Gold Royalty Corp. (AMEX:GROY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Gold Royalty Corp. (AMEX:GROY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript March 28, 2023

Joanne Jobin : Good morning. I’m your host, Joanne Jobin. And welcome to another Gold Royalty Town Hall Forum hosted by VID Media. Before we start, I’d like to introduce CEO, David Garofalo, John Griffith, Chief Development officer, and Andrew Gubbels, CFO, who will provide an update on recent financial and operating results for the company. After their presentation, I’ll be delighted to moderate submitted questions from our audience. Now a few words on the company. Gold Royalty Corp is a precious metals focused royalty and streaming company offering creative financing solutions to the metals and mining industry. It currently has a diversified portfolio of over 190 royalties located in mining friendly jurisdictions throughout the Americas.

The company’s business model includes acquiring royalties, streams and similar interests at varying stages of the mine lifecycle to build a balanced portfolio offering near medium and longer-term attractive returns for investors. Now, before we get started, I would like to remind you that if you do have any questions for the company, please place them into the Q&A tab at the top of your chat sections. And please ensure that you fill in the short questionnaire at the end of the presentation, as this helps us and the company communicate more effectively with you for future events. And before I turn it over to the team, please note the forward-looking statement at the beginning of this presentation. Gentlemen, the stage is yours.

David Garofalo : Thank you, Joanne. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to John and Andrew as well, who’ll be presenting along with me. Andrew will be providing a highlight on the financial results for the quarter and our forward looking projections. And John will walk us through our portfolio, very extensive portfolio. Actually now 216 royalties across the portfolio heavily concentrated in the Americas, with even significant concentration in Nevada, Quebec, and Ontario, the three best mining jurisdictions in the world and some of the best producing gold assets in the world. And we’ll get into that in a bit more detail as we go through the presentation, but I thought I’d spend a minute talking about the royalty in the gold price of late.

And as we said in the past, when we’ve talked about the fundamentals for gold, we’ve always said it’s more monetary instrument than a commodity. And really what drives gold price up and down is relative interest rates. While gold as a monetary instrument has always yielded zero treasuries today, whether it’s US treasuries or whether we’re looking at the European monetary instruments or in the Western world generally, are really yielding negative on a real basis. Even as nominal rates are starting to go up, we’re seeing inflation accelerate. And inflation will continue to accelerate because central banks are dealing with a quandary in that we’re seeing the monetary system, particularly financial services system, start to collapse underneath because of all the excesses that have been introduced into the system since the credit crisis about 15 years ago.

There’s been a massive expansion of money supply and excess debt. And as interest rates go up, servicing a debt has become a significant challenge. And we’ve seen the evidence of that in the financial sector as we’ve seen banks collapse. And that’s just really the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. That’s the catalyst for gold, and it has been the catalyst for gold over the last couple of months, as we’ve seen a significant acceleration in the price as the market has started to realize that the central banks really can tighten monetary conditions significantly with undermining the financial system, undermining governments. Because, as we correctly pointed out, the debt levels that we’ve strapped on as a society since the onset of this inflation cycle and since the great financial crisis is significantly greater than it was back in the 1970s when we last experienced these types of inflation, debt to GDP global, globally is at about 350% relative to where it was in the 1970s at 100%.

So what that tells you is there’s very limited latitude for central banks to meaningfully tighten monetary conditions without undermining governments, corporations, and individuals, all of whom are carrying unprecedented debt levels. So while we’re seeing the central banks continue to increase interest rates, and, for example, the Federal Reserve has recently tightened interest rates another 25 basis points. That same Federal Reserve introduced $300 billion of new liquidity into the system to stave off bank collapses. And there’s more of that to come. So they are sucking and blowing. We’re starting to see central banks introduce new money supply into the system even as they are increasing nominal interest rates. What that will serve to do is accelerate inflation and we’re going to see inflation levels unlike we haven’t seen since the 1970s.

And that will drive real interest rates deeper and deeper into negative territory. And the negative correlation, the negative relationship between the gold price and real interest rates is striking and dramatic. And that’s why we’ve been consistent in saying that gold will achieve its new all-time highs of at least $3,000 an ounce. And that’s on a real basis because gold back in the early 1980s, in the last big inflation cycle was in excess of $800 an ounce. But if you inflation adjust that to $2,023, that suggests us that gold could go to at least $3,000 an ounce and that would be the real all-time high. So we still have at least 50% upside from the current gold price levels that we’re experiencing and that will drive new capital into the gold sector and we think, significant share price appreciation.

And we’re starting to see the early evidence of that. Since the crisis in banking system, really, which started to manifest itself in early March, we’ve seen a significant outperformance in both the GDXJ and gold prices relative to the general equity markets. And that’s what gold should do in these types and times of crisis, is provide insurance against volatility in the general equity markets. So we’ve seen the gold price go up dramatically. There’s more to that to come and there’s more volatility to come in the general equity markets as people’s confidence in the economy is undermined and as money supply continues to accelerate, inflation continues to accelerate. People will be looking for gold as a life preserver, as protector and preserver of their savings.

Because inflation is insidious, it eats at our savings, whereas gold preserves savings in the face of an inflationary environment. And with that macro discussion, I’d like to pass it on to Andrew to talk about our financial results. Oh, sorry. And I should end my discussion talking about the opportunity I see in the valuations before I hand it off to Andrew to talk about our financial results. You can see that the sector is still significantly discounted. We’ve still been a relative significant underperformance of the gold equities relative to the gold price and the opportunity we see with Gold Royalty trading at halftimes, NEV with an enviable portfolio of assets within the Americas and peer leading growth as a significant rerate as we crystallize that revenue growth over the coming years.

And the thing I should add, we own 216 royalties, but they’re completely bought and paid for. There’s no capital cause on them. So essentially, we just have to wait for that growth to come to fruition. And the value accretion on a per share basis is immense over the coming years. And the rerate potential of our stock as we achieve that skill organically through the growth of our cash flow from an existing, well diversified portfolio within the best mining jurisdictions of the world, we think is immense and a great opportunity for our shareholders to realize upside. With that, we’ll pass it on to Andrew to talk about our financial results.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Andrew Gubbels: Thanks, Dave. You would have seen yesterday we announced our financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2022. With the change in our fiscal year end from September 30 to December 31, this period will become the fourth quarter of what will be our 2022 fiscal year. In the December quarter, we continue to generate robust revenue from our portfolio, earning $1.1 million in total revenue and option proceeds for that three month period. Now, that’s an 11% increase from the same period in 2021. This is largely due to higher revenue contribution from some core royalties, such as Canadian Malartic and Borden. For fiscal 2023, we do expect total revenue and option proceeds to increase year-on-year and we’ve put forward guidance of $5.5 million to $65.

Million in total revenue and option proceeds for the year. And we end the calendar year with a strong financial position as well. We have cash and available liquidity of approximately $35 million and we’re well positioned to fund our business and continue to grow the company throughout the year with this liquidity position. Finally, in fiscal 2023, we also expect recurring cash operating costs to be between $7 million and $8 million for the year. Now, this would represent a 30% decrease in recurring operating costs from the prior calendar year and reflects the evolution of our company after a fast start following the IPO and three large strategic acquisitions in our initial growth phase. Now, beyond our financial results, I do want to highlight the company’s progress with respect to ESG and ESG disclosure.

In 2023, we joined the UN Global Compact and will disclose our ESG performance in an inaugural sustainability study in and around our Investor and Analyst Day in May. Alongside the sustainability report, we also expect to publish our first asset handbook. This important document will provide investors with a detailed look into the assets that make up our market leading growth portfolio. Now, with that, I’ll pass it over to John Griffith, our Chief Development Officer, to step through the assets.

John Griffith: Thank you very much, Andrew, and it’s a pleasure to have you all join us today and thank you for your time. It’s worth recalling that it was only two years ago that we went public with a portfolio of 18 royalties, and we now have over 200 royalties that are fully paid for in a portfolio poised to deliver multidecade growth. Our portfolio places us in the top five in terms of the number of royalties behind the likes of Franco-Nevada, Sandstorm and Triple Flag. Our portfolio is organic in the sense that many of the assets are moving forward in the very capable hands of some of the world’s leading well capitalized and socially responsible gold producers as noted at the bottom of this page. As our key top tier operating partners work to move these assets along the development pipeline, they become increasingly valuable without Gold Royalty having to raise any additional capital or incur any additional costs.

Our seven producing royalties are closely shadowed by 14 royalties on development assets, many of which will be in production over the next several years delivering peer leading revenue growth. Behind the pipeline of development royalties, we have another 38 advanced exploration royalties with resources, many of which present very large gold resource endowments, and the scope to rapidly move into the development phase such as Fenelon, and then we have over 150 exploration royalties, many of which are in the most prolific gold producing regions in the Americas. These royalties provide significant option value to provide meaningful future value accretion over time. Turning to slide 9 as mentioned, the producing and development royalties in our portfolio will be the key drivers of our peer leading growth over the next several years.

Using research analyst consensus estimates, Gold Royalty is expected to deliver organic revenue growth on a compound annual growth rate basis of 60% over the next several years. And importantly, we do not need to raise any capital or incur any additional costs to benefit from this growth. Beyond the next several years, we anticipate a continued growth in revenue as assets such as Odyssey, Granite Creek and Cote come online, supported by the Ren Project, the northern extension of Goldstrike as well as Fenelon towards the end of the decade. Turning to slide 10, in addition to having a balanced portfolio operated by many of the world’s leading operating companies, our portfolio benefits from being heavily weighted in some of the best mining jurisdictions in the world, as measured by the Fraser Institute.

Taking into account factors such as geological prospectivity, access to skilled labor, permitting, and rule of law, over 80% of our net asset value is anchored in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario in Canada, in the state of Nevada, in the USA. And speaking of prospectivity, last year our operating partners drilled over 700,000 meters on our underlying properties. This year, our operating partners are expected to drill a further 600,000 meters. All of this exploration comes with zero cost to Gold Royalty, but with all the upside in potential resource growth. This underscores that our portfolio is not just about quantity of royalties, but also the quality of our assets, in which our operating partners are investing so heavily. Turning to 11, we have grown quickly, but we’ve also built our business on solid foundations.

A number of our royalties are underpinned by assets that are not only among the largest gold mines in North America, but also mines that will produce gold for many decades. This is a differentiating feature of our company. None of our more immediate peers have multiple assets such as Odyssey, Cote and Ren that will all be producing gold this decade and still be producing gold in 2040 and beyond. It is important to emphasize this point, as great mining companies are built on the back of great assets. Franco-Nevada’s foundational asset was a royalty on Barrick’s Goldstrike mine, and we have a royalty on the Northern extension, an important future contributor to Goldstrike, the Ren project. The attributes of our portfolio are outstanding. We are poised to deliver exceptional growth not just over the next several decades, but well into the next decade.

Our confidence in the portfolio allowed us to initiate a dividend early on in the evolution of our company, and it will be instrumental in being able to grow total shareholder return over time. Having addressed some of the macro attributes of our portfolio, I’d now like to speak a bit more in detail about some of our exciting assets. Turning to slide 12, first talking about the Canadian Malartic property. As a reminder, we hold a 3% NSR royalty on portions of the Canadian Malartic Mine and the Odyssey Project. This royalty currently applies to a portion of the Canadian Malartic open pit areas, the eastern end of the Barnat extension where most of the production has occurred to date, and importantly, the northern portion of the Odyssey project.

The royalty also applies to portions of East Malartic, Sladen and Sheehan Zones and all of the Jeffrey Zone within the Canadian Malartic Mine property. The previously announced acquisition of Yamana by Agnico Eagle Pan American is expected to close soon, resulting in Agnico Eagle becoming the sole owner and operator of the Canadian Malartic property. The Canadian Malartic and Odyssey mines will now form the Canadian Malartic Complex. For 2023, Agnico Eagle disclosed that production is expected to be sourced from the Canadian Malartic pit, the Barnat pit and the Odyssey mine complemented by ore from the low grade stockpiles. The Canadian Malartic pit is expected to be exhausted late in the first half of 2023. Production from the Ren sections of the Odyssey mine is expected to commence in March 2023 with the mined ore to be processed at the Canadian Malartic mill.

The Odyssey mine is forecast to gradually ramp up production in 2023, with production from the shaft commencing in 2027. Agnico Eagle expects to have up to 40,000 tons per day of excess mill capacity at the Canadian Malartic Complex starting in 2028 as processing of the open pit ore and low grade stockpile begins to wind down. And processing transitions to the higher ground underground Odyssey mine. Turning to Cote Gold Project, we hold a 0.75% NSR royalty over the southern portion of the Cote Gold project located in Ontario. IAMGOLD has disclosed that Cote Gold project was estimated to be approximate least 73% complete at the end of 2022. IAMGOLD also disclosed that the aggregate anticipated proceeds from asset sales combined with the funds to be provided by Sumitomo under the joint venture for the mine, will meet the estimated remaining funding requirements for the completion of construction at Cote.

IAMGOLD further stated that Cote is expected to commence production in early 2024 when it is expected to become Canada’s third largest gold mine by production. Turning to the Ren project, we hold a 1.5% NSR and a 3.5% NPI over the Ren project, part of Barrick’s Carlin Complex in Elko County, Nevada. On February this year, as part of the company’s 2022 results announcement, Barrick highlighted an increase in inferred resources at Ren to 1.6 million ounces and stated that growth is expected to continue in 2023. At Ren, drilling continues to grow inferred resources in the JV zone as well as confidence in the continuity of mineralization at the Corona Corridor where MRC-22002 drilled within the Devonian Rodeo Creek Formation returns 16 meters at 17.35 grams per ton of gold.

Turning to the Fenelon Gold project, we hold a 2% NSR royalty over the vast majority of the Fenelon Gold project located in Quebec. On January this year, Wallbridge announced an updated mineral resource estimate for the Fenelon project prepared under NI-43101. The updated mineral resource estimate is expected to form the foundation for Wallbridge’s upcoming PEA on Fenelon, which is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. Warbridge also announced its 2023 exploration plan, which includes 15,000 meters of drilling on the Fenelon project, which remains open laterally and at depth in multiple directions. The drill program will follow up on recent exploration results that continue to expand the known gold system. In addition, Wallbridge will continue derisking the project with further technical studies, environmental and permitting activities.

Turning to Granite Creek. We hold a 10% NPI over Granite Creek Mine in Nevada. On March this year, i-80 provided an update and recap of progress at Granite Creek. The 2022 underground drill program was focused on delineating mineralization for mining, as well as upgrading and expanding resources expected to provide the bulk of mineralization to be mined in the following 12-months, multiple underground levels have been developed, especially at the Ogee Zone, and i-80 continued to extend the decline to depth with the goal of initiating access to the new South Pacific Zone located immediately below and to the north of the underground mine workings. i-80 targets to complete underground drilling and bring the newly discovered South Pacific Zone into the Granite Creek mine plan in 2023 And finally turning to Jarrett Canyon.

We hold a 0.5% NSR over the Jarrett Canyon mine in Elko County, Nevada. We also hold an incremental per ton royalty interest on the Jarrett Canyon Processing Facility. On March 20 this year, First Majestic announced it’s taking action to reduce overall costs by reducing investments, temporarily suspending all mining activities, and reducing its workforce at Jarrett Canyon effective immediately. During the suspension, First Majestic intends to process approximately 45,000 tons of aboveground stockpiles through the plant. Exploration activities are expected to also continue throughout 2023 with several additional plans for optimization of the asset. As a result of the suspension, First Majestic’s previous production and cost guidance for Jerritt Canyon can no longer be relied upon.

First Majestic’s revised consolidated production and cost guidance, including capital investments, are expected to be published in July. Gold Royalty notes that Jerritt Canyon accounts for less than 2% of its portfolio net asset value based on consensus estimates. And with that, I conclude my remarks and hand back to Dave.

David Garofalo : Thanks very much, John. And thank you all for your attention today. And I think what’s indisputable is that we are headed into what I think is an unprecedented bull run for gold. The ingredients are there in terms of an accelerating inflationary environment, a likely pivot by the Federal Reserve and central banks globally to easing monetary condition because they’re faced with the conflicting challenges of high inflation but also a financial contagion. And they’re going to have to do increasing liquidity to stave off financial room within the financial services sector, not unlike what we had in the great financial crisis just 15 years ago. So we’re likely to enter into a period where gold will exceed all-time highs of $3,000 an ounce on a real basis.

In that type of environment, we do expect gold equities to respond. And what’s also striking is that gold equities have not responded even though gold on a nominal basis is achieving all-time highs again, we’ve still seen gold equities discounted severely from where they were the last time gold was above $2,000 an ounce, at least 30% below their all-time high. In the producer universe, I think that’s factored by or influenced by the fact that producers are not immune from inflation that we’re experiencing in the general economy and that’s certainly weighing on their valuations. That’s why we believe that the royalty space is the best place to get optimum leverage to gold price and optimum leverage to expiration while protecting yourself from inflation in the underlying gold producer universe.

And no company is better positioned for rising gold prices than Gold Royalty from a couple of respects, we have increasing production from our underlying royalty portfolio and we have peer leading growth in revenue. Admittedly, we’re in a space in the equity markets where growth is being severely discounted as nominal rates go up, and that certainly led to underperformance, but we think that as monetary conditions ease, as the gold price goes up, we’re uniquely positioned to provide the best growth from the best jurisdictions in the world, Nevada, Quebec, and Ontario, where we have a heavy concentration in our portfolio. And as I said, we have optimum leverage to exploration. Last year, our operating partners invested over $200 million, or 700,000 meters of diamond drilling on their underlying properties, growing the reserves and sources, and exposing our shareholders to that exploration upside.

And we expect a similar exploration focus from our operating partners over the course of 2023, which will lead to further exploration upside within our portfolio. So I think we’re excellently positioned to not only grow our cash flow, but also grow our dividend over time, and also well positioned with strong liquidity on the balance sheet to participate in new opportunities as they come our way over the course of the next year or so. With that, we’d be delighted to take questions from our shareholders. Thank you so much for your attention today.

See also 11 Biggest Dropshipping Suppliers in USA and 15 Best Cyclical Stocks to Buy Now.

Q&A Session

Operator:

Joanne Jobin : Thank you, gentlemen, for a fantastic update, and thank you for your time today. By the way, we had almost 120 participants on this call, so well done. I can see by the comments and the questions that many of your shareholders appreciate the opportunity to be able to interact directly with you. So with that, we’ll start taking questions. Just let me come into the portal. Here we go. Can you please outline the specific areas where cash operating expenses can be reduced to achieve the 2023 guidance level? And also, can you break out between the royalty revenue and the option proceeds to get to the 2023 guidance?

Andrew Gubbels: Sure, I could take that. So the recurring cash operating expense reductions through 2023 is likely to happen in a few areas. First off, I think everyone will be aware and understand that we as a company made three large acquisitions post IPO. We had a major subsidiary in Nevada and Valdo Val-d’Or, Quebec at the time. One of the things that we are in the process of doing and will do through 2023 is consolidate and reorganize those subsidiaries such that there should be an elimination in excess overheads in those areas, reduction in consulting costs, et cetera. That’s one thing. We do expect also as the Company was established, a moderation in the office and IT set up costs through 2023 as the Company stabilizes.

That sort of happens once also refocusing market in IR costs through 2023 should be helpful to get to meet that guidance for cost. So those are the key areas that we’ll focus on for cost reductions to meet that $7 million to $8 million recurring cash operating expense guidance. On the question about royalty and option proceeds for 2023, approximately 40% of that will be from our royalties, with the majority coming from the Canadian Malartic Mine, and approximately 60% will be options, MRs, et cetera.

Joanne Jobin : Thank you, Andrew. Next question. And we’ve had a lot of questions about this regarding the performance of the stock. Can you discuss why there is pressure on the stock? Or, as I like to say, what is the market missing?

David Garofalo : Look, I think as I alluded to a little earlier on when I provided a summary of our presentation, growth has been severely discounted in this market. In a market where interest rates are rising, we’re seeing our growth significantly discounted. Our growth stories are definitely not involved. Immediate cash flow is getting a premium. And admittedly, our cash flow in the short term is not as significant as it is over the next three to five years as we crystallize that growth from an enviable portfolio in the Americas. And so as interest rates start to pivot downwards, and we firmly believe that the Federal Reserve and central banks globally are going to undertake and are undertaking a grand pivot to easing monetary conditions, and we start to see generalist equities start to participate in the gold market, and they’ve been largely absent up to this point.

And we’ve seen that in the underperformance in mining equities generally. I think you’re going to see a premium place on the kind of growth that we can offer. Growth that’s fully funded, I should add. As I said, we have 216 royalties, but they’re all bought and paid for. We don’t have to put another dime into our growth, nor do we have to put a dime into the significant exploration programs that our operating partners are undertaking. All that growth really comes for free because all of our royalties are bought and paid for. We just have to wait for that growth to crystallize. And the value creation on a per share basis is immense because our share count is static and our growth is immense. And that’s the opportunity we see as we start to see capital reallocated back into the gold sector.

Just to give you a sense of the upside potential within the gold sector, generally, if you look at global asset allocation, it’s only a small fraction of 1% of capital globally. It’s allocated to the gold sector. And physical gold, it would only require a small reallocation of capital, really a rounding error to significantly enhance not only the price for gold, but also significantly enhance valuations in the gold sector. And as that capital gets reallocated into the gold sector, it’s our firm view that investors, general investors in particular, are not going to be looking to invest in shrinking businesses. They’ll be looking to invest in ones that are growing not only on an absolute basis, but on a per share basis. And again, because our growth is all fully paid for, that means the per share accretion, the per share growth in our value, in our earnings, and our cash flow is dramatic over the next coming years.

And investors coming into the space will be looking for growth again, which has not been the case up to this point.

Joanne Jobin : Thank you. So staying on the gold market, what is the impact for GROY when gold goes up by $100, for example?

David Garofalo : Yes. Certainly. Look, every $100 move in the gold price has millions of dollars of impact on our revenue, increasingly so as a more significant portion of revenue comes from production rather than options. If you look at our growth beyond the next couple of years, all that growth is coming from royalty revenue, not option proceeds. In fact, our assumptions in our revenue projections and the consensus estimates that you’ve seen in our chart up to this point is that option proceeds fall off that’s effectively zero over the next two to three years, and all of our growth comes from royalty revenue. That means that every $100 move has an immense impact on our revenue growth over the coming number of years. We’re using 1,650 gold long term for a consensus for estimates as the consensus gold price. So even at current gold prices, there’s upside in those revenue projections that we showed you a little earlier in the presentation.

Joanne Jobin : Thank you, Dave.