HardAssetsInvestor

Mike Norman, Hard Assets Investor (Norman): Hello everybody, and welcome to HardAssetsInvstor.com. I’m Mike Norman, your host. My guest today is Dustin Collins, CEO of the Ottoman Group. Dustin, welcome to the show.

Dustin Collins, CEO, Ottoman Group (Collins): Thank you, Mike; appreciate being here.

Norman: Tell us a little bit about your company. You run a number of funds, mostly concentrated in metals and mining, hard assets. Tell us a little bit about it.

Collins: The Ottoman Group side is our wealth manager, investment manager and asset manager. We do that on a global sphere. We’re in six countries, where we custody; predominantly, we run funds underneath it as well, separate and distinct from our wealth management practices.

So what we do with the LP side of the house is the Mining Energy Fund, which we’re launching at the end of this year. That’s going to be focused on preproduction when it comes to natural resources, mining, energy, domestic and offshore. So each one has a portfolio manager that runs his LP's fund strats for us.

In addition to that, we’ve been building out a lot of debt against assets for clients with credit liquidity issues.

Norman: Which, actually the environment now is very positive for your business: the banking crisis, the sort of risk aversion on the part of financial institutions to lend; you’re stepping in there. Where do you see the most need for credit? Is it across the board, across the spectrum? Certain regions? How do you see it?

Collins: As you said, Mike, the global credit crisis has just tightened up substantially to the point where we’re able to have assets that just keep coming. Liquidity's in dire need. We wind up being the asset provider holding it, providing liquidity. Whether it’s natural resources preserves in ground, above ground, we’re able to do those, bonds, a whole legion of different areas, even exotics, into antiquities and precious gems and stones, only because there’s this dire need on the global level. The same way that the cycle rolls from the U.S. last year, it was great in picking up U.S. assets, now European, with the credit crisis; Greece and Spain,  and then rolling out.

Norman: Now, in terms of activity and given the problems in Europe and the slowdown in China, are you seeing any sort of a cooling off in activity in the resource area?

Collins: We’re seeing a cooling off when it comes to trading day to day, intraday trading, if you will. But for the long-term investors, it’s actually more ripe than it has been. You’re seeing a cool-off on markets — it might change.

Norman: Because of a price adjustment? Because now it’s cheaper to get in? Is it basically that?

Collins: It’s cheaper to get in. You’re getting twice as much for sometimes your dollar depending on where you are. And the investor pool in a global economy—which we are definitely in, and we most certainly service—the investors are coming from different spheres. So if the Europeans aren’t investing into Africa or Brazil right now because of certain market indices, OK, well, what are the Asians doing, what is Myanmar, what’s Malaysia, what is China doing?