Royal Gold, Inc. (RGLD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Royal Gold, Inc. 2026 Second Quarter Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Alistair Baker, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Business Development. Allison, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to our discussion of Royal Gold's Second Quarter 2026 Results. This event is being webcast live, and a replay of this call will be available on our website. Speaking on the call today are Bill Heissenbuttel, President and CEO; Paul Libner, Senior Vice President and CFO; and Martin Raffield, Senior Vice President of Operations. Other members of the management team are also available for questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, including statements about our projections and expectations for the future. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in yesterday's press release and our filings with the SEC. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted net income per share, adjusted EBITDA and cash G&A. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in yesterday's press release, which can be found on our website. Bill will start with an overview of the second quarter. Martin will provide portfolio commentary, and Paul will give a financial update. After the formal remarks, we'll open the lines for a Q&A session. I'll now turn the call over to Bill.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the call. I'll begin on Slide 4. This is our second complete quarter of consolidated financial results after significantly growing our business in 2025 and our strong first half of 2026 clearly demonstrates a material change in the scale of our portfolio. Revenue for the quarter was $451 million, operating cash flow was a record $335 million and earnings were $236 million. These were increases of 115%, 119% and 79%, respectively, over the same period last year. Our diversified portfolio produced revenue from a variety of properties with no one asset contributing more than 13% of revenue and only 2 assets generating more than 10% of revenue. Reducing asset concentration risk was a key driver for our acquisitions in 2025, and we are pleased to see this reflected in our portfolio which is now one of the most diversified in the sector. After adjustments, net income was $218 million or $2.56 per share, a 41% increase over last year. We remain a gold-focused business and gold contributed 76% of total revenue for the quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin remained high at 83% for the quarter, reflecting our low and stable cash G&A. We paid dividends of $40 million to shareholders in the quarter at our annual rate of $1.90 per share, 6% higher than last year. We repaid $200 million on the revolver during the quarter, and we ended the quarter with total available liquidity of $1.2 billion. And we are active on our share buyback program and repurchased and canceled 147,000 shares or total cost of $30 million. As we discussed on our last quarterly call, we put the share buyback program in place as an additional capital allocation tool to be used with discretion. We have multiple priorities for capital deployment, and our decision-making considers the business development pipeline, the balance sheet, our regular dividend and our equity valuation. During the quarter, we balanced the agreed further investment at Warintza, paid $40 million in dividends, bought back shares and made a meaningful reduction in debt, the latter of which preserves liquidity. We Changes in market conditions and our outlook -- we must be flexible as we balance all opportunities with the accretive deployment of capital over the long term. In the second quarter, we thought the market did not reflect what we see as the value of our company, and we are active on the share buyback alongside our other priorities and any further activity will be based on the short and long-term priorities of the company and not just valuation. During the quarter, we also made further progress on simplifying the Sandstorm portfolio. We announced the restructuring of our ownership in the Hot Maden joint venture. And after quarter end, we reduced our equity interest from 30% to 15% and return for additional royalty interests. Hod Maden is a high-grade and high-margin project, and we are pleased to preserve the value of our position while bringing our overall interest more in line with our core royalty and streaming business. While the residual equity interest is not the ideal investment structure for our portfolio, a smaller interest materially reduces our exposure to operating and capital cost risks, and we may still look for opportunities to reduce this interest in the future. We also worked with America's Gold and Silver to settle fixed delivery obligations related to the Relief Canyon Mine. This was a complicated arrangement that was cumbersome to manage, and it eliminates a distraction for both sides without impacting our royalty or stream interest at the leaf Canyon. With these transactions, we have significantly simplified aspects of the Sandstorm portfolio that were difficult for investors to understand. Over the past few months, we have streamlined the Horizon structure, divested non-core equity positions, restructured the Bear Creek investments, settled to Relief Canyon obligations and made progress on restructuring the direct equity interest in Hod Maden. These steps were a strategic priority for us when we announced the Sandstorm and Horizon transaction, and I am pleased with how quickly we have been able to show progress. I'll now turn the call over to Martin to discuss portfolio performance in the quarter.

Thanks, Bill. Turning to Slide 5. We had another quarter of solid portfolio performance, Volume was 100,000 GEOs with revenue of $451 million. Royalty revenue was up by 83% from the prior year quarter to $140 million. We saw large revenue increases over the prior year from the Cortez Legacy zone and Voisey's Bay as well as strong contributions from our new Antamina, Caserones, Hounde and FrutodelNorte interests. Stream revenue was also up strongly from the prior year to $311 million, an increase of 133%. We saw materially higher revenue year-over-year from Andacollo, Pueblo Viejo, Rainy River, Khoemacau, Wassa and Zavencina, slightly offset by lower revenue from Mount Milligan. We also saw a strong contribution from Kim Sanji as well as our new Greenstone Bonikro Cerro and Chapada streams. With respect to 2026 metal sales guidance, Gold and silver are tracking well to the guidance ranges and copper and other metals are trending to be around or above the top end of the ranges. We've seen strong copper-related revenue, largely due to lower-than-expected deductions on the Antamina NPI royalty and strong performance of other assets. Other metal sales have benefited from strong zinc production at Antamina and nickel production at Voisey's Bay. I'll now turn to Slide 6 and give some high-level commentary on notable developments within the portfolio. At Mount Milligan, Centerra reported that gold and copper production is on track to meet full year guidance. At Rainy River, Core announced its plans after acquiring New Gold late in the first quarter including a more aggressive exploration program with a focus on near-mine drill testing and expiration of the large land package in the Rainy River District, which extends over 50 square kilometers. At Greenstone, Equinox reported that operations are continuing to ramp up, and 69% of the days in the second quarter exceeded the mill nameplate capacity of 27,000 tonnes per day. Equinox expects this trend to continue, resulting in higher quarter-over-quarter production for the balance of the year. At Red Chris, the government of Canada announced a CAD 500 million investment in the block cave project. Newmont has received key regulatory approvals for the project from the province of British Columbia and is advancing towards Board approval near the end of the year. At Caserones, work is underway by Lundin Mining to increase utilization of the cathode plant and grow copper production. 39,000 meters of drilling is planned this year on more than 10 exploration targets in the district, an initial resource at Angelica in the deep sulfide targets adjacent to the Caserones pit is expected in the first quarter of 2027. At [indiscernible], Lundin Gold reported the discovery of 2 additional Cobol porphyries, increasing the district total to 7 with a maiden resource for the Sandia porphyry expected in early 2027. At Kansanshi, First Quantum confirmed 2026 production guidance and reported that the S3 plant throughput was sustained above design capacity in the second quarter, driven by higher operating time, strong utilization and improved milling rates. At Bonikro, Allied expects to extend the mine life from 2029 to 2036 with average annual gold production of 120,000 ounces per year. Allied is also studying an increase in plant capacity to bring forward the processing of low-grade stockpiles beginning in late 2026 to early 2027. At Platreef, Ivanhoe is now expecting commercial production from Phase 1 in the fourth quarter of 2026. Shaft 3 commissioning was completed in June, and Ivanhoe expects this will support the Phase 1 ramp-up and the Phase II expansion. Construction of the Phase II concentrator is on schedule for completion in the fourth quarter of 2027. We received the first delivery under our gold stream last week, and we are looking forward to increased deliveries as the mine ramps up towards commercial production. At Mara, Glencore reported yesterday that mining restarted ahead of schedule at Alumbrera and that Agua Rica feasibility engineering is underway with the environmental permitting submission expected in the coming weeks and rig approval expected shortly thereafter. At Hod Maden, the transition of operatorship to [indiscernible] is complete, and construction is continuing while [indiscernible] undertakes a review of the project schedule and execution plan. Based on the work so far, project expenditures and commitments remain within the scope reflected in the technical report summary published by SSR Mining in January 2026. As of June 30, overall project progress was approximately 25% when considering engineering at 74%, contracts and procurement at 44% and construction at 8%. Cumulative expenditures were approximately $175 million. Lidya continues to target initial concentrate production in 2028, subject to completion of the schedule and execution plan review and timely execution of the remaining major construction and procurement packages. Finally, I'll note that recent severe winter weather in Central and Northern Chile has caused temporary operational issues at both Andacollo and Caserones. The weather system has passed and neither operator has indicated a change to full year guidance. I'll now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, Martin. I'll turn to Slide 7 and give an overview of the financial results for the quarter. For the discussion on Slide 7 and 8, I'll be comparing the quarter ended June 30, 2026 to the prior year quarter. Revenue for the quarter was up strongly by 115% to $451 million. The large increase was driven by higher metal prices, new contributions from Kansanshi and the Sandstorm portfolio and higher volumes from Andacollo, Rainy River and the Cortez legacy zone. Some of these increases were partially offset by lower sales from Mount Milligan. We also recognized a large revenue contribution from Relief Canyon in the second quarter, when we sold 5,000 ounces of gold led to the advanced delivery of stream ounces. The original delivery schedule was 1,275 ounces per quarter through the end of 2027. In terms of the impact on this year's guidance, we are receiving 1,175 more ounces this year than expected, and all the ounces were delivered in the first half of 2026 rather than being spread evenly across the year. The incremental revenue this quarter from the sale of the advanced delivery was approximately $22 million. Metal price increases were significant with gold up 37%, silver up 117% and copper up 40%. Gold remains our dominant revenue driver at 76% of total revenue with silver at 12% and copper at 8%. Turning to Slide 8, I'll provide more detail on certain financial line items for the quarter. G&A expense was $13.4 million, which is approximately $3 million higher than the prior year. The increase in our G&A expenses period was mostly due to higher office and employee-related costs, which also includes noncash stock compensation expense. We continue to expect our total G&A expense for the year will finish near the high end of the $50 million to $60 million range we provided earlier on our February conference call. Our DD&A expense increased to $96 million from $31 million in the prior year. On a unit basis, this expense was $962 per GEO for the quarter compared to $487 per GEO last year. The increase is mainly driven by higher carrying values at Kansanshi Gold stream and the Sandstorm, Horizon interest we acquired in 2025, partially offset by lower gold sales and depletion rates at Mount Milligan. Further, as we flagged in our preliminary financial information press release in July, approximately $12 million of the increase was due to the onetime sale of the gold ounces related to the Relief Canyon fixed delivery obligation settlement. Our overall DD&A expense is in line with expectations, and we expect to finish the year within the guidance range of $339 million to $379 million. Fair value changes in equity securities was $22 million for the quarter, primarily due to the increase in the value of the entree resources shares we acquired with the Sandstorm and Horizon acquisition. Interest and other expense increased to $10 million from $1.5 million, primarily due to higher average amounts outstanding under the revolving credit facility in the current quarter. Tax expense for the quarter was $58 million. resulting in an effective tax rate of 19.7%. Before discrete items, our year-to-date effective tax rate is 19.9% and we continue to expect that the rate for the full year will be within the guidance range of 17% to 22%. Net income for the quarter was $236 million or $2.78 per share, which compares to $132 million or $2.01 per share in the prior year. The increase in net income was largely due to higher revenue and fair value changes in our equity securities. These increases were partially offset by the higher cost of sales, DD&A, interest and income tax expense. After adjusting for the fair value changes in equity securities, the gain on settlement of the Relief Canyon obligation and the tax effect of these adjustments, adjusted net income was $218 million or $2.56 per share. Finally, our operating cash flow this quarter was a record $335 million, up 119% from $153 million in the prior year. The increase was primarily due to higher stream and royalty revenue, partially offset by higher income tax payments, G&A costs and interest payments. In summary, it was another very strong financial quarter that reflects the significant cash generation potential of the portfolio and the overall increase in the scale of our business. I will end on Slide 9 and summarize our financial position. Our increased cash flow has allowed us to quickly pay down debt, repurchase shares and rebuild our liquidity. At the end of June, we had total available liquidity of $1.2 billion between the available amounts on the revolver, and $244 million of working capital. After quarter end, we continued our focus on the balance sheet as we made a further $75 million repayment in July, and we intend to make an additional $100 million repayment in mid-August. We continue to expect to fully repay the outstanding balance during the fourth quarter based on current metal prices and absent further significant acquisitions. In terms of additional liquidity, we expect Centerra to deliver the second tranche of gold as part of the deferred consideration for the Mount Milligan cost port agreement sometime towards the end of the third quarter or beginning of the fourth quarter. Recall that the sale of these ounces will not be treated as revenue and will not be reflected in our calculation of GEOs and the cash received from the sale of these ounces will be reflected in our operating cash flow. With respect to financial commitments, at the end of June, we had $50 million of funding outstanding for the warrants acquisition. We expect to fund this amount in the third or fourth quarter, subject to registration of security, which is underway. Our only other remaining commitment is our 15% share of Hod Maden project costs. As part of the ownership restructuring, we funded $70 million of project costs in the second quarter. Lydia is required to fund the next $397 million, after which both parties will fund their share of costs according to their ownership. Assuming no changes to the project timeline or scope and no debt financing, we expect we will start contributing our share of spending in mid-2027. That concludes my comments on our financial performance for the quarter, and I will now turn the call back to Bill for closing comments.

Thanks, Paul. As I said at the beginning of the call, this is our second full quarter of results after a year of transformational activity. Our financial results so far this year show the benefits of holding a large diversified and cash flowing portfolio and with the resolution of some of the more complicated Sandstorm interest complete and the transaction noise behind us, we have returned to delivering steady and predictable results. A year ago, there was concern that our 2025 transactions would cause dilution to near-term results. While it is only 2 quarters, our per share metrics in terms of GEO per share, adjusted EBITDA per share, operating cash flow per share and EPS also the overall accretion of our 2025 transactions. Our business model should be simple for investors to understand and value. We have interest in some of the best assets in the mining business, Cortez, Fourmile, Kansanshi, Antamina, Red Chris, Graybar, Mara, just to name a few. And I hope we will return to a premium valuation when the market has digested the results and values the cash flow and organic growth potential within the portfolio. Until such time, we will try to continue to show a strong financial performance and use our increased cash flows to address multiple opportunities that may be present ranging from new investments, further debt repayments and potentially further share repurchases. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Brian MacArthur, Raymond James.

Just a few quick ones. You talked about cleaning up the portfolio from Sandstrom, you mentioned you still have the on-trade share. What's the latest thinking with respect to that?

Brian, thanks for the question. We're going to be a little patient there. Rio and the government of Mongolia have been having ongoing discussions regarding some of the mining concessions, we just think if that were to get solved. Maybe that might have a positive impact on the entree share. So where it was with Verse and some of the other ones, we were just so let's just sell it. As of right now, we're going to hold on for a little bit and see what happens.

Great. My second question, thank you for the Hod Maden update spending. So I guess now we sort of -- they paid [indiscernible] 397. You paid 175 then and you think you're going to pay -- make payments in mid-2027. The way you see it now -- I mean that's a fair bit of the capital will be spent by mid-2027. Is that back half payment if it goes that way, pretty significant. That is to say the majority of the rest of capital, you're thinking is going up in '27 and very little in 2028, assuming nothing changes. Is that the way I should think about it? I'm just trying to figure out what that actual payment could be in 2027.

Well, I might start with Martin, is there anything on the construction timing we can add at this point? I don't quite know what we've talked about in the past. I imagine it's going to go from -- in 2027 and 2028, but anything you can add, Martin?

I think that the -- so Lidya is still talking about first production of concentrate in 2028. So I think the way to think about it, Brian, was that the -- the remaining input from Royal Gold would probably be split over the second half of 2027 and the first half of 2028. But that's a very rough view at the moment.

Great. And just third question. You mentioned your second tranche for under the support payments for Mount Milligan. Can you just remind me when you get the final ounces under that deal, what the trigger is for that and when you might receive it?

Oh boy. Paul, I'm going to take a shot at and if you can help me a little bit, I would appreciate. So the total delivery was 50,000 ounces. I think that there were 3 scheduled fronts based on Greenstone of 11,000 ounces. So after the 1 we get in, say, next quarter or the fourth quarter, will there be another 11? I don't remember the trigger for it. But then the rest of it, I think, is longer term. It sort of goes out into the next decade. Is that -- Paul, am I anywhere close?

That's correct, Bill. And Brian, just remember, it's based on delivery -- or I'm sorry, threshold production thresholds at Greenstone. So -- but Bill is correct. The second tranche, 11,111 ounces, as I mentioned, we're anticipating that they're going to meet the next threshold required for that sometime in the late third quarter or possibly early fourth quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Maybe my first question is on your guidance. You're tracking very well in the other metals category and also the copper category. So maybe in the other metals, could you remind me what's included in that $29 million that you've generated so far in Q1 and Q2?

Yes, Cosmos. I mean, other are going to be things like lead, zinc, nickel, which is good. It's going to come from Antamina on the zinc side, I believe, Voisey's Bay, copper, nickel, and so there's one more. But Paul, what's the other [indiscernible], lead and zinc. Paul, is there anything else other than those 3 that really drive that?

No. That -- those are the big highlights.

Okay. So I guess my question is, it's driven off of, I would imagine, higher sort of base metal prices we've seen so far in the first half. Is it a possibility that I take what has been generated in the first half and times 2. And then that will be sort of what the annualized number might be because that would be much higher than what you had expected at least for other metals and significantly higher as well for copper. Is that 1 possibility of kind of base metal prices stay out where they are today?

Yes, sure, it's a possibility. The only caveat we have is the Antamina NPI is new to us. And we've seen revenue of $26 million in the first 6 months of this year. If you go back to '23 and '24, Antamina paid somewhere between $16 million and $17 million of royalty revenue for the full year. Now, we don't know of anything in the portfolio that would bring it down, and that's why we're uncomfortable changing guidance. But we don't have a lot of insight into Penasquito. We don't have a lot of insight in the [indiscernible] bay. So as I thought -- look, it's a small piece of revenue, let's get to the end of the third quarter. And then if we need to adjust it, so people know where they're going to end up at the end of the year, then we can talk a little -- feel a bit better about talking about it then.

And Bill, since you talked about being comfortable here, and it's a good news story, copper up and other metals up, but now copper mix up about 8% of your revenue, as Paul had mentioned earlier, it could potentially go higher. Is that a good mix? Or is that -- does that make you uncomfortable? At what point could it make you uncomfortable in terms of cost.

I don't think we do -- no. I mean we're 76% gold. And I just can't see -- I don't know what the copper price would have to go to suddenly say, well, that 76% is now substantially lower. I don't worry about it.

Do you see it as an opportunity or no, you're still very much precious metals focused?

We're precious metal focused. But as we've always said, if someone wants to call us up and show us something in another metals market that we can understand and we like the asset, yes, we'll certainly consider an investment. But it's certainly not -- copper's not suddenly strategic metal for us when we're going out and looking for it.

Maybe going to Hod Maden a little bit, Bill. From where you're standing and from where your team is standing, how has that transition been in terms of the operatorship from SSR Mining to Lidya? Has it been okay?

Yes. I think it's been okay. But I'm going to turn that question over to Martin because he's really been a touch with the Lydia technical folks. So Martin, why don't you give Cosmos your thoughts?

Yes. So I think to answer your question, clearly, yes, we do believe the transition has gone well. at the mine site level, not really very much has changed. They've changed some senior leadership positions, but the work is still ongoing. So they're still working on the main access tunnels and they're ramping those up. They're working on the [indiscernible] tunnel, which is key for us because it gets access between the South Valley and the North Valley where the tailings are stored. They're still working on the permanent camp infrastructure. They're working and almost complete on the water management infrastructure. So everything that we would have expected to continue work under SSR leadership is still going ahead and appears to be ramping up as we would expect. So I think we are -- we're comfortable with that. We're comfortable with the sort of communications that we have with the Lidya team. We've got good relationships going there. We've got clear insight into how the operation is progressing. So yes, overall, very comfortable with the handover.

Great. And as we talked about timelines at Hod Maden, you talked about potentially needing to make that mix payment in mid-2027, followed by production starting in sometime 2028. I guess my question is, Bill, as you mentioned, there could be potential for further optimization of the structure, you're still a 15% joint venture ownership owner of the joint venture partnership. So ideally, if a transaction were to happen, a further transaction would happen, would you want that to happen before you need to make that next contribution? Or before production starts? Is there kind of like kind of different timelines that you look at?

Not in that way. But I wouldn't want to start setting deadlines threshold dates beyond which we don't want to go beyond it. I guess the message we're trying to say is, look, when we started the year, we were a 30% holder, and we were very clear that's not strategic. We want to turn it into something else that looks more similar to what we do. With the change in ownership, we took a half step down that -- towards that road. So the 15% is still non-core. If somebody is interested in buying it. We are more than happy to have a discussion, but it's not the same priorities. We're not out there hiring investment banks to run processes, and we may be looking for the opportune time to dispose of the rest of the 15%, but it's not tied to when we have to make the next payment, it's not before the mine goes into production. We're just -- we've got to play a year more than what we were doing at the beginning of the year, which was this is a priority that's [indiscernible].

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Major with UBS.

The first one, just on the buyback. I see you've obviously started buying back stock this quarter. How should we be thinking about the criteria for the buyback going forward? And how should we be modeling it? I mean, is this very much dependent on like where the shares are trading relative to the peers, whether the shares are trading in absolute terms relative to the gold price, et cetera. Should we be thinking about it as a proportion of cash generation, like how should we be sort of thinking about the parameters to determine the run rate of that buyback?

Yes. I would -- honestly, I try to talk you out of modeling it because the decisions to buy shares back or not, depends on a number of factors. And as we talked about in May when we announced the program, NAV multiples and where we trade relative to the others, sure. That is the factor that sort of trips the rest of the decision-making. But it doesn't mean we're going to do something. And so we're not going to talk about at a NAV multiple below this, we're going to buy back so many shares. That's -- we're going to look at all the priorities. And the way I view it is share buybacks are great, but that's sort of a short-term priority. We have to, as a management team, consider the long-term priorities of the company, and that involves new investments. Is it better to buy back shares now or make an investment in a mine that's going to produce revenue for us for 20 years. And so we don't go into this with, you should expect this amount to be bought back each quarter. That's just not the way we're going to approach the program. What we're going to do is come and tell you what we did as we did with the announcement in the -- in July on the quarter-end results. So I'm going to frustrate you a little bit there and not be able to give you a modeling number.