Empress Announces Upsize of Its Previously Announced Bought Deal Public Offering to C$15 Million

Overview

Even the most promising mining project can fail without the right management team in place. Statistics, surveys, and financial information are all important to consider, but it’s the management team that will take a promising mining project and transform it through the exploration, development and production stages as it progresses into a revenue-producing asset. That’s why one of the most important questions to ask when assessing a new company is: does the management team have a track record of success?

The right management team for any mining project will include professionals with a diverse background of technical, geological, business and financial experience. However, even a “dream team” of experts can fail to develop a valuable mine. That’s why many experts consider a proven track record of success to be the top factor in what makes a promising management team for a mining company.

Collective Mining Ltd. (TSXV:CNL) is a mineral exploration company focused on developing a portfolio of highly prospective gold, copper and molybdenum projects in Colombia. The company is led by the former management team of Continental Gold Inc — the same management team that sold the company for CA$2.0 billion (EV) after developing the largest gold mine in Colombia. Collective Mining currently holds an option to earn up to 100 percent interest on both of its projects with no underlying private royalties in one of the safest mining areas of Colombia.

Collective Mining’s team is highly specialized in identifying early-stage exploration projects with world-class potential. The company’s management team has an impressive track record of success, most notably identifying the potential of the Buriticá project and transforming it into a world-class gold mine. Continental Gold was the only pre-revenue company and the only mining company in Colombia to rank in the Social Investment Index, placing 11th in the country.

The company’s flagship Guayabales project is a high-grade gold, copper and molybdenum project. Collective Mining has announced a maiden 10,000 metre diamond drilling program underway to the northwest of Aris Gold’s (TSX:ARIS) Marmato gold mine, which contains proven and probable reserves of 2.0 million ounces gold and 4.35 million ounces silver (19.7 Mt grading 3.2 g/t gold and 6.9 g/t silver). The Guayabales project has never been systematically explored and the company strongly believes that the project has significant exploration upside. The Guayabales project is also located within 1 kilometre of the Marmato gold deposit which has an estimated resource of more than 10 million ounces of gold.

The company is led by internationally-recognized figures. Collective Mining’s executive vice president, Ana Milena Vásquez, was one of the top 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining in 2020. Collective Mining is firmly committed to inclusion and diversity throughout its organization. Vásquez, as a leader in the Colombian mining sector, is well suited to promote this goal.

Collective Mining is strongly committed to an ESG model that focuses on implementing a collective mining framework. The company’s collective mining framework includes strengthening the mining supply chain, integrating with the local economy through alliances and developing the local community through a multi-pronged approach. Collective Mining’s team was also part of the best-in-class mining ESG program at Continental Gold that won multiple awards and high-level rankings of recognition.

The company is fully-funded with cash on hand to support its drill program through 2022.

Company Highlights

• Collective Mining (TSXV:CNL) is a mineral exploration company focused on developing two highly prospective and high-grade gold, copper and molybdenum projects in the prolific Mid-Cauca belt in Colombia.
• The management team recently sold Continental Gold for CA$2.0 billion (EV), which was a relatively unknown project before the team became involved and grew it into Colombia’s largest gold mine
• The company’s flagship Guayabales project has an extensive artisanal mining history with +80 adits discovered and over 500 years of mining activity in the area.
• The Guayabales project is located near Aris Gold Corporation’s (TSX:ARIS) Marmato mine and the Marmato gold deposit.
• Collective Mining’s San Antonio has a grassroots discovery of 710 metres at 0.53 g/t of gold equivalent. The project features limited historical exploration with the possibility to host a porphyry system, based on current indications.
• Collective Mining currently holds an option to earn up to 100 percent interest on both of its projects with no underlying private royalties.
• The company is committed to an ESG model that fosters growth on a micro- and macro-level, including local and global impacts.
• The company is led by the former Continental Gold management team. Collective Mining’s management sold Continental Gold’s Buritica mine, the largest gold mine in Colombia, for $2.0 billion (EV).

Key Projects

Guayabales

The Guayabales project is a high-grade gold, copper and molybdenum project located in Caldas, Colombia. The project is situated 75 kilometres south of Medellin in the Marmato gold district. The property is strategically located adjacent to the Marmato gold mine along its strike. The project is located within 1 kilometre of the Marmato gold deposit which has an estimated resource of more than 10 million ounces of gold. Guayabales hosts a porphyry cluster that is connected to the Marmato orebodies by the Encanto Shear Zone.

The property has never been systematically explored. The project hosts five main targets including, Donut, the Box, Olympus, Victory and ME. The Donut target contains primary sulphide copper and gold while the Box target contains gold and silver found at the surface. The Olympus target features exposed copper, gold and molybdenum and the Victory target contains a porphyry-related magnetite stockwork system. Collective Mining has conducted drilling on the Donut target which returned, among other exciting results, a grassroots discovery of 104 metres at 1.3 g/t of gold equivalent.

The company has completed drilling the Donut target and has released some results, with the remiander to come through year-end 2021. Box drilling has commenced and initial results are expected early-2022. Drilling at the Olympus target has started and management intends to have a second rig turning in mid-December while the Victory target is slated for additional work and drilling beginning mid-2022. Collective Mining is also awaiting assay results from an extensive systematic channel sampling program. Going forward, the company is focused on generating new targets for the Guayabales project. The company strongly believes that the Guayabales project has significant exploration upside and holds the potential to become a world-class resource.

San Antonio

The San Antonio project is a gold, copper and molybdenum project located in the western margin of the Colombian Central Cordillera in Caldas, Colombia. The project is situated 70 kilometres south of Medellin and 8 kilometres northwest of the company’s Guayabales project. The project is located directly adjacent to the regional Romeral Fault system.

The San Antonio project has limited historical exploration focused solely on high-grade vein systems. The company began a drilling program on the property earlier in 2021. . Results revealed a grassroots discovery of 710 metres at 0.53 g/t of gold equivalent. Currently, the San Antonio project has three distinct porphyry-related targets, including Pound, COP and Dollar. The company has identified a high-grade soil anomaly of more than 100 ppb of gold and more than 6 ppm molybdenum.

The company is also currently in the process of defining the porphyry gold, copper and molybdenum system of significant dimensions. Collective Mining strongly believes that the sulphide hydrothermal breccia on the project has strong potential to host a porphyry system underneath the breccia.

Management Team

Omar Ossma - CEO and President

Omar Ossma has over 15 years of experience in the mining and energy industry in Colombia. Ossma also has over 20 years of experience in Colombian corporate, environmental, mining and energy law. He has focused most of his professional career on structuring mining and energy projects in Colombia. Ossma was the former legal vice president of Continental Gold. At Continental Gold, he was instrumental in the company's strategy towards licensing, building and putting into operation the Buriticá project. The Buriticá project is the largest gold mine in Colombia that was later sold to Zijin Mining Group. Before Continental Gold, he served as legal vice president of Minas Paz Del Rio, S.A. Minas Paz Del Rio, S.A.

is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Brazilian industrial conglomerate Votorantim Group. Ossma was also the legal manager of Eco Oro Minerals Corp. Ossma has held senior positions as a lawyer in a number of mining and energy sector companies, including Empresa de Energía de Bogotá and Endesa Group (Emgesa S.A. Esp. – Codensa S.A. Esp). Empresa de Energía de Bogotá is a state-owned company focused on electricity and gas transportation in Central and South América. Endesa Group (Emgesa S.A. Esp. – Codensa S.A. Esp) is a Spaniard public utility conglomerate. He holds a law degree from Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Ari Sussman - Executive Chairman of the Board

Having dedicated the majority of his career to the natural resources industry, Ari Sussman has been instrumental in sourcing and funding high-quality mineral assets. Sussman has raised more than $1 billion for various resource-focused companies. Sussman currently serves as executive chairman of the board of Collective Mining Inc. Collective Mining Inc. is a newly formed mineral exploration company focused on acquiring and developing mining projects in Latin America. From 2010 until March of 2020, Sussman was the founder, chief executive officer and director of Continental Gold Inc. Under Sussman’s leadership, Continental Gold Inc. raised almost $1 billion and discovered more than 11 million ounces of high-grade gold and silver at the Buriticá project in Antioquia, Colombia. After completing construction of the mine in early 2020, Continental Gold Inc. was sold to Zijin Mining for total consideration of approximately C$2 billion. Zijin Mining is one of the world’s largest diversified mining companies. Today, the world-class Buriticá mine is the most modern and largest operating gold mine in Colombia with annual production expected to be more than 300,000 ounces of gold. Sussman was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and is married with three children.

Paul Begin - CA, MBA and Chief Financial Officer

Paul Begin was the chief financial officer of Continental Gold from May 2011 to March 2020. Before that, he served as the chief financial officer and corporate secretary for Hanfeng Evergreen Inc. from 2009 to 2011. Hanfeng Evergreen Inc. is a developer and producer of value-added fertilizers in China and Southeast Asia. Begin was also the vice president and chief financial officer of Trilliant Incorporated from 2004 to 2009. Trilliant Inc., formerly OZZ Corporation, is a network solutions provider. Before that, Begin served as the corporate controller at MDC Partners Inc. which is a Canadian-based marketing communications and secure transactions company. Begin obtained his Chartered Accountant designation with BDO Dunwoody, LLP. Begin holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Toronto.

David Reading - MSc. Economic Geology and Special Advisor

David Reading has over 40 years of expertise in the global gold mining and base metal industries within the fields of exploration, feasibility, project development and mining. He was the special advisor to Continental Gold up until the Zijin sale. He was also the former CEO of European Goldfields and the former head of exploration for Randgold Resources. Over the last ten years, he has consulted for various Toronto- and London-based mining groups with assets in the Americas and the rest of the world. Reading has a Master of Science in Economic Geology and is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG).

Ana Milena Vásquez - Executive Vice President

Ana Vásquez has more than 15 years of experience in the mining sector, in which she has held managerial positions. She was senior VP of external affairs and sustainability for Continental Gold. Previously, she served as president of Red Eagle Exploration and its branch in Colombia. She is the co-founder and former VP of operations and business development for CB Gold Inc. Vásquez was also the general manager of Carbones Nueva Naricual in Venezuela and Carbones del Cesar (Mina La Francia) in the Northern coal region in Colombia. Vásquez has been a member of the board of directors of the ACM – National Association of Mining Companies in Colombia and the board of directors of the Colombian Chamber of Mining. She is the co-founder and current vice president of Women In Mining Colombia. Vásquez has also been a consultant for several companies in the sustainability area, specifically in gender equality. She has a Master in Financial Analysis from the Carlos III University of Madrid and a Professional in Finance and International Affairs from Externado University.

Richard Tosdal - MSc., PhD. and Special Advisor

Richard Tosdal is a world-renowned specialist in mineralized porphyry deposits. Tosdal holds a Master of Science from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario and a Ph.D. from the University of California. He has over 45 years of experience in the minerals industry and academic research. His experience includes being a consultant for a variety of mining and exploration companies, a research scientist at the US Geological Survey and a director of the Mineral Deposit Research Unit (MDRU).

Rodolfo Higuera - Sustainability Vice President

Rodolfo Higuera has more than 10 years of experience in the mining industry. His professional career has focused on sustainability, social and environmental processes. He participated in the licensing process, construction and start-up of the operation of the Buriticá Project of Zijin owned by Continental Gold. Previously, he supported various projects in different roles. He supported the Eco Oro Minerals Corp. project as advisor to the IFC advisor. He also supported the Paz del Río Mines Project owned by Acerías Paz del Río which is a subsidiary of Votorantim Metais. Higuera also participated and led social, environmental and mining formalization processes. Higuera is a sociologist from Universidad Nacional de Colombia with postgraduate studies in Sustainability and Social Responsibility from Universidad de Los Andes.

Carlos David Ríos - Exploration Vice President

Carlos David Ríos has over 15 years of experience in the exploration and mining industry in Colombia and the LATAM region. Before Collective Mining, he served as exploration manager at Touchstone Gold in Colombia, exploration manager at the Zijin project owned by Continental Gold, geology manager of Cemex LATAM Holdings and specialist modelling and resources estimation specialist at the Cerro Matoso mine. Ríos has a degree in Geological Engineering from the National University of Colombia. He also has an international postgraduate in Geostatistics applied to the estimation and evaluation of mining deposits at Alberta University, Canada.

Steven Gold - CFA

Steven Gold has nearly 20 years of experience in capital markets within the natural resources sector. Most recently, Gold worked at Energold Drilling Corp. and IMPACT Silver Corp. At these companies, Gold was the CFO and worked in business development and investor relations roles across North America, Europe and the Asian-Pacific region. Gold’s primary responsibilities included financial management as well as global corporate and investor development. Before that, Gold was the vice president of equity research at Clarus Securities Inc. in Toronto where he primarily covered junior natural resource companies. Gold also co-managed one of Canada’s first natural resource-focused hedge funds for a Toronto-based portfolio manager. The portfolio manager’s portfolio is weighted towards junior and mid-level public and private companies. Gold attained the CFA designation from the CFA Institute in 2006 and received a degree in Industrial Relations & Economics from McGill University in Montreal in 2001.

María Constanza García Botero - MA and Director

María Constanza García Botero has extensive experience in mining, infrastructure, energy, urban development and public finance. She has had high-level responsibilities in government agencies, multilateral development institutions and private companies. She was president of the National Mining Agency (ANM), deputy minister of transport infrastructure and held leadership and advisory positions in the National Planning Department, the Hydrocarbons Agency and the Ministry of Finance in Colombia. She was also the director of International Cooperation for Agriteam. The International Cooperation for Agriteam is an international consultancy funded by the Government of Canada to advance governance in the extractive industry in Colombia. She was also the manager of large clients for CEMEX Colombia. She worked with the Interamerican Development Bank and the World Bank in infrastructure, housing, urban development, municipal finance and urbanism in Washington D.C. She has outstanding academic credentials with an Industrial Engineering degree from Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Colombia. She also has a Masters’ degree in urban and regional planning and public administration from The Ohio State University, USA and graduate-level degrees in economics and public administration from Universidad de los Andes.

Kenneth Thomas - P.Eng and Director

Kenneth Thomas is the president of Ken Thomas & Assoc. Inc. since 2012. He was the senior vice president of projects at Kinross Gold Corporation from 2009 to 2012. Before Kinross, Dr. Thomas was the global managing director and a board director at Hatch for 6 years. Hatch is a multinational engineering company providing project and construction management services to the metals, infrastructure and energy sectors. From 2003 to 2005, he was the chief operating officer at Crystallex International. Earlier in his career, he spent 14 years at Barrick Gold Corporation in various positions, including senior vice president of technical services. Dr. Thomas has a Master of Science degree in Management from Imperial College, London, the U.K. and a Ph.D. in Project Execution from the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is a past president and a Fellow of The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (the “Institute”). In 1999 & 2001, the Institute awarded Dr. Thomas the Airey Award and Selwyn G. Blaylock Medal, respectively, for advancement in international mine design. Dr. Thomas has previously served as a director for Avalon Advanced Materials, Cardinal Resources Limited and DRA Global. He was also the former lead director of Continental Gold.

Paul Murphy - B.Comm, CA and Director

Paul Murphy was a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP from 1981 to 2010. He also served as the national mining leader from 2004 to 2010 at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Throughout his career, Murphy has worked primarily in the resource sector with a client list that includes major international oil and gas and mining companies. His professional experience includes financial reporting controls, operational effectiveness, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and SEC reporting issues, financing, valuation and taxation as they pertain to the mining sector. He was previously the director of Continental Gold until its acquisition in March 2020. He was also the chief financial officer and executive vice president of Guyana Goldfields from 2010 to 2018. Murphy was also the chief financial officer of Guyana Precious Metals from 2012 to 2018. Murphy obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Queen’s University and his Chartered Accountant designation in 1975.

Aswath Mehra - Director

Aswath Mehra is a seasoned executive with 35 years of global experience in the minerals industry. Mehra is an economist by training and received his Bachelor of Science in Economics and Philosophy from the London School of Economics. He is the CEO of the ASTOR Group, a private investment and advisory business, working in the fields of mining, technology, biotech and real estate. He spent many years in the commodity trading and mining business as well as owning, buying and selling companies. He is a director of several companies, both public and private in both executive and non-executive roles. He also devotes significant time to non-profit activities in the fields of education and healthcare. Most recently, Mehra was the executive chairman of GT Gold. Mehra founded GT Gold and sold it to Newmont Corporation which generated a significant return to GT Gold shareholders.