A Resources Investor Returns to VanEck

Key Takeaways:

• Sam started at VanEck in 2000, where a small hands-on team created a collaborative learning environment.
• He returned 25 years later to a larger firm that feels familiar and is still highly collaborative.
• Market cycles are repeating, with tech dominance again creating opportunities in resource equities.
• We believe resource equities are in a secular bull market, supported by demand, discipline and constrained supply.
• VanEck remains a proven home for resource investors, with established depth, experience and support.

Inside My Early Days at VanEck

I first started at VanEck during the peak of the dot-com era or more precisely, the very end of it, around March of 2000. At the time, there were just over 30 of us at the firm. Despite a long history in gold and natural resources, our hedge fund managed approximately $3 million, and the long-only business was probably under $100 million.

My background was largely in macro markets and commodities, with less experience in equities. Despite the temptation to try to monetize clicks and mint millions buying up domain names, coming to VanEck felt like an opportunity to broaden my skill set while keeping much of what I had already learned.

It was a really fun environment, with everyone doing everything. I remember binding pitch books with Derek van Eck, the then head of the investment side of the business and co-CEO with his brother Jan, before going on marketing trips. My seat was on the trading desk, across from Charlie Cameron and Greg Krenzer. Jan had a small office halfway between our desk and founder John van Eck’s corner office.

Returning to VanEck: Different Cycle, Same Setup

More than 25 years later, I returned to VanEck, starting here again on October 1, 2025, perched about three feet from my old desk, and once again across from Charlie Cameron and Greg Krenzer. I was “away” for seven years at Macquarie, managing natural resource funds with Geoff King, who had also sat next to me at VanEck for seven years.

The return was easy and familiar. The office is still fun, collaboration remains high, and there is the same sense of hopefulness around natural resource equities that I felt coming out of the dot-com bubble.

There are some changes though. There are more people, there’s now a digital assets team, gold has gone from $1,300/ounce to $4,300 and the firm’s AUM is substantially higher. As in March of 2000, tech is once again king. Then it was the dot-com companies. Today, it’s the Magnificent 7 and AI. Similarly, benchmarks are highly concentrated, and valuations are relatively high. There’s lots of talk about a bubble again. Back then, this backdrop marked a compelling opportunity for resource investors.

We believe that we are already in the midst of a secular bull market in resources. Negative crude oil prices during the COVID-19 pandemic may mark the low point. While cycles are inevitable, we expect to see a prolonged period in which natural resource equities deliver strong returns, driven by four key factors.

• Sustained demand is being driven by global onshoring and nearshoring, the energy transition (whose demise is greatly exaggerated), and the buildout of AI and data center infrastructure.
• The supply side still has challenges though we are monitoring the rush of investment.
• Companies and management teams are broadly disciplined with their capital allocation strategies (including buybacks and dividends) and balance sheets.
• As an added kicker, investor exposure remains low to the space (see energy and materials as a percentage of the S&P 500).

A Proven Home for Resource Investors

Macquarie (now Nomura) was a great chapter for Geoff and me, but VanEck is a special place to be a resource investor. Few firms have track records of the same length and depth in the space, bolstered by an outstanding brand. We have the support of a team of seasoned analysts and portfolio managers, along with a sales organization that understands the asset class.

Our goal is to generate outstanding returns for clients and, in the process, grow the natural resource equity business beyond where it was the last time around.

Resource investing is never easy. Despite a strong five-year run, marked by record-high gold prices and copper pushing into uncharted territory, it feels like investors are only just starting to care. Materials and energy as a percentage of the S&P 500 remain at or close to all-time lows, but the intrepid are allocating. That’s a good thing, as we still see broad opportunity across the space.

We’ve been able to hit the ground running since returning to VanEck. It helps that we’ve navigated cycles like this once before, so the playbook already exists. I recognize that some of our success was luck last time, but a lot of hard work and discipline also contributed. I am looking forward to the next period here at VanEck and the chance to improve on what we accomplished before.