Aya Gold and Silver’s C$4 Million Tizi Deal Adds Low-Cost District Upside

Thirty-five kilometres west of the Zgounder silver mine, in the Tizi area of Morocco's Anti-Atlas, there are old workings, copper-stained rock and about twenty kilometres of road. On 1 September 2026 Aya Gold & Silver Inc. agreed to buy the ground they sit on.

The price is C$4.0 million, payable in Aya common shares. Double it to C$8 million and it would still be about one part in seven hundred of what Aya is worth. Halve it to C$2 million and nothing about the company's value would change either. That is what makes the number useful: it is an option fee, not an investment, and Aya has priced it like one.

The land package is 139 square kilometres of exploration permits, including a 19 square kilometre mining licence. Double the area and Aya would have more ground to walk across. Halve it and the 19 square kilometre licence would still carry more weight than all the rest, because a licence carries the right to extract and a permit only carries the right to look.

What the seller's rock samples are, and what they cannot be

The release quotes three sets of numbers, and Aya qualifies all of them itself.

A previous operator's trench returned 15 metres grading 0.65 per cent copper and 33 grams of silver per tonne. Double that copper grade and it would be a strong sediment-hosted copper result. Halve it and it would be marginal. Neither reading applies yet, because the company states that a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current, that Aya is not considering them current, and that further work is required to confirm them.

Historical grab samples ran up to 837 grams of silver per tonne and up to 4.6 per cent copper. Aya's own samples came back at 500 grams of silver and 4.0 per cent copper. A grab sample is a piece of rock picked up off the ground because it looks interesting. Double those numbers or halve them and they say the same thing: somewhere out there is rock with a lot of metal in it. They do not say how much rock. Aya writes that surface grab samples are selective by nature and are not representative of true width or of the overall grade of mineralisation.

What the company does claim from its own field visit is narrow and checkable later: a principal copper-silver horizon traced over 2 kilometres. Two kilometres of horizon is a place to start drilling. It is not a deposit, and there is no mineral resource estimate on this ground.

The transaction is still conditional. Aya, through a wholly owned subsidiary, will acquire all issued and outstanding shares of the seller, subject to confirmatory due diligence and to Moroccan and Canadian regulatory approvals and Toronto Stock Exchange approval. The release does not name the seller, does not say how many Aya shares will be issued, and gives no pricing formula for them.

One month, three different kinds of evidence

Tizi was the first of three September announcements, and the three sit at three different heights on the ladder of proof.

On 9 September Aya reported an updated preliminary economic assessment for Boumadine: an after-tax net present value of US$3.5 billion at a 5 per cent discount rate, a 93 per cent after-tax internal rate of return, initial capital of US$463 million, and a fourteen-year mine life at 8,000 tonnes a day. Halve the US$3.5 billion and the study still describes a very large mine; that is what a 5 per cent discount rate and a US$3,500 gold price assumption do to fourteen years of cash flow. Halve the US$463 million of initial capital and Aya still could not fund it from the US$183 million of cash it held at mid-year; it would need roughly 27 per cent more. At the published figure, partners, debt or future operating cash flow would still be required.

At the figure as published, according to the 9 September release, initial capital is about two and a half times the cash Aya reported at mid-year. The company's own caution is that the assessment is preliminary, includes inferred resources too speculative geologically to be categorised as reserves, and may not be realised. Maple's reading of that study on 10 September stands unchanged.

On 16 September the company reported drilling at Zgounder, including 3.5 metres at 3,501 grams of silver per tonne in hole DZG-SF-26-945 and 2.4 metres at 4,770 grams in T28-26-1334. Halve 3,501 grams and it is still roughly twelve times the 145 grams per tonne average grade of the reserve Aya is currently mining. Double it and it would still be a single intercept in a mine that already has 73.4 million ounces of proven and probable silver behind it. True widths are undetermined and all values are uncut, according to the release; samples went to Afrilab in Marrakech or the ALS laboratory at the mine site, with anything above 200 grams re-run by fire assay. Maple covered those holes on 17 September.

And Tizi, first in time and last in proof, is a land position with historical sampling nobody has verified, priced and structured as low-cost optionality rather than a funded development commitment.

The month the market barely noticed

Aya closed at C$40.35 on 21 September 2026, up eight cents, or 0.2 per cent, per market data read after the close on a 15-minute delay. It traded between C$39.60 and C$40.60 with a volume-weighted average price of C$40.19. Toronto volume was 554,612 shares against an average near 1.2 million. Double that day's volume and it would still be below average. Halve it and the message is identical: after a month carrying a district acquisition, a doubled study valuation and the year's best silver hole, almost nobody traded.

Exchange data showed a market value of about C$5.81 billion on 144.06 million shares, and the shares sat just under a 52-week high of C$41.98 against a low of C$11.95. Halve C$41.98 and the result, near C$21, is roughly where the shares traded earlier this year; double the low and the answer is about C$24. The path from there to here was Zgounder actually working, which Maple wrote about on 13 September.

The producing business is what pays for all of it. Aya disclosed second-quarter revenue of US$96.8 million, up 151 per cent year over year, net income of US$35.0 million, and 1.5 million ounces of silver produced at Zgounder at a cash cost of US$17.69 per ounce sold. Cash and equivalents were US$183 million at 30 June 2026, against US$136 million at the end of 2025. Halve that cash and Boumadine's US$463 million capital cost becomes a financing problem rather than a sequencing one; double it and it very nearly disappears. Aya did not report an all-in sustaining cost in that release, and it pays no dividend.

Two things being said about Aya that its own filings do not support

Retail discussion around the company has settled on two numbers, and neither comes from the company.

The first is that insiders own roughly 40 per cent of the shares. Aya's own release of 15 January 2026 points the other way. Robert Taub, then chair, and Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, then lead independent director, left the board and together sold 7.5 million shares in a secondary market transaction. Members of management sold about 1.1 million shares, which the company described as roughly 12 per cent of the executive management team's holdings, and it stated that the remaining team holds approximately 7.7 million securities. Double 7.7 million and it is still about a tenth of 144 million shares. Ghislane Guedira now chairs the board.

The second is a figure of about C$470 million said to be the minimum Boumadine needs. No Aya document uses it. The nearest published number is the US$463 million of initial capital in the 9 September assessment, which is a study estimate rather than a funding requirement, and it is in US dollars.

One correction to Aya's own record is worth carrying forward. David Lalonde signs both the August and September releases as the qualified person. On 6 August he was Vice-President, Exploration. From 1 September he is Executive Vice-President, Exploration. The company has not announced the promotion separately; the change appears in the release boilerplate and on its management page.

Two Moroccan deals, one month apart, built very differently

The Tizi deal is not Aya's first Moroccan purchase this summer, and the contrast in structure is the most revealing thing in either document.

According to the release of 6 August, Aya acquired three mining licences and 18 exploration permits covering about 259 square kilometres across three projects, for MAD 10 million in cash and assumed debt, plus milestone payments tied to future resource and development milestones, plus a 2 per cent net smelter return royalty on future commercial production. A net smelter return royalty is a slice of revenue paid to the seller forever, whether or not the mine earns anything.

Tizi is the opposite shape: no cash, no royalty, no milestones, and C$4.0 million of stock. Aya paid for the August ground with money and a permanent claim on its future output. It paid for the September ground with paper it prints itself. Double the Tizi price and that still holds. The structure, not the size, is the tell.

Zgounder ships silver every month. Boumadine has a study and no reserves. Tizi has a 19 square kilometre licence, two kilometres of copper horizon somebody walked across, and a price of four million dollars in stock. Those are three different things, and Aya now owns all three. That sequence, a cash-generating mine, a costed but preliminary development study and a modestly priced exploration option, gives Aya a credible path to build beyond one producing asset without pretending that early-stage ground is already a mine.

Transparency note

Transparency note. This is an independent due-diligence analysis and editorial opinion piece produced by The Maple Markets editorial desk. It is not sponsored, promoted or commissioned, and no compensation of any kind has been received from Aya Gold & Silver Inc. (TSX: AYA) or any party acting on their behalf. The analysis is based on public disclosure available as of the publish date; every figure is attributed to its primary source. The Maple Markets and its authors may hold positions in securities mentioned; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and readers should not treat it as investment advice. Past disclosure does not guarantee future results. Policies: Editorial Standards · Financial Disclaimer.