By 
Issued on behalf of Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc.
A 30-year financial markets career, a proven track record reaching retail and institutional investors across UK and European small caps, and a seat on the board of a company with 7.56 million ounces of high-grade silver, a licensed processing facility, and a gold target on the Ridout-Tyrrell corridor. The Zak Mir appointment is about more than a biography.
COBALT, ON, July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Equity-Insider.com News Commentary - There is a category of board appointment that is purely procedural -- a name added to satisfy governance requirements or balance a skill set. And there is a category that signals something more deliberate: a company at an inflection point choosing to add the specific expertise that its next stage of growth requires. The appointment of Zak Mir to the board of Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. belongs to the second category. Mir brings over 30 years in financial markets, a reputation built on reaching retail and institutional investors in UK and European small caps, and direct experience as a founder and CEO of an Aquis-listed investment company. For a company that operates in Canada's most historically storied precious metals district, holds a licensed processing facility that most silver juniors cannot match, and is simultaneously advancing a silver tailings recovery program, a 30,000-metre drill program, and a new gold exploration thesis along one of the Abitibi belt's most productive deformation corridors, the addition of a credible capital markets voice is a meaningful piece of the puzzle.
The Appointment and What It Signals
Zak Mir's financial markets career began in the derivatives brokerage space in the 1990s, during which he worked at Sucden Financial and Union Cal, the latter of which was later absorbed into Man Group, one of the world's largest alternative investment managers. He provided technical research to GNI. Over the following decades, he built a reputation as one of the UK's most recognized small-cap stock market commentators, pioneering the use of technical analysis across British capital markets from the FTSE 100 to micro-cap growth stocks.
His media presence has been extensive and consistent. He has written for Shares Magazine, Investors Chronicle, Yahoo Finance, and Spectator Money, and has appeared as a guest stock market commentator on CNBC and Bloomberg Television. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists. In 2022, he founded and became CEO of Lift Global Ventures, an investment company listed on the London Aquis Exchange, a role he held until earlier in 2026.
What Mir brings to Nord's board is not geological or operational expertise. The company already has that, with CEO Frank J. Basa, P.Eng., serving as the qualified person who has overseen the geological and technical work across the portfolio. What Mir brings is the ability to translate that technical work into language and formats that reach investor audiences in the UK and Europe -- audiences that have historically been underexposed to the Cobalt Camp story and are increasingly active in the precious metals and critical minerals space.
The Company He Is Joining
Nord Precious Metals operates TTL Laboratories, the only permitted high-grade milling facility in the historic Cobalt Camp of Ontario. That infrastructure advantage is not easily replicated and is central to the company's integrated strategy: high-grade silver discovery supported by an in-house processing capability that most juniors cannot offer. The company's 63 square kilometre flagship Castle property hosts three of the five most productive past-producing silver mines in the Gowganda Camp -- Siscoe-O'Brien, Castle, and Millerett -- and the Castle East discovery where drilling has defined a historical Inferred resource of 7.56 million ounces of silver at an average of 8,582 g/t Ag in the Robinson Zone.
The newly acquired leases host a historical NI 43-101 indicated tailings resource of approximately 1,940,000 tonnes grading 47.5 g/t silver for approximately 2,960,000 contained ounces, with subsequent work indicating potential for higher grades. The company's near-term priority is advancing the silver tailings recovery program through TTL Laboratories using the Re-2Ox hydrometallurgical process -- validated at pilot scale through SGS Lakefield -- which eliminates typical arsenic barriers in complex silver-cobalt ores while producing technical-grade cobalt sulphate and other critical metal products. A resource update is currently underway, and the addition of a capital markets director with Mir's investor reach is precisely the kind of appointment that positions a company to communicate that update effectively when it arrives.
Nord has also been systematic in building a gold exploration thesis at its Castle-Gowganda district. The Ridout-Tyrrell Deformation Zone, which hosts IAMGOLD's Côté Gold mine to the southwest, is interpreted to extend through the Gowganda area beneath Proterozoic glacial cover. Multiple drill holes have intersected gold, including 24.95 g/t over 0.3 metres at shallow depth carrying coarse visible gold, and 4.3 g/t over 4.0 metres and 1.5 g/t over 12.5 metres within a 30-metre mineralized zone at approximately 240 metres vertical depth. Current drilling within the 30,000-metre program has been strategically designed to test gold targets in parallel with the silver-focused objectives at Castle East.
The Ontario Precious Metals Names Investors Are Watching
Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX: WDO) (OTCQX: WDOFF)
Wesdome is one of Canada's premier high-grade underground gold producers and operates entirely in Ontario -- the same province as Nord's Castle-Gowganda district. The company's Eagle River mine in the White River area of northern Ontario has been producing gold continuously since 1996, and its Kiena mine in Val-d'Or, Quebec, returned to production in 2022 after a major resource expansion. Wesdome produced approximately 40,000 ounces of gold in Q1 2026, is guiding for 155,000 to 175,000 gold ounces for the full year, and maintains one of the highest-grade underground gold mining profiles in Canada. As a long-running, profitable high-grade underground operator in Ontario's precious metals belts, Wesdome illustrates the commercial destination that Nord's multi-metal Cobalt Camp story is working toward, and demonstrates that Ontario's geological endowment continues to reward patient, disciplined underground mining.
Osisko Mining Inc. (TSX: OSK) (OTCQX: OBNNF)
Osisko Mining is advancing the Windfall gold project in the Urban-Barry Greenstone Belt of Quebec -- a high-grade underground deposit that, while geographically distinct from the Cobalt Camp, shares important characteristics with Nord's Castle East resource: exceptional underground gold grades in a structurally controlled setting in the Canadian Shield. Osisko's Windfall deposit hosts Measured and Indicated resources of 4.0 million ounces at 8.1 g/t gold and Inferred resources of 2.4 million ounces at 5.6 g/t. A construction permit was received in 2025 and the company is advancing toward a production decision alongside a feasibility study update. Osisko's investor base, which includes Gold Fields, brings institutional validation to Canadian high-grade underground gold development and illustrates how a resource with exceptional underground grades in a proven Canadian geological setting can command a market re-rating as it approaches construction.
Galiano Gold Inc. (TSX: GAU) (NYSE American: GAU)
Galiano Gold operates the Asanko Gold Mine in Ghana through a joint venture with Gold Fields, producing gold from one of West Africa's established open-pit operations. In 2025, Galiano's attributable production was approximately 115,000 ounces of gold. While geographically distinct from Nord's Ontario operations, Galiano illustrates the investor appetite for multi-metal, multi-stream gold stories in which a smaller company leverages a major mining partner's operational and technical capabilities to de-risk project execution. Nord's relationship with its own strategic investors and partners follows a similar model, and Galiano's experience demonstrates how companies with institutional backing can achieve commercial development milestones that their standalone balance sheets might not easily support.
Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (TSX: FVI) (NYSE: FSM)
Fortuna Silver is a multi-jurisdictional silver and gold producer operating mines in Mexico, Peru, Burkina Faso, and Argentina. In Q1 2026, the company produced 3.4 million silver-equivalent ounces at an AISC of approximately $20.00 per silver-equivalent ounce, generating revenue of $212 million and adjusted EBITDA of $103 million. Fortuna's portfolio of operating mines demonstrates what disciplined multi-metal silver development, combined with gold and base metal revenue streams, looks like at the producing stage. For Nord, whose own story combines high-grade silver with cobalt, nickel, and other critical minerals, Fortuna's multi-revenue-stream model is the most relevant structural template among mid-tier silver producers. These companies are referenced to illustrate the sector only and do not imply any partnership, endorsement, affiliation, or comparable financial performance.
What to Watch
The most important near-term catalyst for Nord Precious Metals is the resource update currently underway. A compliant updated MRE for Castle East would replace the 2020 historical estimate with a current one, providing the technical foundation for more detailed economic studies and attracting a broader audience of institutional investors for whom a current compliant resource is a prerequisite. The silver tailings recovery program -- the company's stated near-term priority -- will establish whether the tailings resource can be converted into saleable metal products using the Re-2Ox process, adding a revenue stream that the exploration-stage narrative does not currently capture.
The gold compilation program, in parallel with the 30,000-metre drill program, will determine whether the Ridout-Tyrrell gold thesis at Gowganda can be advanced toward a formal resource estimate. And Zak Mir's arrival on the board is timed, intentionally or not, to coincide with several of these potential news catalysts -- giving the company a capital markets voice capable of reaching an investor audience that has not yet had a reason to engage with the Cobalt Camp story.
CONTINUED... Learn more about Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. at: https://www.nordpreciousmetals.com