With Sprott, the funds may be best bet

The market capitalization on Sprott is roughly $1.5-billion. If we recast last year's numbers, the "return" on that market cap is around 9 per cent - a far cry from the average returns on the better Sprott funds.

The fund company is supposed to be a better investment than the funds. In this case, it might be the opposite. Sprott has a great franchise and high profit margins, but it also has high expenses and, more importantly, the purchase price may be relatively high, making the stock look less attractive than the funds.

...

The good news is that the people making the trades every day have an incentive to work hard. While their bonuses are going down, the crew of big names - Jean-François Tardif, Peter Hodson, Allan Jacobs, Eric Sprott, to name a few - will have a lot of their wealth tied up in the shares. They'll be motivated to post good fund return numbers.