Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Bill Heissenbuttel: Yes, right. Exactly. And Mark covered Cortez, and I will ask if he’s got anything to add. I think right now, the 100% number is a little hard for us to tell you because we’ve broken the royalty up into zones, and until we have the zone production, I can’t tell you what’s at 9.4%, I can’t tell you what’s at 1.6%. So I’m not sure I could help you, but that’s why I’m going to go to Mark and say, is there something I’m missing here?

Mark Isto: No, you’re right, Bill. Normally, Cosmos, we usually get production guidance that we give at the end of the — or for the Q1 conference call. So — and I would expect the same. So, we need Cortez to tell us what’s associated at this point with the various pieces and primarily the Crossroads and Pipeline piece that gets broken out. So, we really can’t provide much other than the global number at this point. But the global number is certainly in line with our expectations.

Cosmos Chiu: Great. Perfectly understood. Maybe one last question. And first off, I need to congratulate you, Bill, for making it to the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. I know that was almost a year now, but I think some people don’t appreciate how much of an achievement that is. And then on that, to follow up, Bill, clearly dividend is very important to you. Could you remind us in terms of capital allocation? How you look at dividend versus growth, royalty, acquisitions? And what’s the market out there? How does that look right now?

Bill Heissenbuttel: Yes. Well, on the capital allocation, our view is the best thing we can do for shareholder value is to find new assets. Because you take cash that value 1 times NAV on our balance sheet, and you invested in something that hopefully commands a premium to that. So, that’s always going to be priority number one. Priority number two is to pay down debt. If we’ve taken on debt to make acquisitions, we want to pay that down as quickly as possible, restore that liquidity. But I might rank dividends third, but it’s obviously very important to us. And I thank you for noting our achievement. We’re very proud of it. And again, just appreciate your comments. I think the second part of your question had to do with the market in general and sort of business development. If that’s the case, I’d see if Dan can hop on here and give us — give you his thoughts.

Dan Breeze: Yes, happy to, Bill. Hi Cosmos, hope you are doing well. Look, I think the themes that we saw last year, Cosmos, the debt being more expensive, equity — particularly precious metal equity to raise that in the market, I think those continue to be challenging. So I think that’s good. I think that’s what we’re seeing right now. I’d say we’re seeing kind of three buckets of opportunities. I’d say the first one is we’re seeing the larger financing for project developments, that $100 million to $300 million range we’ve been talking about for a number of quarters. That’s still very much relevant right now in terms of the size that we’re seeing, and that’s good for us. We have the liquidity, as you heard, to handle that kind of a size of a transaction.