Tony Manini is a geologist turned operator and private-equity co-founder (EMR Capital, ex-Oxiana/OZ Minerals, chair of Asiamet Resources, C3 Metals, and Andina Copper). In this conversation, he walked me through his four-decade career from Sepon in Laos to turnaround investing and incubating names like NextGen Energy and now running different exploration companies. He then layed out a hard-edged framework for spotting good mining stocks early. I also got to ask him whether retail investors must “think like builders” to profit at discovery, how non-geologists can compete with process and patience, and how he’s applying the same playbook today to copper hunting in the Americas.

TLDR

1. People and incentives first, rocks second.
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   Manini screens new juniors by cap table and conduct. He wants to see insiders who bought real stock with real money, hold clean options, no toxic converts. Tony also wants to see at least ~70% of the money juniors spend going into the ground, with G&A capped at ~30%. He then checks runway (12 months+ of G&A plus committed fieldwork), ownership/tenure and royalties, and only then engages the geology. The constant is alignment and discipline before assays.
2. Think like a probability manager, not a prophet.
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   Exploration is a venture-capital game. Tony’s job is to manage the probabilities in the game. He wants to move from 30-to-1 prospects-to-mine odds as close as possible as 10-to-1 via hard gates and definitive tests. Write the if/then plan up front, what result advances spend, what result kills it, and cut losers early. The job is structured data collection and pattern recognition, not story-telling. Success comes from running the process relentlessly, building experience, and being honest to yourself.
3. What qualifies as “good” early?
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   Simply put; scale, setting, and metallurgy. Start by asking yourself if the asset you’re looking into could realistically ever be a mine. Size/shape/grade in proven belts, big alteration footprints, and a jurisdiction/permitting path you can name by form number. Look for early metallurgy (deleterious elements, clay/permeability, acid consumption) and obvious showstoppers (parks/sacred lands, power/water/road fantasies). Winners present clear binary catalysts within 6 to 12 months and a credible buyer list from day one. As a rule of thumb (yes, there are exceptions), success either comes within a reasonable period of time, or it doesn’t come at all.
4. You don’t have to be a geologist to make money, if you run the process.
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   But I’m not a geo!!! According to Tony, who is a geo, non-geos can win by backing repeat teams, insisting on spend-to-ground, staying in proven provinces, and favoring underexplored land packages with mine-scale footprints. Experience combined with relentless focus is the real edge. Portfolio-thinking counts. The discovery phase is where juniors should create value, builders can take it later, so retail investors should anchor on discovery potential that looks mineable even if they never fund construction.
5. Valuation and downside protection.
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   At first, Tony thinks about the sum of the parts and a potential entry price. Price tags matter less than what you’re buying. Third-party earn-ins, multiple targets in strong belts, and shovel-ready or already-intersected systems can underwrite higher market caps. Manini frames it as asymmetric bets. Protect the downside with quality and stage, seek upside via M&A probability, and remember that entry valuation is your best risk control. His own arc, from CRA/Rio Tinto to Oxiana/OZ (Sepon, Prominent Hill), Tigers Realm’s mixed outcomes, NextGen seeding, and EMR’s turnaround PE, reinforces a rules-based approach, informed by the books “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit”, as well as the old Rio Tinto mantra-like checklist; size of the prize, cost of the test, chance of success.

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