Sandeep Singh
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead
Great. Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for an update on our Q3 financials. Really good quarter for us, I'm not getting tired of saying that. So looking forward to update you on our developments over the course of the last quarter and then looking forward -- as we do, I'll point out that there is a presentation on our website. If you don't already have it, we will be walking through that [Indiscernible] pointing out slides as we go, so please make sure you pick up that presentation. And on -- starting on Slide 2, I'll also remind you that we'll be making forward-looking statements as we give you this update, so please be mindful of that fact. On slide 3, just starting off with some highlights on the quarter, we earned as you already know, given that we pre -released these numbers, just over 20,000 GEOs gold equivalent ounces for the quarter, which led to a record in terms of revenues and cash flows, of $50 million and $44 million respectively for the royalty and streaming segment of our Company. The cash margins stayed very similar, 93% or 97% excluding Renard and no change in that high-margin business. And then on the net earnings side, $1.8 million Canadian, that's obviously as a result of the impairment on the Osisko Development side of Bonanza ledge 2 a reminder on our front that the purpose or one of the primary purposes of that BL2 component which is not the primary Cariboo asset, is for training. It's largely for the remediation of a pack pile that sits on surface. And it's an area that can be worked while -- to commission the mill while the larger project cannot be touched in the permitting process. Did a noise there but not more than that. Adjusted earnings from the royalties segment of 23.3 million Canadian or $0.14 a share. As you know we increased our dividend a quarter ago to $5.5 and paid that dividend on October 15th. We've also reissued that dividend for the next quarter in the same way. In terms of some acquisitions, maybe I'll just jump around a little bit. Apart from the dividend, we've also been more active on our [Indiscernible] over the course of the third quarter, buying back 1.7 million shares, at an average price of 15. We've been saying this, that the disconnect [Indiscernible] gets too wide between our fundamental value in our share price we would take advantage of it, and we did some more aggressively in Q3, and we'll look to find, if for given more opportunities, we'll take them in the future. In terms of new investments, we acquired, as you know, that 2.75% royalty on the TZ project in Brazil, just now being pushed forward by G Mining very aggressively. We'll talk about that. That does have a buy-down, which could take it down to 0.75%, which is how we thought about it. And we also, post the quarter concluded a transaction to buy a small portfolio of assets from Barrick, with a flagship asset in that that's moving forward, high-grade asset, that I will update you on just on the next page. A productive quarter for us and a lot of good things happening throughout the portfolio that we'll talk about through the rest of this presentation. On slide 4, I won't go through it because we already have on the TZ side, I think we talked about this last quarter as it was a subsequent event. But generally, good progress from G Mining. We're expecting fees in the early part of 2021, sorry, 2022 forgive me. Construction financing to be sorted out in H1 with a construction decision expected in the second half of next year. Fast-tracking and we look forward to that news flow as well as exploration upside coming from that group. On the Barrick portfolio, the asset I was referring to was a 2% royalty on the West Kenya project that's being operated by Shanta Gold. It's a very high grade, very high IRR project with a very capable operator in the region who has the capacity to build a mine. And this is a core part of their growth strategy. we look forward to the level of emphasis that's going to be placed on this asset with [Indiscernible]. You'll notice there's some numbers there in terms of current expectations of a high grade earning 5,000 ounce a year, type mine for long mine life. It also sits in a very prospective large land package, about 1,200 square kilometers, relatively untested, with some of the best drill results coming out of it anywhere in the sector at this point. Intervals including 4 meters of over 700 grams, 6 meters of over 200 grams a ton. So that's another small single for us, but one that we think could add a lot of value in the years to come. On Slide 5, we touched on it earlier in terms of our returning capital to shareholders. We have a very strong dividend yield of 1.4%. We've returned capital to shareholders every day since existence of the Company. And that NCIB just upped it between the dividend and the NCIB. But this year, we've returned more capital to shareholders than anybody in our peer group if you put the two together. And that will remain a focus for us but our high-margin business allows us to do that no matter what's happening in the commodity cycle. Obviously great day today, but irrespective of the gold price, with a 97% cash margin, business. This can be a go-forward factor in our Company. On Slide 6, you just see the production over the quarter by asset. I'd say the producing asset base is performing extremely well. They're positive catalysts across the board and we'll touch on some of them in the subsequent slides. Also worth pointing out, on the day where gold is having a bit of a run that we provide gold [Indiscernible] is by the highest precious metal waiting in our peer group, we believe are amongst the highest at a point where we think gold has an opportunity to really outperform after being range about, frankly, either down or range-bound for the last 12 months. Obviously, the CPI number out of the US is not lost on anyone today. I think it's important to point out that it's not only the overall CPI number high, the core number is also high and I think the inflation story is broadening. And I think that rhetoric about it being transitory for much of 2021 is starting to feel more and more hollow. So there's a good backdrop for gold, amongst that backdrop, we're going to be delivering more and more gold ounces at the right time we believe. Move forward to -- forgive me, it says slide 7 for me again, but the Canadian [Indiscernible] slide. Obviously this is our flagship asset. It's a phenomenal flagship asset on the operating side, it continues to do extremely well. Obviously, the catalyst that most people are watching for is the underground story to develop, in terms of the underground actual development work that's progressing ahead of schedule. The infill drilling routinely is returning wide, very high grade results for East Gouldie down to significant depths. The exploration or the extension work of East Gouldie is also coming in extremely nicely, promising with the grades down to 2 kilometers of depth and out a kilometer and half from the closest resource ounce. A lot of potential for upside there. Based on the disclosure from the operators, we expect a healthy resource increase in early 2022 and look forward to that news flow. Apart from what I've already talked about, there's also other components of potential growth. There's a portion called Odyssey Internal, which if you look at the bottom left here, is labeled as those [Indiscernible] rocks sitting between Odyssey south and north. Those have had strong intersections as well. Early days, but that could contribute with more drilling overall right now, I believe there are 15 rigs active. It's been 95 thousand meters drilled in the first 3 quarters, so we expect that momentum to continue. And as it does, really hasn't been any thing -- any step backward on that story. It's only gotten better as the operators focus on it. So, fantastic place to start. On Slide 8 with respect to 2 other significant assets have [Indiscernible] we've talked about this before. The de -bottle necking a project, if you will, the expansion project is nearly complete. They're giving us a 99% pre -commissioning progress. The overall completion of that is still expected in the first quarter of next year, at which point we start to see a ramp up in ounces there, expecting deliveries in the first full 5 years of post expansion to average 1.3 million ounces of silver, so significant increase for us. Frankly, one of the better copper intermediate companies in the sector, and we expect those transparency increases on this asset and of the ounces frankly start coming out of the assets. People will start to appreciate this mine for what it is and our silver stream for what it means to us. At the Eagle mine in Victoria, that's really good news as well. Great result frankly, in terms of the ramp up, it produced 50 -- almost 56 thousand ounces in the quarter, so a big step-up versus Q2. So it's nice to see the ramp up going as well as it is. Obviously, they're are still focusing on exploration, but we expect their efforts or ramp up as well. [Indiscernible], whereas that effort to accelerate as the ramp-up starts to get to a steady-state, and are keen to learn their plans to push the mine even further to $250,000 healthier type level in the near-term. So excellent update on that front. On the next slide, Slide 9, just a couple of others, and we're touching on not all of our assets, but picking out some things that we think are salient. Very happy to see [Indiscernible] start to [Indiscernible] gold or carbon [Indiscernible]. to then pour gold off to Heap Leach in Mexico where we have a 2% NSR, we expect that Company to scale up operations as they go at full capacity for a full-year, 2,000 GEOs for us. It's a brand new asset, it will mark our 18th producing asset and look forward to the success of that endeavor. On the Seabee side, our 3% royalty there has been an important one for us for a long time. Nice to see the record level of throughput there in September trending towards -- and expectations that they'll trend towards the higher end of their guidance. And that even more importantly, the exploration results that they've been talking up in the near term, look very promising. And we look forward to an update on that front in 2022. The GAAP hanging wall is the next phase of production. And you'll notice there a couple of bullet points of intercepts that board extremely well. So positive results, not just on that ore body, but across all the ore bodies that make up CB complex. And look forward to more information on that carrying into the next year. On slide 10, updates on the assets that are within Osisko Development Corp, so Cariboo and San Antonio. Cariboo, I think at the end of the quarter, they are up to a 152,000 meters of drilling. That gives them enough information to put the pin in it and now work towards a resource -- reserve update towards the end of the year, or very early next, but that type of timeframe, and still tracking for feasibility study in the first half of 2022. So those will be the major milestones there. In the interim they've had good, successful, permitting perspective, including getting another ground bulk sample permit account mountain, which is not necessarily easy to do when you're in the process of a broader permanent cycle. So that shows the strength, I believe of the relationship that they have with the regulators and so that's worth but they can achieve in 2022, which will give them a head start in terms of information and just a head start on the asset overall. So a bit large catalyst on that story, expected in 2022 along the same timelines that we've already talked about. San Antonio totals almost 23,000 meters have been drilled. We expect positive, potential increases on both the oxide and the sulfide level of that story. Results should we expected shortly, so it'll be good frankly for us and everyone to see more visibility on that asset. We're looking forward to that event. And we think as they continue to drill, the upside potential there, both in oxide and in sulfide is quite high. So we look forward to that story taking shape here in the very near term. In the meantime, they are putting the existing stockpile on -- back on leach with the new Leach pad constructed and completed. And so we look forward to a small amount of production from that stockpile, which will be helpful to the overall story. A couple of other development assets we're touching on today. First, Upper Beaver on Slide 11 here. The drilling there being done by Agnico is continuing to prove out. There's been some very long high-grade runs in the infill program that they're doing and potentially expanding it as well. We expect that -- we frankly expect a pretty significant update overall in 2022 with respect to drilling and resources, the feasibility, the plan, and the timeline overall for development. Just recently, a project description was submitted in September which described a 10,000 to 15,000 ton per day operation with a 16-year mine life. So, pretty important asset. It's one where if you go back to the commentary from [Indiscernible], they've been talking about it for some time, and being a mine quote-unquote, the question has been timing and when do they phase it in? I think with the merger with Kirkland Lake, this is one of the areas that they've been talking up of potential synergies, so that has the potential to fast-track things, not only for Upper Beaver, but also for other assets like 8-K amalgamated Kirkland, where we have a 2% royalty as well. There are 700 thousand ounces there that are sitting within 300 meters of the underground development of [Indiscernible]. So those pre -- prior, we're probably obviously not a standalone asset, but cannot come into play for us. We certainly hope so and we look forward to hearing more about how that all fits together over the course of next year. And that 40 is an asset currently run by Akila which has gone through some permitting hiccups because it's maybe not the right word, but some permitting challenges. We're happy to see a revamp permitting process underway, one with a much smaller footprint, smaller open pit, bigger underground, which should serve there as permanent process well. And frankly also happy to see Gold Resource Corp, a larger producing entity, come in and see the same thing that we do at Aquila does in terms of the potential there. So having a larger, better capitalized producer see that value in back 40 and the value in the work that the Aquila team has been doing is a positive step and really big step forward in terms of this significant stream for us. So we look forward to that transaction being completed, the permitting work, coming out with a positive result. And then hopefully this becoming a core part of gold resources, so that growth strategy for their second asset. On slide 12, is a slide that we got to show more routinely, so I won't go through it in detail, just our growth profile. A lot of organic growth on the comm is the summary of it. Some of it hits in 2022 and 2023. There are other chunky assets that are moving forward more to the middle of decade but they are generally assets that matter. These are important assets in the sector run by credible groups. And never as fast as you'd like, but they're on the comm, even our long-term assets are benefiting from significant catalysts and progress. So -- and when you look at this page, I think we've got a decade of growth in front of us that's in strong shape, and looks forward to seeing that developed over the years. I'll pause there and hand off to Fred, who will give you a little bit more color on the actual financials, and then I'll be back to wrap it up and for the Q&A.