Chad Williams, CEO of Honey Badger Silver Inc. | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

Rule Investment Media May 22, 2026

Summary

Value creation in mining comes from two paths: buying assets cheaply for a rerating, or finding them through exploration, where odds are low.

The guest frames his mandate as maximizing net present value per share, pushing him toward non-dilutive government grants over equity raises.

Prairie Creek cost under three cents per silver-equivalent ounce, metal valued as silver, while peers trade near two to three dollars.

A 95% built mine from 1982 is vintage, not ready: recommissioning still takes time, effort, and money before cash flow.

The host discloses sponsor ownership of every exhibitor he interviews, and warns that owning a stock does not mean it goes up.

Chad Williams cites Pan American Silver as one of two very small companies, alongside Silver Standard Resources, where the same de-risking strategy was employed in the early 1900s.

Top takeaway Rule's central test for the investment is whether the sum of the parts, meaning the value of the assets, meets or exceeds the market capitalization.
He discloses that he is a shareholder of Honey Badger, as he is of every public-company exhibitor at his symposium, and frames that ownership as proper vetting rather than a conflict of interest.
He presses for a six-, twelve- and twenty-four-month value-creation path, asking whether the company gets bigger or more certain or both, and offers the time-tested exploration-within-the-shadow-of-the-head-frame model as the yardstick.
His argument for the conference is that the sponsors hold every public-company exhibitor, so each one is vetted, backed by a 30-year money-back guarantee under which less than one-tenth of 1% of tuition has been refunded.

Top takeaway His stated objective is to maximize net present value per share while minimizing the share count, which he says means de-risking, adding resources and reserves, and funding through less-dilutive or non-dilutive sources such as government grants.
He bought Prairie Creek for less than 3 cents per silver-equivalent ounce in the ground, a mine and mill that was 95% built under the Hunt brothers in 1982 and mothballed when silver fell, and notes peers now trade at $2 to $3 per ounce-equivalent.
Prairie Creek will take about 80% of his time, energy and effort; he describes it as the highest-grade undeveloped polymetallic deposit he knows of, with revenue at least 50% silver, 35% zinc and 15% lead, and germanium and titanium credits that may turn out to be important.
He says plans will be announced shortly, including some form of concentrate production within about a year, which would not be commercial production or free cash flow positive but is intended to demonstrate that this is a world-class project.
He discloses owning almost 20% of the company on a fully diluted basis, bought with after-tax dollars, and says he bought more stock the day before the interview, having taken control about five years ago when it was a shell and silver was near $16 an ounce against his then-public $100 an ounce thesis.