TRIUS
DETAILS
CORPORATE
STRATEGY
Fredericton,
New Brunswick – October
13,
2020 --
InvestorsHub 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: Trius Newfoundland Gold Exploration
Holdings
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.