Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd (NYSE:OR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Iain Farmer: Yes. So the distribution of ounces and the relative coverage, we can have a separate conversation if you want to reach out. But there are clues in the most recent technical report in terms of the royalty percentage with time in some of the graph that they provide. And with respect to the recovery of the Island Gold ores that would go into the Maginot mill. If you listen to the conference calls that were given by Alamos following the announcement of the transaction, this was raised on those calls. The specific process to use at Magino and at the Island Gold mill are the same. The expectation is that the recovery will be equal. And I expect that Alamos will be highly sensitive to any gold loss, especially the, if you look at the differential and grade, it will be very sensitive and they’ll always have beginning period, anyway, they’ll have the opportunity to run that test scenarios and run some of the mill throughput through the existing mill there.

So, yes, we’re not concerned about that scenario.

Operator: Your next question comes from John Tumazos from John Tumazos Very Independent Research.

John Tumazos: Thank you very much, and congratulations on all the progress on so many fronts. I was sort of brainstorming, and I was thinking it would be an interesting package to put up for sale. If you were to bundle all of the Osisko legacy royalties together as a package, Cariboo, TINTIC, Horne 5, Falco, Windfall, and 39.6% of OTV and sell it as a block, as an asset package. It’s a nice North American package. A lot of good Canadian gold. And, the proceeds would probably all book straight to equity, because they’re assets that you didn’t pay much for that probably aren’t on your books for very much. Would probably all be tax free because you have some accumulated losses? And it would improve the perceptions in the market and we wouldn’t have any more equity losses from OTV. What do you think of that, Jason? Would that be a nice way to pay down some debt or fund the stock buyback?

Jason Attew: John, I appreciate the comment and the color and look, obviously, a very interesting concept. What I would say, however, is with all the assets that you mentioned, there are obviously some we really do believe that there’s, the royalties and it’s so tough in this competitive market to actually acquire royalties, but these are some very, very good royalties that we think from a shareholder perspective, which I know you are one, it’s much better for it to remain in our portfolio. As I think you’re aware, it’s very, very rare for royalty companies, streaming companies to be selling off assets like this and specifically funneling all the ones that you mentioned. I would argue in this marketplace that we wouldn’t get the same value if we’re just patient and wait until these assets do come on and start generating some very good gold equivalent ounces in the fullness of time.

But I appreciate the comment. Again, we are very supportive of obviously all the companies that are associated with these companies moving the development forward because we do think in the fullness of time that our physical royalty shareholders will accrue the benefit for more so than if we were to essentially monetize it as we suggest today.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek.

Tanya Jakusconek: I just wanted to come back to Rob’s question on the transactions that are out there and the one to two that you’ve talked about that can potentially be done this year, Jason. Just I’m trying to understand whether it’s similar to other deals in the market which are either to fund the mine build to help buy out some of these Newcrest sold assets and or rather by Newmont. So first of all or is it balance sheet repair? Like I’m trying to understand what sort of deal semantics they are.

Jason Attew: Yes. Thanks for your question, Tanya. And again, kind of the same overriding comment with Ralph. Obviously, all the conversations that we’re in are quite confident. We’d love to open up and show you the opportunity set because I think you’d be quite impressed with it. With respect to the type of transaction though and you probably you’re aware that Q1 was a very quiet period for any sort of transactions by not only, basically the whole subsector, the whole sector of royalties and streams. There were really nothing material as you know. And so in terms of the type of transactions that we’re looking at, we’re absolutely on point of transaction of which senior companies that are selling assets and mid tiers are effectively looking at financing possibility or vehicle to essentially get the funds to bring that into their portfolio that hopefully will improve the portfolio.

There are very few, I would say, opportunities with respect to balance sheet repair at this point. Typically, again, if the assets are supporting what they’re doing currently, unless they have a large portfolio with one asset that’s materially better than the others and then we obviously need to structure to ensure that our interests are protected if we’re assisting with one of the lesser of assets. So we’re not really looking and working on anything with respect to balance sheet repair. It’s more on companies either acquiring good assets that for the most part are production and/or some very high quality development assets that will come into production within our five-year outlook with very, very competent teams, management teams in very good jurisdictions.

I think that’s all I can say for now, Tanya.

Tanya Jakusconek: And maybe, Jason, would you be interested in, let’s say, some of the bigger size deals that may be syndicated? Would that be of interest to you, if you were syndicated in that $60 million to $300 million range that you talked about?

Jason Attew: Because it’s always of interest to us being the fourth or fifth largest company in terms of public companies, royalty companies out there. If again, we have deep relationships with all our peers, so it’s always of interest to do something. As you can appreciate though, there hasn’t been that many transactions of that sort of nature that’s been done in the past for the reasons that, again, if you have a high quality asset. Obviously, you want to do a transaction that accrues to your shareholders as opposed to keep sharing the economics with others. Then, we do have conversations, we do like the concept, we’re open to that concept and we’ll see where it goes.

Tanya Jakusconek: And then my last question on these transactions. Are we looking at sort of your transaction being very simple and structure i.e. a royalty or a stream or should we thinking that they would be more complicated with equity investments and/or debt component?