Sandip Rana
Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead
Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. As mentioned by Paul, Franco-Nevada ended 2021 with a strong fourth quarter, resulting in record financial results for the full year. Our royalty and streaming portfolio continued to perform well with the Company benefiting from its asset and commodity diversification during the year. As you turn to Slide 3, you can see how the Company performed against the guidance that was issued for 2021. The initial guidance provided by the Company for the year was 555,000 to 585,000 GEOs for the mining assets. The range was increased and then narrowed as the year progressed with our guidance in November being 590,000 to 615,000 GEOs sold. I'm proud to say that the Company achieved near the top end of this range with 610,981 GEOs sold for 2021. With respect to our energy assets, the Company had guided to revenue of $115 million to $135 million for the year using a $55 per barrel WTI oil price. As you know, energy prices rebounded strongly in 2021 from the lows of 2020. We increased our guidance a number of times during the year with the most recent paying $195 million to $205 million. We are pleased to report that our actual energy revenue for the year was $210 million, exceeding the top end of the revenue range. As you will have seen with our press release issued yesterday beginning in Q4 2021 and going forward, we will be including energy revenues and our gold equivalent ounce total. We believe this provides a more comprehensive measure of our business and would be useful to investors to evaluate the full scale of our portfolio. On Slide 4, we highlight the gold equivalent ounces sold, which does include energy GEOs for the last five quarters as well as the previous five years. The portfolio has performed well with overall growth for each of the time frames presented. The Company sold 182,543 GEOs in fourth quarter 2021, compared to just over 162,000 GEOs in Q4 2020. The 12% increase was a result of strong performance from our diversified assets. We benefited from the addition of the Vale royalty as well as the rebound in energy revenue. For the quarter, we had strong performance from Cobre Panama and Candelaria as they delivered higher GEOs than expected, while Antapacay and Guadalupe were weaker delivering less GEOs than prior year. The revenue for the Hemlo NPI was negligible for the quarter as the operation continued to produce less ounces from our royalty lands and incurred higher costs. Net profit interest royalties do have leverage to rising commodity prices, and we do think there is the possibility for the Hemlo NPI to rebound in 2022, given where current gold prices are. With respect to the iron ore assets, we recorded 8,600 GEOs in the quarter, compared to 4,778 in Q4 2020, the increase being the addition of the Vale royalty. We will find out later this month what the actual royalty payment will be for the Vale assets for the last six months of 2021, and will record any adjustment required in first quarter of 2022. The strong fourth quarter closed out the year with 728,237 GEOs sold for 2021, a new record for Franco-Nevada and a 27% increase over prior year. Precious metal GEOs represented 76% of total GEOs for the quarter and 77% for the full year. The GEOs for the full year do include 117,256 GEOs related to the energy assets. 2021 saw continued positive momentum in commodity prices. As you see on Slide 5, all commodities were higher for the year, with iron ore and energy increasing significantly. However, for the quarter, other than energy prices in platinum, precious metal prices averaged lower than Q4 2020. Slide 6 highlights our total revenue and adjusted EBITDA amounts for the 3 and 12 months ended December 31, 2021, and 2020. As you can see from the bar charts, revenue and adjusted EBITDA has increased year-over-year. The Company recorded $327.7 million in revenue in the fourth quarter and $269.8 million in adjusted EBITDA, a margin of 80.3% was achieved. Fourth quarter continued the strong contribution from the energy assets as revenue increased from $27.8 million a year ago to $62 million this quarter. The increase was due to the rebound in energy prices from a year ago as well as the contribution from the Haynesville gas acquisition. For the full year, the Company recorded $1.3 billion in revenue and $1.09 billion in adjusted EBITDA, both records for the Company. As you turn to Slide 7, you will see the key financial results for the Company. There are a lot of financial records for the full year, which are highlighted in gold. As mentioned, with the increase in commodity prices, the Company had strong revenue growth for the quarter and year. And with the margin generation of our business model, there was a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income. On the cost side, we did have an increase in cost of sales as more stream ounces were delivered and sold compared to 2020. In fact, stream GEOs increased 19% year-over-year. Depletion was also higher at $299.6 million versus $241 million a year ago due to the increase in GEO sold, a large portion being from higher depletion stream assets. In addition, we had additional depletion related to the Condestable, Vale and Haynesville acquisitions. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $1.09 billion, a 30% increase over 2020 and the first time adjusted EBITDA had surpassed $1 billion. Adjusted net income was $673.6 million, a 30% increase over 2020, while adjusted net income per share was $3.52, also a 30% increase over full year 2020. Slide 8 highlights the continued diversification of the portfolio, which we consider one of the strengths and differentiators of Franco-Nevada. As shown 77% of our 2021 revenue was generated by precious metals. The geographic revenue profile has revenue being sourced 91% from the Americas, with Canada and the U.S. being the largest. With respect to asset diversification, Cobre Panama was our largest revenue generator at 18% of total revenue for the year, followed by Antapaccay in Candelaria at 9%. Cobre Panama is the only asset greater than 10% of revenue. And the last chart highlights our operator diversity. Our largest exposure to revenue being generated by any one operator is 18%, which is First Quantum who operates Cobre Panama. We are fortunate to have royalties and streams on many properties mined by some of the most ruble mining companies in the world. Slide 9 illustrates the strength of our business model to generate high margins. For 2021, the cash cost per GEO is essentially cost of sales divided by gold equivalent ounces, and it is $245 per GEO. This compares to $277 per GEO in 2020. This amount will fluctuate depending on the mix of royalty versus stream GEOs, including mining and energy. But as you can see, at current average gold prices, the Company generates significant margins. In our rising commodity price environment, we expect to benefit fully as the cost per GEO sold should not increase significantly. We consider our cost structure to be essentially fixed. The other cash cost component for the Company besides the cost of sales is our corporate administration costs. We like to stress the strength of our business model and the scalability. The chart on Slide 10 clearly illustrates our focus on being as cost efficient as possible in managing this business. Here, we've highlighted our quarterly revenues and our quarterly corporate administration expenses since our IPO. As you can see, revenues have grown significantly over the period shown while corporate costs have remained fairly stable. For 2021, corporate administration, including stock compensation expense, was $30.8 million or less than 3% of revenue. Management believes we can continue to add to our portfolio and grow our business without adding significant overhead to the Company. 2021 was a record year for Franco-Nevada as it built on the momentum from another record year in 2020. As seen on Slide 11, for 2022, we are guiding to slightly lower GEOs sold with the range being 680,000 to 740,000 GEOs sold. As mentioned previously, this does include our energy revenues being converted to gold equivalent ounces. Of this total, we are guiding to 510,000 to 550,000 precious metal GEOs for the year. The balance would be GEOs from our diversified assets, of which we expect energy to account for 75% of diversified GEOs in 2022. The overall main drivers for GEOs year-over-year are for precious metals. We do expect higher GEOs from Tasiast and Sapeka. We have similar deliveries as 2021 for Cobre Panama before it ramps up in 2023. We are anticipating less mining on our land at Guadalupe. And for Antamina and Antapaccay, we are assuming a decrease in GEOs delivered based on lower grades per mine plant. We do expect a rebound for an Antapaccay in 2023. Our guidance has been calculated using $1,800 per ounce for gold, $23 for silver, $1,000 for platinum, $2,100 palladium and $125 per ton for 62% iron ore. Obviously, these prices are lower than current prices; however, we would not expect our precious metal geo sold range to change significantly if current pricing was used. On the energy side, we're using $85 per barrel WTI and $2.75 Mcf for natural gas. This provides a range of 125,000 to 145,000 GEOs from our energy assets. As we look forward to 2026, we're proud of the built-in growth that the Company already has in place. Our outlook for 2026 is 765,000 to 825,000 GEOs sold. Of this range, precious metals will be 570,000 to 610,000 GEOs. Main contributors will be Cobre Panama ramped up to 100 million tons per year. As well, we will benefit from the expansions at Stillwater Detour and Tasiast, and as Paul mentioned, a number of new mines that are either under construction or we expect to be built by 2026. We do expect McCreedy West and Sudbury to remain in production at 2021 levels until 2026. And I'd like to note that Mine way solution will reach its cap in 2024. On the diversified GEOs, we do expect an increase in GEOs for our Vale royalty as attributable production should increase as well as we assume Rosemont will be in production by this time. For the energy assets, we have assumed a slight increase in production over the next five years, resulting in a small increase in GEOs. Also, we have not included any production or revenue associated with the remaining $92 million to be funded for the royalty acquisition venture with Continental. We view similar commodity prices as we did for 2022. Overall, when you look at the outlook for GEO sold, the Company has over 10% built in organic growth to 2026 at budgeted commodity prices. This assumes no additional assets are added to the portfolio. With respect to the CRA audits that are ongoing, as mentioned previously, CRA has been auditing additional years under the various audits, additional reassessments have been issued. All reassessments received to date are highlighted on Slide 12. In our view, these are all normal course, and we believe CRA's reassessments are not supported by Canadian tax law, and we are defending our tax filing positions and we'll continue to do so. Slide 13 summarizes the financial resources available to the Company, when including our credit facilities of $1.1 billion, total available capital at December 31, 2021, is $1.6 billion. And with that, I will pass it over to the operator, and we're happy to take any questions.