholder base that has deep pockets and capacity to finance in almost any market. We have Mubadala at almost 20%. I own about 10% of Equinox… I’ve got a pretty good personal balance sheet...Lukas Lundin, Richard Warke. I mean, I could just go on... BlackRock. We've got a wonderful blue chip group of investors, and if I can bring them a value proposition, we're going to be able to finance it. That's something which is a strategic strength, I think, of Equinox, that doesn't exist [elsewhere].”

Transcript of conversation with mining hall of famer Ross Beaty Nov 7, 2019:

Goldfinger: “Ross, the last time we spoke, I think it was August 2018- if I'm not mistaken, and you were really just getting started with Equinox Gold (TSX-V:EQX, NYSE:EQX), and Aurizona was not in production yet. So, a lot has happened in the last 15 months, and a lot of progress has been made. Last August, I think the share price was about C$5.00 per share (on a split adjusted basis), or thereabouts. It recently reached nearly C$9.00. So, there has been a very nice price appreciation in shares of EQX in the last fifteen months. EQX is definitely doing better than the gold price and most other stocks in the sector. So, that's really impressive. Why don't you get us up to speed with what Equinox is up to right now and how you would assess the progress since the last time we spoke?”

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