Renowned fund manager Eric Sprott said that if he had it to do all over again, he would not have taken his company public in the current climate.

In a conference call Thursday, Sprott discussed both the state of the markets, and that of his eponymous company, Sprott Inc., which went public in May at $10 share, but now trades at less than half that price.

In response to a question about the IPO, Sprott said that “If you ask me whether I’d do it again, I’d say no. I take no comfort that the people at Sprott sold at $10, and the stock’s at $5. I take absolutely no comfort from it.”

Sprott noted that while insiders sold 15% of the company, they still hold 85%, and so they aren’t pleased with the current price level either. He also argued that if its managers had performed as well in recent months as they had in prior periods, shareholders would have been very happy.

He admitted that things haven’t gone well in the past few months, but expressed confidence that performance will recover. “We know were very levered to our theses working, and we have every confidence that the theses will ultimately work,” he said.

Sprott went on to discuss many of those theses in a wide-ranging call, including the firm’s belief in the peak oil theory, climate change, and the meltdown of the global financial system.

In response to a question about how long the current market turmoil could continue, he suggested that it may well go on a long time. Back in 2000, Sprott noted, they predicted a bear market that could last 15 years, “We’re eight years into it, so I think it will go on for some time yet.”