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What I’ve Been Up To

Cogent Communications and AI data-center bottlenecks feature in a newsletter update on recruiting, financial media and conference takeaways.

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Fajasy on X

Read skeptically, Nubeva Technologies $NBVAF (TSXV: $NBVA) is a shrinking software company living off its cash, with an AI decryptor builder that keeps slipping and a license customer that may not have renewed. Read another way, Nubeva is being prepared for a buyer. Here’s what supports the second read: → In March 2024, Netskope $NTSK, now a ~$7.6B company, bought Nubeva’s TLS (web-traffic decryption) technology and five patents for $1M. Greig Bannister, the CTO who co-invented the key-capture patents, followed the technology to Netskope. → In an August 2024 video, CEO Randy Chou said “partnering and M&A groups” from companies worth $20-30B had reached out after the July 2024 CrowdStrike $CRWD outage. → Chou wants all four AI patents granted before any partnership or sale, and two are still pending. → The FY2026 MD&A says Nubeva is “selectively engaging with lighthouse accounts,” meaning “large, high-profile organizations that serve as validation points for the technology,” to make its offering “more attractive for either future expansion or strategic partnership/M&A.” In a June 2025 video, Chou said lighthouse accounts “matter 100%” in a partnership or M&A talk. → Sales and marketing spend was $14,951 for all of FY2026, with $2.49M of cash on hand. In the same June 2025 video, Chou said Nubeva is “really not marketing” until “the patents and everything else comes in.” → The most recent investor deck is from July 2023, and since then Nubeva has communicated mostly through filings, press releases, and the occasional YouTube interview. In other words, it isn’t pitching investors either, which fits a company waiting on a buyer. A longtime investor I spoke with described Chou as reluctant to spend money, PR included, and called a sale to a larger security company the clear end goal. I’d add that Chou, who makes the call, also owns a quarter of the company.
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Fajasy on X

10 of the 11 insider trades at Magna Mining $MGMNF (TSX: $NICU) since November 2024 were buys, and its CEO says he’s “never sold a share.” CEO Jason Jessup owns 10,441,196 shares, 3.3% of the count, mostly held through Mine Management Partners, a holding company. Five of the 10 buys came from Magna’s November 2024 financing, where insiders including Jessup and Dundee Corporation $DDEJF, a Toronto investment company, took new shares at CAD$1.05. No officer or director sold shares in the open market between November 2024 and March 2026. The only open-market insider buys were incoming CFO Greg Huffman’s 5,200 shares at CAD$2.10-2.35 in March 2026 and director John Seaman’s 10,000 shares at CAD$1.41 in December 2024. The only sale came from TFG Asset Management, part of Tetragon Financial Group $TGONF, which sold 15,000,000 shares at CAD$2.62 (US$27.7M total) on October 3, 2025, two weeks after Magna’s CAD$2.40 share offering. TFG was a 10% holder at the time. Here’s the management team: → Jason Jessup (CEO and Director): 25+ years in mining at FNX Mining, Sandstorm Gold, Premier Royalty, and Inco. At FNX, he “led the team there to restart the mine in the Morrison deposit” at Levack, now Magna’s flagship restart project, and he says FNX returned “about 4200%” from 2000 to 2010. → Jeff Huffman (COO): Joined in November 2023; most recently President and COO of Dumas Contracting, an underground mine contractor. → Greg Huffman (SVP Capital Markets, incoming CFO): Global Head of Mining Sales at Canaccord Genuity $CCORF, the Canadian investment bank, from 2016 to June 2024, then CEO of Nuclear Fuels, a uranium explorer, until its sale in September 2025. Beyond Jessup, the five-person board includes chair Vern Baker, FNX’s former VP of Operations, and Jonathan Goodman, CEO of Dundee, which owns 16.0% of Magna. Greg Huffman will be Magna’s fourth CFO since early 2023, after co-founder Derrick Weyrauch, Ann-Marie Finney (who left in October 2024 after 17 months), and Scott Gilbert, who’s retiring by the end of 2026 after ~2 years. On mgmt's ability to execute, two of Magna’s timelines have slipped: 1) Crean Hill grid power: In November 2025, Jessup said Magna could have power at Crean Hill, its permitted nickel mine, in Q1 2026. In February 2026, he said power would come “hopefully by the end of Q2,” and in August 2026, he moved the target to Q4. 2) Free cash flow: In February 2026, Jessup said “we believe we’ll be generating free cash flow at these prices,” and Q1 2026 brought a US$14.2M free cash outflow, though US$11.0M of it was cash tied up in working capital, mostly money owed to Magna that came in after the quarter. Magna did deliver its other recent milestones, from the Levack resource estimate to the US$99M investment from Alpayana, a Peruvian mining group.

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