Gold major Agnico Eagle Mines on Thursday announced the creation of a new subsidiary, Avenir Minerals, to consolidate its noncore investments in critical minerals.

Avenir will be a wholly-owned subsidiary dedicated to evaluating and advancing opportunities in critical minerals, with an initial focus on Canada.

The new entity will bring together Agnico Eagle’s existing portfolio of non-gold and non-copper investments, which have a current aggregate market value of about $80-million, and will be seeded with $50-million in cash.

While Avenir will operate independently and pursue strategic partnerships and government funding, Agnico Eagle will retain a right of first refusal on future investment opportunities and might provide additional funding in the future.

Agnico Eagle president and CEO Ammar Al-Joundi told analysts during a conference call that the creation of Avenir followed three years of internal work by a three-person team focused on understanding the critical minerals landscape.

“For the last three years, we have had a small team looking at opportunities on the critical metals side,” Al-Joundi said. “With everything that we have got going on, with the great pipeline we have got and our continued focus on gold, we felt now was the time to let that small group have a little more independence and look at opportunities on their own.”

He confirmed that the subsidiary would include Agnico Eagle’s investment in Canada Nickel Company, along with other early-stage holdings in the critical minerals space.

“We are a gold company, but we are also, in my opinion, the best miners in the regions we operate and the largest by far in Canada,” said Al-Joundi. “We get asked about critical metals all the time. We want to remain a gold company, but our approach – consistent with our philosophy on disciplined capital allocation – is that it should be based on knowledge.”

Al-Joundi emphasised that while Avenir would have autonomy to explore opportunities, Agnico Eagle was not obliged to invest additional capital. “We’ll be supportive, but it is their job to look at opportunities,” he said.

The establishment of Avenir came as the Canadian government sharpened its focus on building a domestic critical minerals supply chain. Al-Joundi noted that the miner had had positive engagement with the country’s new federal government on mining and infrastructure issues.

“We have probably had more discussions with the new government on the importance and opportunity of mining than we had with the previous government over several years,” he commented. “They are smart, engaged, and really interested in leveraging what mining can do for the average Canadian.”