GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

Sprott Supports Canadian Elite Athletes

Canadian Investment firm to celebrate each victory in Vancouver with $100,000 donation each time a Canadian athlete wins gold

Toronto, February 4, 2010 – Sprott Asset Management LP knows a thing or two about gold. And today CEO Eric Sprott announced support for Canadian athletes with a unique pledge, the Sprott Canadian Gold Metal Celebration. Each time a gold medal is won in Vancouver, Sprott Asset Management LP, in conjunction with The Sprott Foundation will donate $100,000 to the Canadian Athletes Now Fund (CAN Fund), a not-for-profit organization devoted solely to raising funds and awareness of Canadian athletes.

“With our Canadian athletes competing for gold against the best in the world, we wanted to celebrate their success in achieving their goals by supporting the CAN Fund, which provides direct funding to Canadian athletes,” said Eric Sprott, CEO, Sprott Asset Management LP. “As an investment firm, we’ve delivered results to our clients by making big bets on the future —and we wanted to use the same approach to build on our athletes’ successes in Vancouver by providing funding for our athletes on a longer term basis.”

Sprott says he chose to partner with CAN Fund for its track record in being the leader in direct funding for Canadian athletes, many of whom struggle to meet even basic training expenses, let alone the international travel required to compete at world-class levels. Donations are allocated by athletes for equipment, coaching, travel, team fees, proper nutrition and living expenses as they train out of the spotlight to become world class athletes.

“Today Eric Sprott reminds all Canadians to celebrate excellence and the necessity of providing ongoing direct funding to our athletes,” says Jane Roos, the founder of CAN Fund. “For years the CAN Fund has been building the relationship between our summer and winter athletes encouraging them to work together. In one week, many of our winter athletes will realize their dream of standing on the podium. Sprott’s generosity helps ensure our winter athletes’ success will fuel the dreams of summer athletes in the future.”

Roos said that an initial gesture of support by Sprott—a $210,000 donation to CAN Fund through the Sprott Foundation—has effectively cleared the backlog of winter athlete funding requests.

“Funding has increased for athletes competing in Vancouver, but what many Canadians probably don’t know is that 42 per cent of our winter athletes who are ranked in the global top ten still have net negative incomes,” says Ben Rutledge, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in Rowing.

The Sprott Canadian Gold Metal Celebration will feature a website www.sprottgoldpledge.com—set up to encourage others in Corporate Canada to join in celebrating each hard fought success of Canadian athletes in February. Sprott says this is a critical time to celebrate victory since an athlete has never won a gold medal on Canadian soil during the Olympics in Montreal (1976) and Calgary (1988).