Should you held a diversified portfolio of Canadian mining shares in 2025, you seemingly had a contented New 12 months. TSX mining shares returned triple digit features, with a 156% common acquire in giant caps and a 229% surge in mid-caps extensively outperforming the broader market. However for those who held Imperial Metals (TSX:III) inventory throughout the previous yr, you witnessed a resurrection.
The Canadian mining inventory crushed the market, posting a 449.5% acquire in 2025 and rallying one other 17% within the first two weeks of 2026.
However to know why this rally is so explosive, you need to perceive the deep gap the corporate climbed out of. That is greater than only a story about rising gold and copper costs; it’s a narrative of redemption, strategic debt compensation, and an enormous technical pivot.
For years, Imperial Metals was a pariah within the Canadian mining sector. The inventory’s lengthy despair since 2014 was worse than customary cyclical volatility. It was an existential disaster.
On August 4, 2014, the tailings pond at its Mount Polley mine breached, releasing hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of waste into native waterways. It was one of many worst environmental mining disasters in Canadian historical past.
And the aftermath was brutal.
Imperial Metals incurred huge remediation prices that bloated its steadiness sheet with debt. Operational shutdowns adopted in 2019 and 2022 as low copper costs compelled a care-and-maintenance route for administration. Traders have been dissatisfied, however not eternally.
So, what modified in 2025? All the things.
Whereas the broad mining sector loved a rally in gold and copper, Imperial Metals inventory acted as a leveraged play on these commodities. Listed below are the exhausting information factors driving the 450% surge.
Firstly, the drill bit delivered. Traders love high-grade discovery, and Imperial delivered it on the excellent second. In mid-2025, exploration drilling at Mount Polley’s “C2 zone” hit an enormous intercept. The mine had vital, high-grade life left in it.
Secondly, the corporate beat its personal steerage. Turnarounds solely work if administration executes, and in 2025, the corporate over-delivered. Imperial Metals gave an authentic steerage for 25 –27 million kilos of copper. The corporate is on monitor to hit 30 million kilos for the yr.
Whenever you mix beating manufacturing targets with report gold and copper costs, you get a “super-cycle” impact on earnings. Income for the primary 9 months of 2025 skyrocketed to $521 million, up from $362 million the yr prior. Internet revenue of $120 million represented threefold progress from $43 million in 2024.
Lastly, the steadiness sheet clean-up may very well be an important element. Administration is utilizing windfall money circulation to assault “poisonous” debt. Complete debt fell from $378 million (Sept 2024) to $243 million by September 30, 2025. In the course of the fourth quarter, the corporate paid off almost $80 million in unsecured debentures that have been costing it a painful 12% in curiosity yearly.
The subsequent leg of the expansion story may very well be the 30% owned Pink Chris mine, lately designated by the federal authorities’s new Main Tasks Workplace as a undertaking of Nationwide Curiosity, with potential to extend copper output by 15%.
The operator of Pink Chris, Newmont, is presently transitioning Pink Chris from an open pit to an underground “Block Cave” mine. This can be a huge engineering feat that permits for the extraction of giant underground ore our bodies at a a lot decrease price per ton.
This transition could lengthen the mine life by a long time.
The Silly backside line
Imperial Metals inventory has remodeled from a distressed asset right into a cash-flow machine. They’ve fastened the steadiness sheet, proved the geology, and are actually using a tailwind of copper demand that reveals no signal of stopping.
Whereas the straightforward cash (the primary 450%) has been made, the “protected” cash is simply beginning to have a look at this inventory now that the steadiness sheet is repaired. If copper holds these ranges, 2026 may very well be one other record-breaker.
