Earnings Labs

Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV)

Q2 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 9, 2017

$228.62

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Teshan and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Franco-Nevada Corporation Second Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Stefan Axell, the floor is yours.

Stefan Axell

Analyst

Thank you, Teshan. Good morning, everyone. I want to thank you for joining us this morning to discuss Franco-Nevada's Q2 2017 results. Accompanying our call today is a presentation which is available on our Web site at franco-nevada.com where you'll also find our full financial results. Sandip Rana, CFO of Franco-Nevada will provide a review of the results, which will be followed by a Q&A period. Before we begin formal remarks, we would like to remind participants that some of today's commentary may contain forward-looking information and refer you to our detailed cautionary note on slide two of the presentation. I will now turn the call over to Sandip Rana, CFO of Franco-Nevada.

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thank you, Stefan. Good morning, everyone. As you will have seen from the press release issued yesterday, the company has reported another quarter of solid financial results. This continued the strong momentum that was built in fiscal 2016 and first quarter 2017. The portfolio continues to perform well. In addition, we continued to maintain our strong balance sheet which was further strengthened during the quarter with the exercise of the $75 Canadian warrants resulting in proceeds to the company of $475 million Canadian. The warrants were to expire in mid-June 2017, the proceeds added to our cash position and we ended the quarter with an excess of $600 million in cash and cash equivalents while continuing to be debt free. As you turn to slide three, the chart illustrates the gold equivalent ounces breakdown by commodity for second quarter 2017 compared to second quarter 2016. You can see that GEOs in total have increased by approximately 9% compared to last year. There have been slight increase in gold, PGM, other mineral GEOs while silver has remained fairly flat. To see further detail of the movement in GEOs from Q2 2016 to Q2 2017 and how the incremental GEOs were sourced, please turn to Slide four, as you can see from the chart the portfolio has performed well and it's not been very volatile as mentioned there was a slight decrease in silver GEOs has left silver ounces were delivered and sold from Antamina this quarter compared to a year ago, however this was expected with respect to the gold net profit interest royalties, GEOs were higher due to a strong recover from our Hemlo MPI, PGM assets have performed well with GEOs increasing due to slightly higher production year-over-year as well as higher palladium prices which impacts of the number…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Q – Jorge Beristain: Hey guys, congratulations on the results, it's Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank here. Just maybe a question for Sandip, the recent warrant exercise leaves you guys with a ton of cash on hand, can you just intone what you're looking at potentially spending that on in the next few months, dividends, buybacks or more acquisitions and then specifically within acquisitions are you guys lining up more stuff in the oil and gas sector that you're looking at?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Jorge thanks for the question. Obviously we're always looking at possible transactions, business developments activity on the go. You know it's never easy to know what what's going to come across the line, one thing we do know is we have to continue to fund cooperate so we have the guidance was $200 million to $220 million for this year. So we still have a number of months of that to fund. Other than that, we'll just continue to explore the market on both the mineral side and the oil and gas side. Q – Jorge Beristain: And sorry, what about buybacks?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Buybacks is not something that we would consider at this time. Q – Jorge Beristain: Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And you do have another question coming from the line of Scott Macdonald with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Hi guys, congrats on the solid quarter there, just a couple of questions if I May, first on the STACK 2 acquisition. Maybe if you could just speak a little bit of the kind of production profile you're expecting is it kind of similar to the previous STACK acquisitions or any color there would be helpful?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

I think that's the best way to characterize it, it's similar type of plan as to the original STACK acquisition, it's one of the newest and most effective place in the U.S. tight oil space. We're expecting that it will be growing over time, as of these places exactly putting your handle on when the gross move on your property is that tilt that we know that there is a well in place there is quite substantial and it's one of those investments we expect will do very well over time.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Okay. But it's similar kind of profile to the previous one I guess growing over the next five or 10 years and all is your kind of expectation?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

That's exactly the right ballpark.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Okay. And then just further on the oil and gas side, I guess is your focus still sort of similar to what we've been seeing over the last year or so with kind of putting together smaller deals focused in the higher quality plays in the U.S., is that still kind of your focus like $100 million plus or minus type deals?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Yes, in terms of the size, we're looking at things I'd say that are $100 million plus as being the sweet spot for us in the oil and gas. We're seeing an equal amount of opportunities, some in Canada, some in the U.S. and some are assets that have a greater portion of cash flow. But then also good proportion that are tend to be in the Permian and also the STACK which is place that we found attractive, I would say in the oil and gas space as we have spent more time on it, there are very many opportunities. So we have put out a number of term sheets in this basin and see that hit our ground probably characterize the overall business development in the last six months, I think we've seen an equal amount of opportunities in terms of oil and gas and minerals probably put out similar amount of term sheets on either side. So as we look forward, we see good opportunities in both areas.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Okay. And on the precious metal side, is it still sort of focused on new projects, is that where you see most the opportunities?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

It's actually what we've seen recently has been a mix, some of that has been new projects both gold plus cup projects with the precious metal byproduct. So that prospects on that side but also what we've seen are a number of royalties, so those like existing precious metal assets, goods side through royalties and quality assets again 100 million plus sort of deals. So I'd say overall in terms of range of business opportunities, it's quite balanced minerals and oil and gas and royalties and streams.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Okay. And so on the royalty side, might it be something like picking up a portfolio from a miner that kind of accumulated royalties over the years or is that?

Sandip Rana

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

There are some portfolios but there are also some large individual pieces that are available. So there is the opportunity to get something like that done as well.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotiabank. Your line is open

Okay, so it sounds like it's kind of balanced all around all right, that's it for me. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And I don't see any further questions over the phone at this time.

Stefan Axell

Analyst

Thank you, Shawn. We expect to release our Q3 2017 results before market open on November 6 with a conference call held at same morning, and want to thank you for your interest in Franco-Nevada.

Operator

Operator

And this concludes today's conference call, you may now disconnect.