Greg Roberts: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your next question is coming from Andrew Scutt from ROTH MKM. Your line is live.
Andrew Scutt: Hey guys. Thank you for taking my question, Quick one for me. With kind of the market and the [Indiscernible] slower over the last few months, does that kind of open up a unique opportunity in M&A market — and I mean, are you guys looking to be active? Sorry–
Greg Roberts: One word answer, yes. I can say that after we closed the LPM deal, I probably got five calls of opportunities on the M&A side. I think it’s important for everybody to remember how much liquidity A-Mark has, whether it be our book value, whether it be our tangible net worth, whether it be our repo facilities, our lease lines, our dollar facilities. We have — as I said before, we are the ultimate destination when people need to monetize inventory. But we also are in the market looking for more deals. And we don’t have a tremendous amount of competition there. I think that, as I’ve said before, as things slow down, it becomes harder to compete with A-Mark. And I’ve talked to a number of people who are just interested in exploring whether or not in a slower market, they might be able to do better with A-Mark than competing with any market.
And that could be on the DTC side, the wholesale side, the international side. We are really well-positioned, and I can — I think that closing the LPM deal, as we talked about and as we did last quarter, we’re very pleased with Charlie and his people in Hong Kong. We’re looking at possible expansion in that region. We’re taking some — taking a good look at the Singapore region. And that — this little bit slower market in the last six months. just opens up opportunities. And I think it gives us a little bit more leverage to negotiate a better deal than we’re going to be able to do when the markets are screaming and everybody is making millions of dollars, and it just makes it harder to negotiate a deal. So, I think as I said in the last call, we’re going to continue to go with the four elements of how we deploy capital.
And we’re regularly looking at where we get the best return for our capital. And I feel like we’re doing a really good job, whether it’s buying back stock. We bought back a very good chunk of stock in this last quarter, as we just reported. I felt like we were opportunistic at the price we bought it at. We closed an M&A transaction. I’m very, very happy with that. We look to pay down debt, if possible. And we also look to make sure that we return value to shareholders through our dividends. And that is a continual juggling act. We also — we can throw in inventory opportunistic inventory purchases for our capital. We can look at that, too. But all of those things is I do spend a great deal of time talking to Thorn, Kathleen and talking to the other team members here about just checking ourselves and regularly double checking, are we spending our capital and investing our capital in areas that are going to create the best shareholder return, whether it be our Q4 right now or whether it be our Q4 3 years from now.
We’re very optimistic about this machine we’ve built. We think it’s set up great to take advantage of all market conditions. As we’ve said before, we’re a very lumpy business. And our biggest job here is to keep capital ready to deploy and never get caught short and to make sure that the machine is ready to take advantage of whatever the market gives us. And I feel great about what we did last quarter. I know it may disappoint some people and I feel even better about what I’ve seen at the end of March and what I’ve seen in April. So, we’re looking forward — we’re actually looking forward to the next few quarters.
Andrew Scutt: Thanks. And great to hear. And actually, I have just one more for me. So, kind of in a rampant demand market, the mine, how you leverage those assets and you push out product. But can you maybe speak to when the market is acquired or how you’re able to leverage these mints maybe in a different way?
Greg Roberts: Yes, I mean I think that both Sunshine and Silvertown are very adept and we’ve built businesses there that are able to switch products very quickly. We might be making 10 ounce silver bars one week, we might be making 100-ounce silver bars the next week. We can switch very quickly, and we’re very good at that. And wherever the demand is at, we’re going to fill it and we’re going to fill it cheaper than anybody else. And that’s what this vertically integrated model does. And we’ve seen that right now. Our ability to sell silver products through the DTC channel and our ability to make the products cheaper than most anybody is just part of our advantage. And we’re always viewing what we’re going to make next week, what we’re going to make next month. And I think we’re very good at that.
Andrew Scutt: Great. Thanks again and I’ll hop back in the queue.
Greg Roberts: Okay.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your next question is coming from Greg Gibas from Northland Securities. Your line is live.
Greg Gibas: Hey good afternoon, Greg, Kathleen, Thor. Thanks for taking the question. I think you kind of fairly addressed what’s kind of driving that softer demand in Q1 and nice to hear that it’s picking up at least in April. So, kind of, wanted to direct my question. First on the follow-up on seeing pretty attractive M&A opportunities is what it sounds like. Congrats on the expansion into Asia with LPM. Just wondering maybe if you could address how you’re evaluating those markets? Like are you seeing any more markets that are more favorable than others? And what kind of makes sense? Because it sounds like there’s some attractive opportunities there?
Greg Roberts: Yes, I mean I think — we look at — we really look at M&A whether in three kind of sections, whether it be in our minting, whether it be in our wholesale trading or whether we see it in DTC. One thing about A-Mark, we have to be thoughtful as it relates to not focusing on any one part of that segment too much because the three segments can then get a little out of whack. So, I think LPM was a very intriguing opportunity for us because it combined retail in the region, along with a good deal of wholesale business. So, we kind of we kind of hit two areas there on that acquisition, which is good for us. At this point, we feel like our minting operations are able to keep up with demand. We’re clearly expanding our logistics, which is also important that if we’re selling — we’re shipping 50,000 packages one month, and we’re going to ship 150,000 packages a year and a half from now because of our M&A growth in DTC.
We need to balance and make sure that we can still handle all of the logistics side of things. So, I think we’re — right now, I can say that the areas that we see opportunity are focused on the wholesale and the DTC. And I think we’re in a good position right now that we would take either, and it’s just cutting the best deal and finding the best opportunity for us.
Greg Gibas: Perfect. Thanks. That’s helpful. And I wanted to dive a little deeper. Greg, even though the challenging conditions to see the customer growth, I think, 80%. I think you talked about just kind of newer products or offerings that are attracting those customers. I’m curious what — if you could maybe discuss a little bit more on what’s kind of gaining traction with those new customers in terms of new product offerings or anything like that?
Greg Roberts: Yes. I mean I think if you register at the JM Bullion site, I think you’ll see what we’re offering. I think you’ll see we run a Thursday special on products that we believe are going to attract and be interesting to our customer base as well as attract new customers. We’ve been doing that now for probably eight to 10 weeks, and it’s been very beneficial for us. I think that we don’t — we move through old inventory that we’ve had. It’s a good — we use DTC to move through old inventory. We moved through new custom products. We had an opportunity with a Canadian company, Silvercrest Mines that we did a JV with them to create a one-ounce silver round and Silvercrest is a company in Mexico that has a single mine in Mexico, what I think to be a really good company that I talked to the principles there and the management there.
And we sold a Silvercrest one ounce silver round that we developed for Silvercrest on JM Bolon right now. It’s being offered, and it’s a new product. We’ve never done a mine product before. Silvercrest bought a number of coins from A-Mark, which they’re just carrying on their balance sheet for their business and for their shareholders if they want to ever distribute it. And that’s something that we were able to whip up fairly quickly, and it was — it went on sale last Thursday, and it’s been very successful. We could do a sovereign product. We could do private men product. We try to vary what we’re offering and then see how the customers respond.
Greg Gibas: Great. That’s helpful. I guess last one for me, and sorry if you maybe already addressed this, I’m in jumping between a few calls. But Greg, I know you previously commented on Costco and how other kind of can be a benefit to the whole industry and just drive interest in new customers that haven’t considered it before, just getting in front of a new audience. Just given it’s kind of been in the news and there’s been a lot of success with them selling them in stores. Curious if you have any updated thoughts on that, Greg, or if it’s kind of the same?
Greg Roberts: I think it would be the same. I think any time you’re introducing a new demographic or a new group of people to precious metals, that’s ultimately going to be great for A-Mark. I understand that there’s some numbers thrown out there that are — seem very high to me. I’ve seen some members that are what I would say is very optimistic on sales just based on my position in the marketplace, and I feel like I touch a lot of transactions. I would say that it’s good for the market. I think we are — ultimately, as we — our job is to attract customers — retail customers to our DTC segment, the more customers that are out there that are googling buy silver or by gold or whatever they’re googling, they’re going to find our DTC brands.
