Edmonton Executive Glen McKay: Examining Leadership at Cornerstone Capital

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;levo&period;com&sol;glen-mckay-hardrok" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">Glen McKay<&sol;a> had been running his own drilling and blasting company in his home province of Newfoundland for more than 10 years when he decided to start a junior mining company&period; With this ambition in mind&comma; he co-founded Cornerstone Capital Resources in 1997&comma; with the company initially staying close to home with projects in Newfoundland and Labrador&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">But McKay and his team wanted more – and started searching for other available mining prospects around the world&period; The company entered South America in 2005 and found the highly prospective Cascabel property in Ecuador&comma; now described as one of the world’s most promising copper and gold discoveries in the past ten years&period; Cascabel is in northwestern Ecuador in an under-explored northern section of the Andean Copper Belt&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Cornerstone Capital Resources found a willing partner in SolGold&comma; which currently owns 85&percnt; of the Cascabel property&period; Cornerstone owns 15&percnt; of Cascabel&comma; plus another 8&percnt; of SolGold&period; The interest of BHP Billiton and Newcrest Mining&comma; two of the world’s largest gold miners&comma; has also attracted attention for Cascabel&period; BHP Billiton owns 11&percnt; of SolGold while Newcrest owns 14&percnt;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">But there were challenges operating in Ecuador&period; The government introduced what was essentially a mining moratorium in 2013&comma; along with a hefty tax on mining profits&period; However&comma; in 2015&comma; the Ecuador government separated the mining ministry from its oil ministry and announced plans to promote 36 projects to produce gold&comma; copper and molybdenum estimated to be worth US&dollar;200 billion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;mytrendingstories&period;com&sol;article&sol;cascabel-project-a-prize-for-keen-gold-companies-says-edmontons-glen-mckay&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">McKay<&sol;a> admits the acquisition of Cascabel was considered a risky move by some in the mining industry&comma; especially during the moratorium years&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Many years later&comma; it seems our decisions to stick with Ecuador&comma; and the Cascabel project in particular&comma; were correct&comma;” McKay wrote in a recent blog&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">McKay stepped down as CEO of Cornerstone in 2011 but maintained a significant share ownership in the company&period; He added more shares in 2016 when he helped Cornerstone through a short-term cash flow crunch&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">As a shareholder&comma; he keeps a close eye on news releases related to Cascabel&comma; mostly exploration updates&period; So far&comma; the news has been promising&period;  Cornerstone President and CEO Brooke Macdonald said&colon; &&num;8220&semi;We are pleased that the increase in high grade resources has been added within or adjacent to the previous high-grade envelope suggesting a robust target for early extraction of higher-grade material&period; We are also confident that continued exploration on other Cascabel targets will add to the total mineral inventory&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Still&comma; McKay has no illusions&period; He notes that the mining industry is expensive and requires large amounts of cash to bring any major discovery to the production phase&period; In addition&comma; the price of gold has been range-bound for the past couple of years and it might require a sharp uptick in bullion prices to light a fire under the gold mining industry&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">But McKay remains optimistic&comma; noting he is confident that company executives are thinking about ways to build and extract value from Cascabel&period; If that means selling the Cascabel discovery to a larger player in the mining industry&comma; McKay says he would support that decision&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;