Mr. Garofalo: The company has 52 years of operating history in the mining business. We've been in the gold mining business since 1972. It's a company that's growing largely through organic means, through the discovery of its own deposits and through the acquisition of early-stage development projects that we have since built out into operating mines ourselves. We are very much focused on the basics of mining, which means we have avoided large-scale M&A deals and have put the emphasis very much on discovering our own deposits, building them out and then operating them ourselves.
TWST: Give us your perspective on how the commodities markets performed over the past six months and where they might go in the next six to 12 months.
Mr. Garofalo: The performance in the gold price really reflects the ease of monetary conditions globally. Central banks are coordinating their efforts in terms of introducing stimulus programs and expanding money supply. Governments are doing the same on the fiscal side by increasing their spending and their investment in infrastructure. Ultimately, these measures will result in higher prices, higher inflation across the commodity class - particularly gold, because gold has been seen as the ultimate currency for millennia and the one currency that can't be printed. So when the fiat currencies, the ones that have really no physical backing, are being printed in increasing quantity, it's debasing their value against gold. So the company's prognosis for gold going forward is that it will continue to increase as the central banks maintain easy monetary policies. That's probably going to occur for the foreseeable future because of the fragility of the economic recovery.
Tickers included in this excerpt: AEM
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