Shawn Ryan takes the helm at Ryan Gold

With 56 properties scattered throughout the Yukon to explore, Ryan Gold‘s (RYG-V) new president, Shawn Ryan, has his work cut out for him. Ryan sold six gold properties to the company last September, and on Feb. 16, the long-time prospector and former mushroom picker penned a deal to sell the rest of his precious-metals properties, all 50 of them, to Ryan Gold and become its president. It will be his first major management position in a public company.

As the Yukon’s best-known prospector and property vendor, Ryan already wields considerable public appeal. Indeed, the announcement of his appointment and the property acquisitions pushed Ryan Gold’s stock up nearly 25% to $2. And after vending two of the most important Yukon gold projects in the past few years, shareholders can’t help but think Mr. Ryan can do it again.

Those two projects are, of course, White Gold and Coffee.

In 2007, he optioned White Gold to Underworld Resources, which quickly delineated a 2-million-oz. gold resource there and sparked a staking rush throughout the Yukon. Kinross Gold (K-T, KGC-N) eventually took over Underworld for $2.60 a share, or $140 million, in early 2010. Ryan did well by the deal: he received 2 million Underworld shares and $850,000 cash for optioning the property, along with a 4% net smelter return royalty (NSR) which could be bought for payments totaling $10 million. 

In mid-2009, just as the stock markets began to recover, Ryan optioned the Coffee gold project to Kaminak Gold (KAM-V), when
its stock could be had for just 12.5¢. By late 2010, the stock had soared to an all-time high of $3.85 following impressive drill results from Coffee, including 35 metres of 6.3 grams gold per tonne. Ryan is entitled to receive 2 million Kaminak shares and $400,000 over six years for vending the property, as well as a 2% NSR, half of which can be bought for $2 million.

With two promising deposits under his belt, Ryan can now demand a much higher fee for his services. For putting his remaining 50 precious-metal eggs into Ryan Gold’s basket, Ryan and his wife and business partner Cathy Wood will together receive: cash payments of $7.5 million over two years; 7.5 million Ryan Gold shares immediately, worth about $15 million at today’s share price; $750,000 in potential bonus payments; and a 1% NSR on all the properties.

The new role as president marks a significant change for Ryan, who has spent much of the past two decades tromping around the bush. His job as a promoter will be likely be easier, given Ryan Gold’s current financial state and its deep-pocketed shareholders.

The company has roughly $5 million in working capital to explore its new properties, the most advanced of which is Ida Oro, about 90 km east of Dawson City. Ryan’s exploration crew, Ground Truth Exploration Ltd., took 5,490 soil samples there last summer and found a strong, central gold-in-soil anomaly extending for at least 4 km. Helicopter-borne geophysical surveys have also established a coincident magnetic low around the anomaly.

Ryan Gold’s largest shareholders are: Ned Goodman, through his public resource investment company Dundee Corp. (DC.A-T), which owns about 17 million Ryan Gold shares; and soon-to-be mid-tier gold producer Osisko Mining (OSK-T, OSKFF-O), which owns 8 million shares. Ryan Gold has 82 million shares outstanding.