Vista Gold Corp.
Vista Gold is advancing the Mt Todd gold project, the largest undeveloped gold project in Australia. A Q1 2026 $44.85M public offering boosted cash to $52.7M; the company was added to the Russell 2000 Index in June 2026, and targets detailed engineering start in 2027 with first production in late 2029.
Notable vs. Peers
- Financials score of 7.8/10 is stronger than the peer average of 5.3/10.
Lifecycle Milestones
Not in place: mill.
Jurisdiction (40%)9/10
Northern Territory: Fraser PPI 2025 is 73.83 of 100 (rank 33 of 68), which maps to 9 on this site's scale. Northern Territory, Australia has stable rule of law and transparent (already-secured) permitting, though native title consultation processes add some timeline risk.
Infrastructure (40%)7.1/10
No confirmed mill, confirmed road access, confirmed grid power, and a confirmed tailings facility at Mt Todd Gold Project, Northern Territory, Australia.
Nearby producing mine (20%)Not yet researched
No producing mine within 50 km in our reference list (nearest listed: McArthur River (zinc-lead) (Glencore plc), 498 km). That list doesn't cover every mining district yet, so a longer distance isn't scored as remote.
Acquisition Susceptibility
A relative ranking of how closely this company matches the profile of juniors that have actually been acquired — not a probability, and not a reason to buy. Acquisitions are rare: only a few dozen significant deals happen a year across a universe of thousands of juniors, so even a high score here describes a long shot. The strongest signal in the research, a producer that already owns part of the company, is scored from its disclosed strategic shareholders. A producer that is a joint-venture or earn-in partner on the project, rather than a shareholder, isn't captured yet.
How this score is built
- Disclosed pending dealSub-score: Not scored
No pending acquisition or merger disclosed (checked)
Not scored: having no deal in flight isn't held against a company.
Weight 26.25% - Producer's strategic stakeSub-score: Not scored
No producer holds a disclosed stake on file (holder register researched) See holders
Not scored: most juniors that do get bought had no prior toehold, so a missing stake says little either way.
Weight 25% - Distance to a producing mineSub-score:0/10
Nearest producing mine: McArthur River (zinc-lead) (Glencore plc), 498 km
10 next to a producing mine, 8 at 20 km, 5 at 50 km, 0 beyond 200 km.
Weight 22.5% · 46% here - Lifecycle stageSub-score:10/10
Stage: Feasibility Study
Feasibility and permitting score 10, where deals cluster, and production 5.5; earlier stages score less, down to 1 at grassroots.
Weight 15% · 31% here - JurisdictionSub-score:9/10
Australia: jurisdiction score 9/10
Our jurisdiction score, used as is: higher means lower political and permitting risk.
Weight 6.75% · 14% here - CommoditySub-score:10/10
Primary commodity: Gold
Gold 10, copper 8, silver 5, nickel and uranium 4, others 2: most majors' deals are for gold.
Weight 4.5% · 9% here
Weight is each input's share of the full score. “Here” is its share of this company's score: inputs that aren't scored are left out and the rest re-weighted, never counted as zero.
Your Rankings
Management Team
CPA with more than 35 years of corporate financial management experience, holding a B.S. in Business Administration and Accounting from the University of Colorado and membership in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Served as Chief Financial Officer of Alacer Gold Corp. from April 2004 to August 2012, overseeing the development and early operating years of the Çöpler Gold Mine in Turkey, then ran his own consulting practice, Tobler Advisory LLC, from 2012 to 2014. Was Chief Financial Officer of Lydian International Limited from April 2014 to June 2019, and has served as Chief Financial Officer of Vista Gold Corp. since July 2019.
President, Chief Executive Officer & Director of Vista Gold Corp. At Vista Gold since 2006 (Senior VP Project Development 2006-2007, President & COO 2007-2012), appointed CEO effective 1 Jan 2012. B.S. in Mining Engineering, Colorado School of Mines (1987). Earlier career: General Manager and Legal Representative of Compania Minera Dayton, S.A. de C.V. (1998-2004), then President of Pacific Rim El Salvador, S.A. de C.V. (2004-2006) -- the El Salvador subsidiary Pacific Rim Mining Corporation gained via its 2002 merger with Dayton Mining Corporation. Pacific Rim's mining-license application was refused by El Salvador in 2008 (after Earnest's 2006 departure), leading to a notorious ICSID arbitration dispute Pacific Rim ultimately lost in 2016.
Insiders, Investors & Smart Money
Notable shareholders and insiders whose involvement is worth knowing about, plus what we're seeing from institutional/large-investor activity.
The rest of the named register (Millennium Management, Marshall Wace, Trek Financial, Goldman Sachs, Cetera) is generalist/multi-strategy money, not resource-specialist. The one other positive is a run of small, genuine open-market director purchases, but the most recent is from March 2024, so it says more about 2024 than about now.
No notable insiders tracked for this miner yet.
Reports, Presentations & Documents
Vista Gold is advancing its 100%-owned Mt Todd gold project in Australia's Northern Territory, planned as an open-pit mine. Mt Todd holds 9,100,000 oz of gold in measured and indicated resources (340.4 Mt at 0.83 g/t) plus 1,430,000 oz inferred, effective 25 July 2025, including a proven and probable reserve of 5.2 Moz at 0.94 g/t. The July 2025 feasibility study for a re-sized 15,000 t/d operation shows an after-tax NPV5% of US$1.1B and a 27.8% IRR at US$2,500/oz gold, with initial capital of US$425M, a 30-year mine life averaging 146,000 oz a year and an all-in sustaining cost of US$1,499/oz. The company targets the start of detailed engineering in 2027 and first production in late 2029.