TME 06 | Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor

Title: Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor

Summary:

In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes back Lou, an international investor, to discuss diversification, rare earth metals, and a unique agricultural investment opportunity. Lou, who splits his time between Europe and Latin America, emphasizes the importance of global diversification for peace of mind and flexibility. He highlights the geopolitical dynamics affecting rare earth metals, where China dominates the refining process, and discusses the increasing demand due to restricted exports. Transitioning from metals to agriculture, Lou introduces his truffle farm investment. Leveraging agri-science and Ireland’s favorable climate, the project offers investors ownership of inoculated truffle trees with professional farm management. Returns are projected to begin in year 4-5 and continue for up to 40 years, offering IRRs between 14% to 69% based on historical truffle prices. Risks include mismanagement and natural elements, though strong biosecurity and proven success mitigate concerns. Lou finishes with a valuable mindset tip: improve by 1% daily to compound results over time.

Bullet Point Highlights:

• Diversification across countries and industries provides flexibility and peace of mind
• China’s control of rare earth refining and export restrictions create scarcity and opportunity
• Truffle farm investment offers strong IRR potential, with returns starting in years 4-5 and lasting 30-40 years
• Minimum $30K investment includes 400 saplings and full farm management with a 70/30 profit split
• Primary risks are mismanagement and nature, mitigated through biosecurity and replacement guarantees
• Lou’s golden nugget: Focus on improving 1% daily to unlock exponential long-term growth

Transcript:

(Seth Bradley) (00:02.062)

What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.

 

If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Lou, what's going on, brother? Welcome back to the show.

 

Thank you very much Seth. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Good to see you again.

 

Yeah, absolutely man. Great to catch up with you. Are you tuning in from where?

 

Well, in Europe still, you know, I'm back and forth between Ireland, Germany, mostly, a little bit of time in Panama as well, because my wife's from there, but I'm in temporary in Ireland, horse breeding country and agricultural heartland actually of Europe. And at the moment anyway, yeah, so in Europe.

 

(Seth Bradley) (01:16.664)

awesome, awesome. That's the beauty of being on a video conference call that you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world now. That's the one good thing that came out of COVID is it made it normal to do it.

 

Yeah, it's funny, unbelievable. Just yesterday I was contacted actually by CNBC in the US, I'm in Europe, about the metals. We're not talking about metals today, but I've spoken with you before about the rare earth metals. And I guess the US chamber, secretary chamber of commerce is in China this week because China is restricting the export of certain technology metals and that's their area.

 

And within a day, there's like an hour after I speak with you, I'm doing an interview with CNBC on, I think it's Power Launch or something they call it. So it's fascinating really how quickly you can sort of ping around the globe and find somebody and do this.

 

Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time to tune in with us today. And we've got a brand new thing to talk about and we'll jump into that. But before we do, just for listeners who didn't listen to your previous episode, give us a little bit about your background and your story. Just a general synopsis,

 

Sure, thank you. Yeah, so I'm obviously, you can tell from the accent, I'm Irish or Scottish or Australian, but it's Irish. And I suppose you could say I'm bit of a world traveler who has come back home specifically for this project we're going to talk about. Ireland is known as sort of the breadbasket of Europe. But yeah, I lived in Germany for