I love businesses that have extremely low TVC, that is totally variable cost, that have fast cycles measured in hours not days, that’s what we define as throughput and that’s over 80% cash margins. And remembering that that’s all in a company that’s sitting on $250 million of net operating loss carryforwards, which will shelter a tremendous amount of profit from federal taxes. So metals makes this – metals alone would make Comstock succeed with the numbers that we just looked at. And it’s self financing, because where it’s located in a rural area and the nature of the business, we have access to USDA loans for rural development. We have access to Nevada industrial bonds, which are typically limited to about $10 million a project, except if they’re for renewable or recycling activities.
There isn’t a limit. So from a natural perspective, we’re literally the only zero landfill solution that’s keeping toxic materials, a literal tsunami of these materials coming from California, out of Nevada landfills. And socially, we’re creating a clean sustainable ecosystem in Silver Springs. We’re bringing jobs and development to an opportunity zone that desperately needs it. So we don’t just feel great about the achievements of the business, it’s just remarkable what it’s positioned to do. So Trevor, I think with that, we can turn it to questions.
A – Trevor Brucato: Perfect. Well, thank you gentlemen. If you have any questions, you may submit them in the Q&A module. If we don’t get to all the questions today, we will be sure to review them internally and respond accordingly following today’s event. Let’s kick off with the first question here. So Corrado, Comstock has said it would sell its non-core strategic investment assets, namely the Sierra Springs real estate and Green Li-ion shares. Would you say your confidence level in selling these assets in 2024 is higher now compared to previous quarters? And if so, why?
Corrado De Gasperis: Great question. Thanks, Trevor. So let me start with Green Li-ion first. As I mentioned in the presentation, Green Li-ion was a seed investment for us. They had a remarkable idea that was complementary to our recycling process. That idea was to take black mass and go all the way to precursor cathode active materials, pulling themselves way up and above the commodity value chain. We love that. We still love that aspect of where they really positioned themselves in the market. But they were an idea, and then they were producing a prototype. But today – literally today, Green Li-ion just announced their first operational facility in Oklahoma, and they’re producing precursor cathode active materials. And we understand that that was an important prerequisite for them to start the process of their next capital raise.
And we understand that they’re getting remarkable interest from infrastructure level and energy transition funds. And so we are more confident, we are highly confident, because their value has literally increased in every one of their four offerings almost by – almost in a textbook manner. And that the demand now is so large and so established, we’re already getting secondary interest, interest in – from the secondary markets and our share. So we look to synchronize our monetization with those plans that are near-term this summer. So I feel very confident, especially since we were successful in doing a piece last year. Sierra Springs, a little bit different, right. Silver Springs itself was sort of the last bastion of development in Northern Nevada.
Reno is exploding to this minute. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center was the marquee location for heavy industrial businesses. And then that got complemented by distribution and then got complemented by data centers. Well, that explosion has now fully spilled over into Silver Springs, not only with the announcement last year of Microsoft claiming their stake in the ground adjacent to our properties, but also this recent letter of intent, which is another hyperscale data center coming in and establishing a more than double valuation. And so the bad news is, because Silver Springs was sort of the last bastion, the last sort of frontier of industrial development, it’s taken longer. The good news is property values have only gone up in that time period.
And to have a direct comp that is adjacent to Comstock’s properties there, right, gives us an active ability now to market negotiate and monetize those properties. So I think Green Li-ion is this summer, and then Silver Springs is going to be right on its tails.
Trevor Brucato: Thank you, Corrado. Could you please comment on Comstock’s plans to address dilution during times of rapid operational growth?
Corrado De Gasperis: Yes. I know that this is a point of angst. And let me first say that we are highly sensitive to the use of our capital and to the use of our currency. We’re also highly sensitive to the acceleration of the business opportunities that we face. We’ve positioned ourselves remarkably well. And this is why I emphasize our strategic investments. If you look at the use of our capital and how large of a percentage of that capital is going to direct developments for direct expansions of our IP portfolios for immediate commercialization on all fronts, you see that it’s just important for us in no shape, in no way to slow that down. So we’ve generally had a capital light mindset. We’ve been thinly capitalized, lightly capitalized.
That’s because of our sensitivity, right, to issuing shares. We also, by the way, issued almost 7 million shares in April that we’re with strategic partners that were restricted, that we will retain the future value of while we add two large shareholders to our capital base. So we’re being thoughtful about it. Now let me tell you how we manage to – how we plan to manage it, and it really relates to what we just talked about. I have my eyes squarely on the prize of monetizing these assets. This $40 million, $50 million, $60 million of cash, I have my eyes squarely on that prize, okay. We have always chosen to advance the business. We have never intentionally slowed the business down. And in fairness, depending on the timing of some of these transactions, like RenFuel, like GenMat, et cetera.
We’ve had to deploy more capital and use more of our currency than people might have preferred or expected. But we do that with high value, like the markets that we’re addressing, the values that we’re looking to unlock are tremendous. Now, in addition to the eye on the prize of those asset sales, the maturity of these commercializations has now gotten to the point where we’re engaged with strategic partners daily, right. And the conversations are incredibly collaborative. Like, we have very common goals here in commercializing this technology for low carbon fuels, as an example, right. And so the ability to access capital to invite and solicit capital into the subsidiary levels is prominent. It may be imminent, right. So I think we have such a value foundation, such a – now demonstrable value equation that we have multiple sources of capital at multiple layers of the enterprise that should allow us to frankly minimize the dilution.
