Earnings Call Transcript - FNV Q4 2025

Operator, Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Franco Nevada Corporation's 2025 year-end results conference call and webcast. This call is being recorded on March 11, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations

Thank you, Joanna. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Franco-Nevada's year-end 2022 results. Accompanying this call is a presentation, which is available on our website at franco-nevada.com, where you'll also find our full financial results. The presentation is also available to you on the webcast. During our call this morning, Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada, will provide introductory remarks followed by Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer; who will provide a review of our results, followed by Eaun Gray, Chief Investment Officer, who will provide a review of our recent acquisitions. This will be followed by a Q&A period. Our full executive team is available to answer any questions. Participants may submit questions by telephone or via the webcast. We would like to remind participants that some of today's commentary may contain forward-looking information, and we refer you to our detailed cautionary presentation. I will now turn over the call to Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada.

Paul Brink, President and CEO

Thanks, Candida, and good morning. 2025 was a record-breaking year for Franco-Nevada driven by higher precious metal prices and growing production. Thanks to a strong fourth quarter, we achieved the top end of our revised 2025 GEO guidance range. A big focus for us is growing the business profitably. So it's a proud moment when the annual earnings increased by roughly 75%. The more than $1 billion in earnings is close to a 60% earnings margin, a level of profitability that's impressive in any sector. In January this year, we increased our dividend for the 19th consecutive time. For the record rise in our 2025 cash flow, we announced a higher-than-normal 16% dividend increase. Our 2026 GEO guidance shows good growth over 2025 with further growth in our 5-year outlook. In many ways, this is just a baseline. With the abundant cash flow and capital in the gold sector, the draws will be turning on the 70,000 square kilometers of mineral resource that we cover globally. We've identified $250 million of exploration spend on our Canadian assets this year. So we expect a multiple of that on our global portfolio. A restart of Cobre Panama would add significant further growth, and the Panamanian government's willingness to approve the processing of stockpiles is a positive step in that direction. While our goal is to be a go-to gold stock, we recognize the cyclical nature of commodities and the benefits of some commodity diversification. Our guidance this year is based on $70 per barrel oil. The last I saw WTI prices were $85 a barrel. If that is sustained, our 2026 guidance may be too conservative. 2024 and 2025 have been 2 of our best-ever years for capital deployment, adding 6 quality long-dated assets to the portfolio that contribute to our 5-year outlook and help sustain those production levels over the next decade and beyond. Our strategy of being the financial bank of strong teams has worked wonders. We've seen the discovery share prices increase tenfold, and they're now some of the darlings in the sector. Post year-end, Eaun and the team have backed other teams in North America, including Patty Downey and the Ozon team winning Kasperadi from Hecla and Richard Young and the IA team developing their suite of assets in Nevada. Most recently, we've backed a transaction with Minerals 260 team developing the Bullabulling assets in Western Australia. We're delighted that their share price is up 50% in the couple of weeks since the transaction was announced. By making their shareholders successful, we believe we can open the eyes of the Australian markets to the power of our financing model. You will have seen in our asset and the term royalty ounces representing MI&I resources and streams and royalties, where the economics are 100% attributable to us. In the deals we have done since year-end, we've added 820,000 royalty ounces. That's an undiscounted value of over $4 billion at today's gold prices. Our average cost was $770 an ounce, a fraction of the cost you see in other transactions in the sector. We're committed to promoting sustainable mining, and we're delighted to be recognized by Corporate Knights in 2026 as one of the 100 most sustainable corporations globally. To wrap up, we're excited about the outlook for Franco-Nevada in 2026, with the industry's largest portfolio of gold royalties, no debt, and $3.1 billion in available capital. We really are uniquely positioned to create further shareholder value. Over to you, Sandip.

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Great. Thanks very much, Paul. Good morning, everyone. As Paul mentioned, Franco Nevada reported record financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025. Our diverse portfolio of royalty and stream assets performed well and continued to benefit from higher precious metal prices. Slide 4 provides a recap of the company's performance against the revised guidance provided for the year. The updated guidance range was 495,000 to 525,000 total GEOs sold. Of this total, the company guided 420,000 to 440,000 precious metal GEOs, with the balance being from diversified assets. With strong performance from a number of assets during the fourth quarter, the company finished the year with 519,106 GEOs sold, which was near the top end of the guidance range. For precious metal GEOs, we slightly exceeded the top end of the range with 440,140 GEOs sold. The diversified assets, which include our non-precious metal mining assets and energy assets, resulted in 78,966 GEOs sold for the year. On Slide 5, you will see a summary of commodity prices for the fourth quarter and the full year 2025 and 2024, and Gold and silver prices increased significantly year-over-year, with the average gold price higher by 56% in the quarter. However, the two strongest performers during the fourth quarter were silver and platinum, each up 75% and 74%, respectively. The strong silver price performance resulted in a stronger gold to silver ratio, which benefited our silver assets, in particular, Antamina, and also our Western Limb Platinum stream, which benefited from a stronger platinum price. For diversified commodities, prices for iron ore remained essentially flat year-over-year; oil was lower, but we saw a significant increase in natural gas prices year-over-year. The strong performance from our assets, combined with record gold and silver prices resulted in record financial results for 2025 as seen on Slide 6. Revenue was higher by 64%, adjusted EBITDA increased by 74%, and adjusted net income also rose by 74%. This was also the case for the fourth quarter as compared to the prior year, as seen on Slide 7. Total GEOs sold for the quarter increased 18% to 141,856 compared to 120,063 in the fourth quarter of 2024. Precious metal GEOs sold in the quarter were 127,959, higher by 34% compared to the prior year. 50% of total GEOs sold were sourced directly from mines where precious metals are the primary commodity. For the quarter, we received strong contributions from a number of key assets. Antamina, where we benefited from both higher deliveries as the fourth quarter was the highest delivery period during the year, and also benefitting from the higher silver price when converting to GEOs. Both Guadalupe and Antapacay had strong production quarters. And at Hemlo, we benefited from the leverage that net profit interest provides. As you know, the Hemlo NPI is difficult to forecast as it depends on how much mining is performed on Franco-Nevada's Interlake lands. During the fourth quarter, we benefited from both higher production on our lands as well as higher margin per ounce with the rising gold price. In addition to the strong performance from those assets mentioned, we benefitted from asset acquisitions that were new contributors to Franco-Nevada during the fourth quarter: Western Limb, Porcupine, and Cote. Diversified GEOs sold were 13,697 for the quarter compared to 24,498 for the prior year. This was partially due to lower diversified revenue than the prior year, but the larger impact for the reduction in GEOs sold is due to the impact of higher gold prices when converting revenue to GEOs. As you can see from the chart, total revenue increased by 86% for the quarter to $597.3 million, which is a record for Franco-Nevada. Precious metals accounted for 90% of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA, also a record, was 95% higher for the quarter at $541.2 million compared to $277.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. With respect to costs, we did have an increase in cost of sales compared to Q4 2024 due to higher stream ounces sold. Depletion increased to $87.3 million versus $60 million a year ago. We have received more GEOs from Antapaccay and Antamina and began depleting our recent transactions, Yanacocha, Western Limb, Porcupine, and Cote. These are higher per ounce depletion assets. Finally, adjusted net income was $356.2 million, or $1.85 per share for the quarter, both up 94% versus the prior year. Slide 8 highlights the continued diversification of the portfolio. 85% of our full-year 2025 revenue was generated by precious metals, with revenue being sourced 88% from the Americas. No single asset generates more than 13% of revenue as we have one of the most diverse portfolios in the industry. Slide 9 illustrates the strength of our business model to continue to generate high margins. As you can see over the last number of years, as the gold prices have increased, our margin per GEO has remained fairly constant. The cash cost per GEO has increased from $242 in 2020 to $325 per GEO in 2025, a 34% increase over this 5-year period. However, the margin has increased from $1,528 per GEO in 2020 to $3,110 per GEO in 2025, a 204% increase, while during this period, the average gold price increased 194%. Our business model is very profitable as royalties and streams usually entail top-line revenue interest with either no cost or a fixed payment associated. As a result, as seen on Slide 10, our adjusted EBITDA margin for 2025 was 91%. And when accounting for depletion and taxes and other costs, our adjusted net income margin was 59%. As we look forward, Slide 11 summarizes our GEOs sold guidance for 2026. Beginning in 2026, we will be adopting fixed GEO conversion ratios based on the pricing assumptions that you see on the slide. This methodology replaces our previous variable GEO conversion ratios based on actual average commodity prices and is intended to make our GEO guidance better reflect production volumes. Our total GEOs sold are expected to range from 510,000 to 570,000 ounces, with 90% from precious metals and 10% from our diversified assets. As you can see, we have provided guidance ranges for gold, silver, and PGM ounces, and for diversified assets, we are providing a revenue range. The main drivers for the GEO sold increased year-over-year are for precious metals; we will be benefiting from full year contributions from a number of assets, both acquisitions and new mine starts. These include Cortez Gold, Porcupine, Casa Berardi, IA, and Valentine Lake, and we will continue to benefit from the ramp-up of new mines that began production over the last couple of years including Greenstone and Solaris Norte. Please note that we have not assumed any contributions from Cobre Panama. First Quantum has stated that they are awaiting formal approval to process stockpiled ore, which would produce approximately 70,000 tons of copper and result in stream deliveries to Franco-Nevada of approximately 23 ounces of gold and 265,000 ounces of silver. Timing of deliveries would be dependent on when formal approval is received. Also on the slide, we provided guidance for depletion, tax, and funding commitments. Slide 12 illustrates our outlook for 2030, which is 555,000 to 615,000 GEOs sold. Main contributors will be contributions from new mines, Stibnite Gold, Copper World, SK Creek, Cascabel, and Tacataka; contributions from expansions that are either underway or planned include Detour Lake and Castle Mountain. We do anticipate a step-down in deliveries at Candelaria in the second half of 2027 and at Antapacay in the second half of 2020. For the energy assets, we've assumed an increase in production over the next 5 years, resulting in an increase in GEOs, but have kept commodity prices flat at $70 a barrel WTI and $3 Mcf natural gas. Overall, when you look at the outlook for GEOs sold, the company has approximately 13% organic growth built in from 2025 to 2030 at budgeted commodity prices, excluding Cobre Panama. Cobre Panama is a large growth driver if the mine were to restart; if production restarts, there's the potential for substantially higher GEOs depending on the conditions of the restart. Based on the average of the next 5 years of the Cobre Panama mine plan, the stream could contribute between 150,000 to 175,000 GEOs to Franco-Nevada per year. With a Cobre Panama restart, the company has approximately 45% built-in growth to 2030. As we look past 2030, Franco-Nevada has a very deep portfolio of assets that should begin to contribute meaningfully over time. I won't go into the specifics as shown on Slide 13. Overall, these assets have the potential to generate over 220,000 GEOs to Franco-Nevada over time. Each asset is at a different stage of development. When looking at this group of assets as a whole, they contain approximately 6 million measured and indicated and 1.7 million inferred royalty ounces. Our royalty ounces are net of any costs such as stream costs, so it represents 100% cash flow to Franco-Nevada before taxes. Yet, even beyond that, we have not included any upside from over 230 exploration assets which provide additional optionality. In this price environment, we are seeing exploration drilling increasing on our lands. We look forward to seeing what positive news is released on some of these options over time. And with that, I will pass it over to Eaun, who will highlight the recent new additions to the portfolio.

Eaun Gray, Chief Investment Officer

Thank you, Sandip. It's been an exciting year so far as we've delivered meaningful growth with several large acquisitions in key gold mining districts. This growth has come at a low cost per ounce of resource, which Paul highlighted earlier. Starting with our royalty stream, we were delighted to support Patty Downey and his team in the acquisition of this established producer in Quebec. We have confidence in Patty and his team to execute their plans, and in particular, are excited by the increased exploration the property will now receive. For too long, this project has been overlooked. The extensive land package and deep cover indicate great promise to extend mine life with increased grades. Similar to our investment with Discovery, we see focused management as key to the success of this mine, and this team is now in place, so the future should be bright. We're also excited to have completed the financing with i80 in February. This is the third financing we've completed with Richard Young and his team, speaking to the strength of that relationship. We structured this royalty to align with the company's growth plans with a step-up to 3% in 2031. The royalty covers all of the precious metals assets and over 200 square kilometers of key gold trends in Nevada, our namesake. We'll see cash flow starting immediately with Granite Creek, expanding with our communities and ramping up with the development of Mineral Point, which we envision as a large-scale project. A significant portion of the financing is earmarked for the acceleration of development in all 3. Finally, I'd like to briefly touch on our first sizable acquisition in Australia for some time, the Bullabulling royalty. We historically have held a royalty on a portion of the deposit, but with the renewed focus on the asset by Minerals 260, we quickly realized the larger potential of this project, which is a short distance from Kalgoorlie, a key gold-producing region. We're delighted, as Paul said, to be working with Tim Goyder and Luke McFadden, who lead the team at Minerals 260. We expect the PFS in the next few months, which should better define the project parameters for the market. The expanded resource has already been published, but extensive drilling has since been completed and will continue. Given the brownfield nature of the project in a well-established historical mining area, we see a rapid path to production with meaningful contribution to our Australian business. To conclude, I would highlight that we're debt-free with significant cash flow generation, which positions us well for continued acquisitive growth. With that, I'll hand it over to the operator for any questions.

Operator, Operator

First question comes from Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets.

Joshua Wolfson, Analyst

Yes. First question is just on South Arturo. Very strong results in the fourth quarter. I'm wondering if you can provide any more information on expectations for 2026 and if that's assumed as well for 2030.

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Josh, Sandip here. Yes, no, South Arturo was a very strong performer in the quarter. They are mining the open pit ahead of schedule. It's going to carry on into 2026. So 2026 should be a strong year. What we've seen in the first part of this year is occurring. But starting in 2027, we do see it falling back off. So it's really a 2026 benefit with minimal for 2030.

Joshua Wolfson, Analyst

Okay. And then the minimum deliveries still apply for 2027, correct?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, correct.

Joshua Wolfson, Analyst

For Cascavel, I have a couple of questions. First, regarding the stream buyback, should we assume that the gold payable to be received is already included in production for guidance? Additionally, for 2030, can the team provide any further details about the production volumes?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So for the buyback on the stream, we are receiving ounces that are not included in our guidance at this stage. We have been notified they will be delivering GEOs for the roughly $40 million buyback that's been calculated. But as I said, it's not in our guidance. We're still working on how to account for that buyback. As per 2030, the Cascabel mine start is in our outlook, and it's probably a range between 15,000 to 20,000 GEOs.

Joshua Wolfson, Analyst

All right. And then one last question. Just on Musslewhite. Very strong quarter they reported previously by the operator. It looks like the NPI didn't pay out as high as expected. Is that something we should expect to occur, I guess, as a true-up in 2026? Or is there something more we should be aware about?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

So yes, the Orla did report very strong Q4. We do not have an estimate of the NPI at this stage. And as you know, one of the major deductions is capital. We made an accrual; once we get the actual number from Orla, we will make an adjustment. In all likelihood, there will be a true-up, but the quantum is unknown at this time.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Larry Lee with CIBC.

Chunshan Liu, Analyst

Paul, Sandip, and Eaun, I guess my first question would be on energy prices. So if we look at the 2026 guidance, oil is calculated using $70 a barrel; because of recent events, we've seen the oil price strengthen. So I'm wondering if you can give us a little more sensitivity around how that would impact Franco-Nevada. As you know, Franco is one of the few, if not the only royalty company that has exposure to energy.

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Sure. Larry, you're correct; we used $70 per barrel WTI in preparing our guidance. A $5 increase in the WTI price is essentially a 7% increase in energy revenue.

Chunshan Liu, Analyst

Sounds good. And I guess on a similar topic, now that we're looking more towards unlocking value in the portfolio, I kind of want to ask about Cobre Panama. So from that perspective, I'm wondering what's the next step after the environmental audit concludes? When should we expect a potential decision from the government? Is that something you can share with us? And how long does it take for the assets to ramp up and deliveries to restart for Franco?

Paul Brink, President and CEO

Thanks for the question. The best information that's out there was from the government themselves, President Molino, stating his target is to try and have a resolution on the issue. So we'll hope that something can be achieved within that sort of timeline. In terms of ramp-up, my understanding is that once you get a go decision, it would be roughly 6 months to get to 50% of production and 12 months to get to about 90%. Although, if the company is allowed to proceed with the processing of stockpiles, that does allow them to operationalize; they're already increasing their workforce. It would enable them to start at least one of the mill trains, so I expect that could accelerate the ramp-up timeline.

Chunshan Liu, Analyst

Perfect. Sounds good, Paul. I guess I have just one last question, if that's okay. I want to ask about the balance sheet. So Franco currently holds about $1.1 billion in publicly traded equity investments, and that's a significant increase from just $770 million in Q3. So I'm wondering what would be the strategic positioning for the publicly traded equity investments? Could that be a potential source of liquidity? How should we look at it?

Paul Brink, President and CEO

The large part of those equities are shares that we obtained in supporting GM and Discovery Silver. Our intent is to be their financial bankers. I want the market to know that we're in those stories. We intend to be long-term holders of the stock, but at the same time, if there are good opportunities, and if we have good returns, there is the potential that we'll take some money off the table. But we are long-term investors, and principally, the goal is to realize the value that we believe both teams can add in their companies.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright.

Heiko Ihle, Analyst

I'm going to follow up with one of the last questions that was asked. I mean the oil segment, we're three weeks away from Q1 being over. Do you have a year-to-date figure of cash receipts? And also, I'm cognizant that the high prices didn't really start until a couple of weeks ago, or really just two weeks ago. But maybe a bit of color on what number we should be modeling out for the full quarter?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Sandip here. You're right that this event is recent. I do not have a number off the top of my head. If anything, the real benefit to us, if this carries on, will be a Q2 event. And as part of our Q1 results, we'll provide additional color as to sensitivities, etc.

Heiko Ihle, Analyst

You wouldn't be willing to give us a quarter-to-date estimate on receipts, though, would you?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

Not right now, no.

Heiko Ihle, Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And then just thinking out loud, I mean, now there's talk about mines being put into a straight and just geopolitical risk factors are lowering even more so than they have been over the past couple of years. Just maybe a bit of color on where internally you move your discount rates and your risk-based premiums for acquisitions that you're considering and willing to make?

Paul Brink, President and CEO

That would be a long answer to that question. Other than that, I think the main point you make is very valid. We've seen deglobalization; we've seen the world breaking into trade blocs and now you have an added dispute on top of that. It does raise risk globally. We try to be a low-risk way to invest in this business. We need to have most of our assets in good jurisdictions. We're very glad that that is the case. Very glad that in terms of the recent deals over the last number of years, most of that has been in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. We think those are strong jurisdictions. We will continue to do deals that are across the board, but we do prefer having most assets in good jurisdictions. Obviously, when you're going into jurisdictions with more risk, you've got to think about the discount rates and the size of capital that you're putting at risk. But particularly, we think about the payback, and you want to ensure that if there is a bit more jurisdictional risk, you're achieving a faster payback.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

First one, I'm going to start with Sandip on just how you're going to be showing guidance. I understand that you put out your commodity pricing, and that's what you're going to use for the year. So when you report, should I be thinking that the GEOs that you're going to be reporting every quarter would be exactly on those commodity prices you've outlined, but your revenue is actually going to be on what was realized per quarter? I'm just trying to understand how you're going to show it.

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

That's correct, Tanya. Revenue will be realized as per market conditions.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Clarity. So my next question then is going to go back to the guidance. I want to go back to 2030 because we were quite off on 2030. So I'm trying to understand if it's possible for you, would you be able to take that guidance range and break that out to what is gold in that 2030 guidance, what is silver, and what the other diversified assets are?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

I think we would break it out just between precious metals and diversification, but I can give you a call after and can provide some color.

Unknown Analyst, Analyst

Okay. And then in that guidance as well, you gave us what the contribution from Casabe would be. I don't have the new deposit coming in at Cai. Would you happen to know how much is in there as well? And then is this new Australian Bullabulling in your 2030 guidance as well?

Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer

I don't have the numbers in front of me. Bullabulling is in there, but it's minimal ounces.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. That's very helpful. And then I'm just trying to understand also, maybe Eaun wants to take this 1 just on the environment that you're in, because it's moving quite fast these commodity prices. So maybe just an idea of what you're seeing out there. Any opportunities for you to double down on RECONNECT areas of investments that you already have exposure to? And then obviously, we saw the big weeks in transaction on Antamina, as we're trying to understand how many other big ones are you also seeing?

Paul Brink, President and CEO

Thank you, Tanya, for the question. Overall, it remains a very robust scene with a number of transactions. We're very proud of the deals that we got done year-to-date. My expectation is you'll continue to see similar deal environments to what we've seen over the last 2 years despite changes in prices, just based on what we're observing at the moment. What I'm very excited about is given the deal that we've completed in Australia and the deal that BHP did. I think the streaming market is very much in consideration by CFOs in the mining industry at present, and that should drive further activity going forward. So I'm quite hopeful on that front.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

And what is the size of the deal environment you're seeing? Because you can run the truck through the $0 to $4.3 billion range. Most of what are you seeing? Are we still in that $100 to $300 million or $100 to $500 million range? I'm just trying to understand what the majority are separate from these big ones.

Eaun Gray, Chief Investment Officer

Yes, Tanya, unfortunately, it's really hard to handicap. I would say at the moment, you're going to see a range similar to what has taken place over the last year or so. That's what I would expect in the market going forward. So there are larger transactions and smaller transactions. We'll see what actually crosses the finish line.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

And is your focus on mainly precious metals right now? Or are there opportunities in other metals as well?

Eaun Gray, Chief Investment Officer

That really hasn't changed. We remain open to investments outside of precious metals, but precious metals make up the majority of what's in the pipeline at the moment.

Operator, Operator

There are no further questions on the phone line. I will now turn the Q&A session back over to Candida Hayden, who will take questions from the webcast.

Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations

Thank you, Joanna. Our first question comes from Rene Pici from Palisade Capital. Based on the recent transactions or investments in Canada, U.S., and Australia, it would seem that you may have made a strategic decision to focus on OECD-type countries. Is this just a coincidence or a happy occurrence, or is it deliberate?

Paul Brink, President and CEO

As I mentioned earlier on in terms of how we think about the portfolio, it's to make sure that most of the assets are in great mining jurisdictions. We're blessed; a lot of our assets are in Canada, the U.S., Australia, but also in Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Brazil. These are all great mining countries. We continue to invest in all of them. So yes, what we've done does reflect our strategy, but it's also a happy coincidence that all our deals are in Canada, the U.S., and Australia.

Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations

Thank you, Paul. There are no further questions from the webcast. This concludes our 2025 year-end results conference call and webcast. We will host our Investor Day on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. The in-person presentation will be hosted at the Lumi Experience Center in Toronto at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The presentation will also be available to view virtually. Details will be available on our website. We expect to release our first quarter 2026 results after market close on May 12, with the conference call held the following morning. Thank you for your interest in Franco-Nevada.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.