RCM: Backed by billionaire precious metals legend Eric Sprott... in his PA account

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd (the Company) and Associated Entities own 13,213,572 RCM Shares at the time of publishing this article. The Company has been engaged by RCM to share our commentary on the progress of our Investment in RCM over time. This information is general in nature about a speculative investment and does not constitute personal advice. It does not consider your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

Has silver found a new base around US$55-60 per ounce?

When silver hit ~US$120 in January it very clearly felt like hot money getting long too hard, too fast.

Now it feels like most of that hot capital has left the building...

And any stragglers left over are being cleaned up BEFORE what we think will be a more sustainable run based on fundamental demand for silver.

We could be wrong, but it feels like we haven’t seen the top of the cycle in silver yet.

The current pullback could just be the reset that every single other major silver bull market has had in the past:

(source: our article from June 2026)

(We still haven't had the “I’m a silver stock now” part of the cycle where almost every ASX micro cap stock acquires a silver asset to get a re-rate in its share price.)

We think the stocks that are already sitting on silver assets with defined resources BEFORE that rally happens could perform the best if/when the silver price runs.

One of those in our Portfolio is Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM).

RCM currently has an estimated 67 million ounces of silver equivalent resources across all its NSW silver projects.

RCM has three drill rigs on site with a fourth one arriving on site this week, with the goal to grow the silver equivalent resource base.

RCM is targeting a total resource base of 100M oz silver equivalent.

AND Today’s set of drill results extended one of RCM’s three deposits by ~100m to the north - a good sign for RCM trying to grow that project's resource.

RCM also has an interesting looking critical minerals (gallium / germanium) asset in Canada that is fully permitted and ready to drill - more on this asset further down.

Right now, RCM is trading at 2.7c - below our Initial Entry Price of 3.5c.

3.5c is the same price billionaire silver investor Eric Sprott, and resources funds Tribeca and Jupiter Asset Management invested at.

The RCM share price has now come back to the levels it was trading at when silver was ~US$20 per ounce lower than where it is today:

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

Even though fundamentally, a lot has changed with RCM in the last ~12 months.

Especially after today’s silver drill results. More on what’s changed in a second.

RCM is backed by two big institutions:

• Tribeca Investment Partners (~5% as of July 2026) - Australia's largest natural resources fund (source)
• Jupiter Asset Management (~7% as of July 2026) - UK active resources fund (source)

And... billionaire silver bug Eric Sprott who owns 10.79% of RCM as of Jan 2026 (source).

THE same mining billionaire Eric Sprott that featured in the Forbes article below:

“Meet The Billionaire Who Has 98% Of His Fortune In Gold And Silver”

(source)

That article was from May 2026, so his portfolio has probably felt some pain lately.

But we also reckon he would have seen a few cycles over the years - you don't become a mining billionaire without going through a few bull/bear market cycles.

Sprott initially came into RCM at the same round as us - when RCM raised $14M at 3.5c per share in September last year.

Then in January this year he bought another ~$1M of stock on market at an average of ~7.18c per share.

(source)

That puts Sprott’s average entry in RCM also well above today’s share price.

He thinks silver is going to US$200-300 per ounce, so that average entry might not matter IF what he thinks is going to happen, happens. (source)

(of course he could be wrong as well)

After bringing Sprott (and us) onto its register, RCM has drilled two of its three deposits (including the ~14.2M ounce Webbs deposit which is what today’s results relate to):

With that drilling RCM:

• Hit a new discovery parallel 120m to the west of its 14.2M ounce deposit in December 2025. (source)
  
• Hit extensions to its deposit ~300m to the south in August. (source)
  
• And then TODAY, hit extensions to its deposit to the north by over 100m. (source)

(source)

So while RCM’s share price has gone backwards, RCM has added ~417m in cumulative strike to its Webbs deposit.

AND RCM confirmed today that a fourth rig would be added to its three rig setup... so more drilling over the next few months to come.

Hopefully what RCM has hit to date is enough to take RCM closer to that “100M ounces in defined resources” sweet spot the company is targeting for its overall development plan.

According to its July presentation, RCM is planning for an updated JORC resource estimate and a scoping study for its project to arrive before the end of this year.

(source)

We think the scoping study could be a major catalyst for RCM because it will be the first time the market gets a sense of the potential economics for RCM’s multiple deposits.

Because all three of RCM's silver projects sit fairly close to each other, the study is looking at a model where the company processes all three projects’ ore at one central facility.

(source)

The thing with these satellite development models is they are sort of difficult to model - it isn’t one single pit, there are a lot of logistics involved and there aren’t that many peer comps to base assumptions around.

Everyone knows how to model a gold project and plug in different gold prices, but no one really knows how to model silver projects, when for the last 10-20 years while silver prices were depressed, there has been no ASX precedent for a small cap progressing a project.

So it's hard for the market to really understand and appreciate the potential economics of these projects.

We can also see that being reflected in peer comps.

For example, the companies with more advanced assets who got the bulk of the initial capital flows from this silver rally all have much bigger market caps relative to RCM - even when the silver inventories are relatively similar:

(source)

These comps were from RCM’s July Investor presentation using an RCM share price of 3c - this and peers’ prices could be very different now - you get our point though.

We think that as long as the silver price is high, RCM could actually surprise the market to the upside with the economics in any study (especially if silver runs to US$100 per ounce or more).

And hopefully, with a study under its belt, before the next big silver run RCM will be one of the companies capturing the first wave of capital back into silver stocks.

While we wait for that - RCM also has a critical mineral (gallium/germanium) asset to drill in Canada

Prior to acquiring its silver project a year ago, RCM was working towards acquiring and drilling another project for two critical AI semiconductor and military minerals in Canada:

Gallium and germanium.

RCM hasn’t really talked too much about this critical minerals project since it acquired its silver assets and focused on silver over a year ago.

RCM received drill permits for the project back in June. (source)

What we know is that RCM’s project has some of "the highest germanium grades globally” - all from surface samples - 22.69% zinc, 40 g/t gallium and 1,500 ppm (0.15%) germanium.

(source)

AND over the last 16 or so months RCM has quietly mapped, run geophysical surveys and surface sampled the project.

Now RCM has FIVE drill ready targets based on geophysical surveys that line up with those high grade surface samples.

(source)

RCM’s latest quarterly said drilling for gallium and germanium would be happening in July... with results due before the end of the year. (source)

(hopefully that means we see some news on this asset soon)

What is gallium and germanium?

In 2024, China put export restrictions on critical minerals.

These restrictions kicked off the entire “US critical minerals” macro theme on the ASX and turned a few micro cap explorers into billion dollar companies (check out Dateline and Larvotto).

Two critical minerals that China banned exports of back in 2024 were:

• gallium - used in military semiconductors for higher power/frequencies, and;
• germanium - used in fibre optic cables and infrared military systems.

China has since softened the broader critical minerals export bans while negotiating a trade deal with the US...

(The export bans were turned into a licensing regime running to late November 2026)

... BUT one thing that stayed was the ban on selling gallium and germanium to "military end-users".

(source)

China controls roughly 98% of the world's gallium production and around 60% of its germanium.

So the US gallium/germanium supply problem is nowhere near solved - for the most critical of uses - national defence.

Which probably explains why the US Department of War is stockpiling gallium & germanium (source).

The DoW has some existing germanium stores with a small program recycling from army equipment to top it up.

Plus it had no gallium stockpiled as of at least 2024 (it isn’t exactly the sort of thing you would communicate and let your adversary know about). (source)

We think that the gallium/germanium side story gives RCM a bit of an X factor while we wait for sentiment to turn in the silver space...

Ultimately though, we think that a discovery in Canada OR progress on the silver assets will be what helps RCM achieve our Big Bet:

Our RCM Big Bet:

“RCM expands its existing silver resource through new discoveries into a silver bull market and re-rates by over 1,000% from our Initial Entry Price”

NOTE: our “Big Bet” is what we HOPE the ultimate success scenario looks like for this particular Investment over the long term (3+ years). There is no guarantee that our Big Bet will ever come true. There is a lot of work to be done, many risks involved, including development risk, country risk and commodity price risk - just some of which we list in our RCM Investment Memo.

Success will require a significant amount of luck. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

What’s next for RCM?

(source)

🔄 Gallium/Germanium drilling in Canada

We want to see RCM lock in a rig and start drilling the project.

The drilling window in that part of the world usually starts about now and runs through to October/November, before the winter months kick in.

So ideally we see that project drilled inside this current drilling window.

RCM expects drilling to start in “late July” with assays due this quarter.

🔄 Silver drilling in NSW (Webbs project)

RCM’s current drill program is designed to do two things:

1. Test extensions of the new parallel structure - southern corner of the project
   
2. Extend the existing resource - along the south

The best part is the current drilling will happen from the opposite angle to that first program.

So we will definitely learn a lot of new things about the project this time around:

(source)

🔄 Scoping study across projects in NSW

RCM started the study in late January 2026 and according to its most recent presentation expects to have it completed in H2-2026. (source)

The scoping study will be the first time RCM publishes a meaningful look at how its three NSW silver projects might actually be developed and what they might be worth in NPV terms.

We should also see some numbers on operating costs and CAPEX.

The two numbers we'll be looking out for from the study:

1. The CAPEX number - how much it costs to build the project
2. The NPV - and especially the sensitivity tables at different silver prices

And of course the sensitivity of the project to silver prices (how the NPV changes with higher silver prices).

🔄 Target generation on newly acquired asset

On this asset we want to see the company complete LiDAR surveys, surface sampling and geophysics.

Ultimately, we want to see the historic results validated and then a bunch of drill targets ranked from most interesting to least ahead of a drill program on the project.

(source) (source)

What are the risks?

The biggest risk for our RCM Investment right now is "exploration risk".

RCM is currently in the middle of a multi-rig 15,000m drill program.

There is no guarantee that any of it returns economic results.

Poor exploration results would negatively impact RCM's share price especially with the amount of capital that would be spent on a multi-rig program.

Exploration risk

There is no guarantee that RCM's upcoming drill programs are successful. RCM may fail to find economic silver resources, in which case we would expect the share price to re-rate lower.

Source: "What could go wrong" - RCM Investment Memo 17 Sep 2025

Other Risks

Like any early-stage exploration company, RCM carries significant risk, here we aim to identify a few more risks.

With an expanding four-rig drilling program in NSW alongside planned exploration in Canada, RCM faces high ongoing cash burn. This aggressive schedule means the company may require future capital raises, risking shareholder dilution.

RCM’s plan to process three separate satellite deposits through a single central facility introduces additional transport logistics and metallurgical modelling challenges with few direct market precedents. If the upcoming scoping study reports higher capital expenditure or operating costs than anticipated, it could negatively impact the project’s estimated net present value.

While surface sampling across the Canadian critical minerals project showed high grades, the five drill targets are currently defined only by early geophysics. There is a risk that upcoming drilling fails to replicate those grades at depth, alongside the operational pressure of completing work before the narrow seasonal weather window closes.

The company's commercial viability and market valuation remain heavily geared to silver prices, which have already shown extreme volatility this year. Any prolonged pullback in the silver price would compress potential project margins and hurt investor sentiment.

Investors should consider these risks carefully and seek professional advice tailored to their personal circumstances before investing.

Our RCM Investment Memo

Our Investment Memo provides a short, high-level summary of our reasons for Investing.

We use this memo to track the progress of all our Investments over time.

Click here to read our RCM Investment Memo where you will find:

• What does RCM do?
• The macro theme for RCM
• Our RCM Big Bet
• What we want to see RCM achieve
• Why we are Invested in RCM
• The key risks to our Investment Thesis
• Our Investment Plan