Zimtu 2011 Road Trip – A Successful Finish

[caption id="attachment_556" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Dave Hodge and Joe Martin"][/caption]

Hamburg, Zurich, Geneva, Munich, Vienna - A blur of meeting financial people, listening to presentations by Canadian junior exploration companies building relationships,  enjoying lunches and dinners and forging a camaraderie with participants by spending time on the Zimtu magical bus as it rolled through three countries.

Now, back home in Vancouver, jet lagged by the nine hour difference with Vienna, the question asked is, “Was it worth it?”

I put that question to Dave Hodge, President of both Zimtu Capital Corp. and Commerce Resources Corp., two of the ten companies on the tour and the driving force behind the decision to try this new approach to raising both money and awareness of Canadian juniors in foreign markets.

“Look,” says Dave, “a lot of companies believe they are in competition with each other. As much as we appear to be, we aren’t. We are in exploration leading to discovery and hopefully moving on to production. The first half of every story is the same, no matter what the commodity.

“The important thing is that we’re here in this challenging time when the market is down. It is important for us to be here to talk to our shareholders.”

Echoes Chris Grove, spokesperson for Commerce. “Meeting investors and educating them about the huge upside going from discovery through to production is important. Commerce is involved in rare metals and rare elements and it is a compelling story.” Grove adds, “About one-half of our shareholders are from Germany. This trip serves a two fold purpose by both meeting new retail investors and our existing shareholders.

The road trip also featured a few non-exploration people. These included writer  and former chief editor of CBS Market Watch Thom Calandra, Maquarie Private Wealth advisor Julie Catling, Investor Relations specialist Vance Loeber of Tydewell Consulting, Bob Rose, a partner with D&D Securities and to give the presentations some order, New Yorker Chris Berry of House Mountain Partners, LLC and co-editor of Morning Notes.

Vance Loeber, a veteran of investment tours to Europe, had this to say about the Road Trip. “It’s a classic example of how one and one equals three.”

The corporate presentations were tightly scheduled as Chris Berry set the stage, giving overviews of the supply/demand situation of commodities being discussed and reaffirming his belief that the world continues in a secular bull market for  those commodities.

Said Chris, “This trip really reaffirmed my belief in gold.  However, Europe is more forward thinking with respect to renewable energy so there were several attendees who said they hoped I was wrong with my positive outlook for coal.”

Chris will be a keynote speaker at the Cambridge House Montreal Resource Investment Conference this coming November 18 & 19. http://cambridgehouse.com/

[caption id="attachment_553" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Left to right, Matt Stroka of Equitas, writer Thom Calandra and Vance Loeber of Tydewell Consulting standing in front of the Zimtu Bus"][/caption]

All of the represented companies had an association with Zimtu but their enthusiastic comments about the road trip had nothing to do with that. It was all about how they believed that Dave Hodge had indeed come up with a great new format for raising awareness and funds in the friendly European markets.

Jay Roberge, president of Equitas Resources Corp. put it this way. “It’s all about connections. We do not have the connections to go into these markets on our own. And, it is important that we do it again. To pass judgement on one show doesn’t work.”

Companies on the Zimtu 2011 Road Trip included; Zimtu; Commerce Resources; Equitas Resources Corp; Lakeland Resources Inc.; Quantum Rare Earth Dev. Corp.; Western Potash; and three companies on the way to going public; Discovery Harbour Resources; Mogul Ventures Corp; and Tamaka Gold Corporation.

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