Metals & Mining Hedge Funds?

onebagger

Anybody know of any good funds / pods focused on metals and mining so I can go peruse some 13Fs?

Want some more commodities exposure in my PA and this is purely a curiosity exercise since I am completely ignorant about HFs

Work in metals & mining investment banking in Toronto so happy to shed some light on institutional universe - punchline is there really aren't that many well-known mining equities focused hedge funds of scale,  given:

1) Size of sector relative to other industries (strictly speaking about mining equities - excludes commodity ETFs like GLD, SLV, etc that all the large-cap institutions will hold to some degree. Blackrock, Van Eck, Fidelity all have sizeable holdings in those and have dedicated commodity / natural resource focused PMs) 

2) The metals universe is broad with respect to both A. commodities (precious metals, base metals, bulks, etc.), and B. number of companies (i.e. probably 500+ gold equities out there of various shapes and sizes, although most likely aren't investible), and each commodity has its own supply / demand fundamentals. Not to suggest that a gold-focused PM can't learn copper fundamentals, but it's a lot of names to try to keep track of

3) Delivering consistent alpha over multiple cycles in the mining sector is a tough job - in addition to the cyclical nature that you witness in say O&G, you have to choose the correct commodities at the right time, keep an eye on political / social developments (lots of mining is done in jurisdictions with a less established political / social framework i.e. DRC / West Africa) in addition to other idiosyncratic risks that you generally wouldn't see in other industries (i.e. if the government wants to revoke your mining permit / hike taxes by 50%, your company can go from a billion to zero in the blink of an eye)

However, what I will say is it seems like some of the more well-known HFs are looking at the sector more closely these days in light of the inflation / renewables / energy transition / national security thematic, all of which paints a pretty bullish story for metals i.e. copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, rare earths, etc. Been getting HH calls for shops like Citadel and Balyasny that are looking for people with M&M IB backgrounds.

If you're interested in gold, below is a pretty good list:

https://www.goldcouncil.net/members

Would also suggest checking out some CDN / Australian / UK hedge funds - given how prevalent of a sector mining is in those jurisdictions, chances are there's some good names to check out there. Tribeca in Australia is another good one.