OR Royalties Inc. (OR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the OR Royalties Q2 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today, August 6, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to our host for today's call, Mr. Jason Attew.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us on a busy earnings day. Please note that the news release and regulatory filings are available on our website and on EDGAR and SEDAR+. If you are logging into the webcast, we will advance the slides for today's presentation, which is also available in the Investors section of our website. Please also note there are forward-looking statements in this presentation from which actual results may differ and that all amounts presented and discussed will be in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. I'm joined on the call this morning by Fred Ruel, the company's Chief Financial Officer of VP Finance, amongst others, as indicated on Slide 3. Fred will take you through the financial results in a few minutes. Three things to take away from the second quarter. First, our portfolio did its job. Revenues of $97.8 million and operating cash flow of $83.2 million were both up 62% over the second quarter of last year on a 5% increase in gold equivalent ounces. That spread, 5 points of GEO growth producing 62 points of cash flow growth is the whole argument for this business model. $0.968 of every revenue dollar converted to cash margin this quarter, which is the best in the sector. Also, net earnings were up 94% to $0.33 per share. Second, capital. We closed on the Gold Fields royalty portfolio and the Spring Valley acquisitions, $335 million in total, funded largely from our revolver, which stood at $215 million drawn at quarter end. In July, we closed the Murray Brook stream as well. The second half's job is straightforward, continue to seek accretive opportunities for our owners. Third, guidance. First half deliveries were 43,497 gold equivalent ounces, which were up 12% over the first half of 2025 and has comfortably on track for our 80,000 to 90,000 GEO range for 2026. And I want to spend a minute on why that remains true after the news at Canadian Malartic. As most of you are aware, on July 1, a rock mass movement occurred along the north wall of the Barnat open pit at Canadian Malartic. Nobody was hurt, as Agnico described on its second quarter call last week, his monitoring systems were tracking the wall and mining in the area had already been suspended as a precaution. The systems worked exactly as designed. Here is the updated picture from that call. Roughly 1 million tonnes of move material will remain in place. Agnico will spend the third quarter building safety burns and access roads with mining in the affected area expected to resume in the fourth quarter. In total, approximately 370,000 ounces of gold are now considered inaccessible over the next 3 years, 60,000 to 80,000 ounces in the second half of 2026 and roughly up to -- up to roughly 150,000 ounces in each of 2027 and 2028. Agnico now expects full year production toward the lower end of its guidance range in Canadian Malartic, supplementing mill feed from low-grade stockpiles in the meantime. Most of you would have already updated your models for this event, but I will walk you through our math. Applying 5% to those figures means roughly 3,500 fewer GEOs to OR in 2026 and up to roughly 7,500 fewer GEOs in each of 2027 and 2028. So, call it 18,500 gold equivalent ounces over 3 years. This, of course, would be before any mitigation or recovery activities Agnico undertakes. Three things don't change because of this. Our 2026 guidance of 80,000 to 90,000 GEO stands. Our 2030 outlook of 120,000 to 135,000 GEOs is unaffected because Barnat was always scheduled to be mined out by 2028 or 2029. In Odyssey, the future of Canadian Malartic is untouched. It set a quarterly production record of 28,800 ounces. The first phase of shaft #1 sinking was completed in July at a depth of 1,586 meters and first shaft production remains on schedule for the second quarter of 2027. Agnico was clear on this call that its journey to 1 million ounces at Canadian Malartic by the early 2030s remain unchanged. I'd also note on a more sober subject that Canadian Malartic's second quarter included a 6-day mill shutdown following a fatal accident in April. Our thoughts remain with the family and colleagues affected, and we fully support Agnico's position that nothing at the operation matters more than the safety of its people. Two smaller items also moved against us. At CSA, concentrate sat on site at quarter end because of transport logistics, deferring some silver and copper GEOs into the second half. Harmony expects inventories to normalize over the balance of the year. And Mantos Blancos delivered fewer GEOs than in the first quarter, which we had flagged last quarter as silver grades were front-end loaded this year. Net of all this, we now expect the second half to be modestly lighter than the first. Barnat takes ounces out and the ramp-ups at Namdini, San Gabriel, Dalgaranga, Seabee and CSA put some back. Scoring ourselves against what we previously committed to, the 2026 guidance is on track, the 2030 outlook intact, and it still excludes any GEOs from the additional Spring Valley coverage or the Murray Brook transactions, both of which now have closed. So that outlook has contingency built in. One more thing on Malartic because it frames how we think about everything we own. Agnico's update on the path to 1 million ounces is now expected in November. And their Chief Operating Officer has publicly said that even at an expanded production rate, the life of mine could still extend out to 2060. Before Jean Sernin climbed off the moon in 1972, who was the last man to walk on it, he wrote his daughter's initials in lunar dust. Because there's no atmosphere up there, they're still there today. A royalty on a great ore body works the same way. Mine plans get revised, pit walls get redesigned, operators may come and go, the ore body and our royalty on it doesn't move. The announcement of the wall movement changes our near-term GEOs, but it changes nothing about what we own and our shareholders as well. Briefly across the rest of the portfolio, we received the first royalty payment from Dalgaranga this quarter. And at Namdini, our increased 2% royalty is becoming a significant contributor as the ramp-up hits its stride. Our portfolio currently boasts 23 producing assets and the 24th producing asset should be Cariboo Gold's Coiyu project in Brazil, with commissioning still on schedule for the fourth quarter. Slide 8 lists the catalysts ahead on assets representing over half our NAV. The 3 I'd watch out are Harmony's fiscal 2027 guidance expected this month with an updated mineral resource estimate and life of mine plan to follow later in the year. Also first gold at Amulsar in September, where our stream should begin accruing from first production ahead of its first payments expected in 2028, which is largely dependent on commodity price and the pace for which the operator, United Gold pays back their loan. And finally, an update from Agnico on Canadian Malartic's future now expected, as I said earlier, to be coming in November. On new business, the pipeline is active and our criteria has not moved. No nondilutive deals. We can afford that selectivity because our growth through 2030 is already bought and paid for with 0 contingent capital. Beyond that, we don't comment on transactions until they're signed. I'd like to hand it over to Fred to talk about our financial results.

Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. Revenues for the quarter were $97.8 million, up from $60.4 million a year ago, a 62% growth on 5% more GEOs driven by realized prices of $4,504 per ounce of gold and $17 per ounce of silver. Cash margin was $94.7 million or 96.8% of revenues, up from $57.8 million or 95.8% last year. Royalties, which carry essentially no cost, contributed $62.8 million of revenue, streams contributed $35 million. Net earnings were $61.4 million or $0.33 per basic share against $0.17 a year ago. Adjusted earnings were $60.5 million or $0.32 per share, up 78%. Cash flow from operations was $83.2 million, up 62%, $0.44 per share against $0.27 last year. And that per share line is the one we manage the business to. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended June with $75.6 million of cash and $215 million drawn on the credit facility for a net debt position of $139 million. The draw funded the Gold Fields and Spring Valley closings, and we also repaid $18 million on the credit facility during the quarter. On returns to shareholders, the Board raised the quarterly dividend by 18.2% to $0.065 per share in May, first paid on July 15. Our 47th consecutive quarterly dividend with approximately $300 million returned to shareholders through dividends today and a further $0.065 dividend has been declared payable October 15. Under the normal course issuer bid, we repurchased over 225,000 shares for $8 million during the quarter and a further approximately 1 million shares for $29.1 million in July, a total of roughly 1.6 million shares repurchased and canceled year-to-date. Subsequent to quarter end, we also closed the $28 million Murray Brook Precious Metals stream with Hennadton Copper together with a $4 million equity subscription. The initial $9 million was funded from cash on hand. And also in the third quarter, we expect to close the $15 million extension of our royalty coverage at Chile's Costa Fuego to include the new LaRonde discovery. Our capital allocation framework is unchanged, returns to shareholders through the dividend and buybacks as well as investment into precious metals royalties and streams with ongoing debt repayment being considered normal course, all prioritized in whatever order creates the most net asset value per share. In the first half, that meant new acquisitions, the second half, it could mean more opportunistic share repurchases. And as Jason mentioned, if we don't find and announce any accretive deals for our shareholders over this period, we'll look to reduce the debt drawn on our credit facility. And on this point, I'd like to flag that earlier this week, OR Royalties, along with the syndicate of supporting banks, officially amended its revolving credit facility to increase the amount available from $650 million to $850 million and the accordion from $200 million to $350 million. We also extended the maturity date from May 2029 to August 2030. Back to you, Jason.

Thank you, Fred. And with that, I'd like to thank you, Fred. And with that, I'd like to thank everyone for listening. We'll now open up the line for questions as well as questions posted on the webcast. We don't get to all the questions on the line, we'll make sure we'll respond offline. Back to you, Joelle.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Maybe my first question is on Agnico Eagle and Barnat pit. And thanks, Jason, for giving us a very detailed description of potential impact to OR Royalties. I guess my question is, as you pointed out, issues at the pit, Agnico Eagle share price came down and OR share price also came down in sympathy. And I guess, any concerns about concentration risk? Canadian Malartic continues to be one of the largest or the largest royalty for your company, and it's going to grow in size and importance as it kind of channels towards 1 million ounces a year production. So Again, how should we look at it in the context of OR Royalties? And as time progresses, any concerns about concentration risk?

Thank you, Cosmos. It's a very good question and something certainly our Board and ourselves discussed this week. So we wouldn't have thought a few weeks back that Agnico Eagle, who's got an exceptional reputation as an operator, they're very good operator. They've really put on a master class as it relates to the Canadian Malartic, including the underground expansion. I mean the Odyssey is the future of certainly our company and certainly, again, the journey to 1 million ounces for Agnico. And we fully support, again, that operating group, their operational acumen, their technical acumen and the fact, again, this asset is in Quebec. So the short answer, Cosmos, no, we don't have any sort of issues or concerns around concentration risk. The concentration in terms of our net asset value, as you would be aware, because in your model, it's around 25% to 30% of NAV. So it's not 50%, 60% or what have you. But we're incredibly comfortable first where the asset is located in Quebec, a very supportive regulatory environment, exceptional workforce that's really endorsed and the technical acumen of the Agnico team, we have just a tremendous amount of comfort over. Yes, what happened was unfortunate, but there's a reason why they actually do have these systems in place to ensure that with a large open pit that any sort of rock mass movement is detected and Agnico took all the precautionary steps. And obviously, as you heard in my comments and Agnico's comments last week, nobody was hurt. And certainly, they're working through right now, again, as I said and what Agnico said last week, the focus will be on building perms, access roads and ensuring the safety of that pit when they go and reaccess it for mining go forward. So short answer is no. We don't have any real concerns or issues around concentration risk. This is the crown jewel in our portfolio. And as you rightly pointed out, as they make the journey to 1 million ounces, it is incrementally positive for our company. But excellent question. Thanks, Cosmos.

And then maybe switching gears a little bit. You touched on your longer-term guidance your 2030 guidance, 120,000 to 135,000 ounces. And as you mentioned, that does not yet include Spring Valley, Murray Brook and maybe some of the other more recent acquisitions as well. So I guess, could you maybe, in words, qualitatively talk about how that could potentially change your 5-year or your 2030 outlook? And then in terms of the actual numbers coming out, are we going to have to wait until, say, February 2027 before we get your updated longer-term outlook?

Yes. Another excellent question. Thank you, Cosmos. So again, yes, our process is we update the market once a year in February in terms of our 5-year outlook. Obviously, through that year, our corporate development team has done an exceptional job of putting more accretive assets into our portfolio that have not been reflected in the 2030. Things that you mentioned such as our coverage to get to 6% NSR in Spring Valley, we think, is going to be very incremental to that outlook go forward. Things like Murray Brook, again, we have a tremendous amount of time and respect for that operating group and very accretive deal for ourselves as well, as we're seeing some really good positive momentum within our portfolio. You know the story of Island Gold. Namdini is also becoming a very good cornerstone royalty for us. As again, you would know that we picked up another the sister royalty that are going from 1% to 2% in that asset. So yes, the portfolio is growing. As you know, and you've commented on, we've got the best 5-year outlook with no contingent capital associated. When we do go and give our 2031 guidance in February, it will include a lot of the corporate development activity and activity that we see from positive deals with respect to our development assets.

And maybe one last question. You made an incremental acquisition at Hot Chile, extending your 1% copper and 3% gold royalties to the La Verde project. Could you maybe just quickly educate us or at least me in terms of how the La Verde project compares to the main deposit? And what's the potential upside here? And if you can quantify it for me, that would be great.

I'm going to hand it over to Guy, who's going to give you -- obviously, he was the person that advocated for this on the geology and the prospectivity. Go ahead, Guy.

Cosmos, thanks for asking that question. So I'll first point you towards what has been saying about the asset. Unfortunately, the public doesn't have a very clear view of what that asset can be because they don't yet have a fulsome resource estimation, whereas the rest of the project has a PFS. They're being very active in terms of the drilling right now to prove up the resources on that and following the initial resource, quickly get into some economic studies to enable a more fulsome picture of the 3 different deposits that will make up that central processing unit. What I'll say though is that if you look at the best drill holes at La Verde, they're quite similar to the best drill holes at Cordidera. And in terms of scale, it's hard to map out, but it will be a significant contributor. And I think there's a chance that La Verde would be the first of the 3 deposits to go into production. But we'll see. The drilling -- they're very active right now. The most recent drill holes are pretty impressive. So I'll have you go back and look at some of their disclosures.

Your next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Just going to start, Jason, just finishing off on the guidance. Thank you for sharing that weaker second half versus the first half or lower second half versus the first half. Originally, it had been that the rest of the quarters were going to be evenly distributed. So with the removal of the ounces from the Canadian Malartic open pit, should I still be thinking that Q3 and Q4 should be similar?

Yes. Excellent question. Thank you for that, Tanya. So what I would say, and we obviously don't give quarterly guidance. We give annual guidance, but we did socialize the fact that prior to the rock mass fall at Barnat pit, we essentially, as you pointed out, our distribution from H1 to H2 was approximately the same. What you can think of is, again, given Barnat, in particular, is such a good contributor for our asset base and for our geos. As I mentioned earlier, Q3 is going to be from an activity perspective, focused on creating perms, access roads, again, safety at site before they start accessing to renew mining in Q4. So you can think modestly, I would say, modestly lower in Q3 with some -- certainly some potential tailwinds that we'll see in Q4, especially with the ramp-ups, as I mentioned earlier, at Dalgaranga and Namdini and those sort of assets. Q4 will be, I would say, modestly stronger than Q3. But at the end of the day, as I said earlier, we were tracking essentially H1 to H2, essentially around the same amount or equal amount of GEOs and then you have to subtract obviously, of the 3,500 that we don't expect to receive in this 2026 calendar year. I hope that provides some clarity for you.

Yes. No, that's fine. And then I just wanted to circle back on the debt. I know it was commented that we've got this debt outstanding. How should we be thinking about balancing the debt reduction, assuming no other deals, let's say, assuming no other transactions are completed, should we be thinking that this is besides paying off the -- providing the dividend and maybe some opportunistic share buybacks. Would the priority be to sort of reduce the dividend in 2027.

You said reduce the dividend or reduce the debt. You reduce the debt. So look, I think you're absolutely on point. From a capital allocation perspective, our job as a management team is essentially put accretive assets into the portfolio for our shareholders. That's obviously our first priority. We are generating, as you saw on an adjusted EBITDA basis, and we can get at these commodity prices close to USD 90 million per quarter. So that obviously is a very good run rate for us to pay down debt. But obviously, our business is to do accretive transactions. And so it's very normal course, as you know, across all our sectors. This is our model where we dip into our revolver and then pay it back with cash flow over time. So it's very normal course activity. Can you think that we will continue to reduce the $215 million that you see on our June 30 balance sheet. All that said, obviously, if we see accretive deals, we have the capacity, as Fred mentioned, we've increased our facility significantly here because we do see quite a bit of opportunities out there in terms of their opportunity set or pipeline. And then lastly, again, there was -- we believe there was a significant misprice when obviously the event that happened in Pemparna, and we acted very quickly to buy back shares. And that's all based on a NAV per share framework. We are constantly looking at it. So we could be opportunistic around buying shares back in the future if we again see a significant misprice dislocation in the marketplace is what we think the fundamental intrinsic value of our company is versus what's quoted in the marketplace. But to answer the question, yes, normal course is just to pay down debt as we generate cash flow. But obviously, rating and ranking accretive acquisitions if we see good accretive acquisitions for our shareholders, we'll step in and do that and fund it with debt. I don't know, Fred, if you wanted to add anything further?

No.