Triple Flag Precious Metals - Q1 2024
May 8, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello and thank you for standing by. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to Triple Flag Precious Metals Q1 2024 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. I would now like to turn the conference over to Shaun Usmar, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Thanks, Jericho. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Triple Flag's first quarter of 2024 results. Today I'm pleased to be joined by our CFO Sheldon Vanderkooy, and for the first time our Director of Mining, James Lill, who will join us for the Q&A portion of the call. James is a mining engineer and is responsible for portfolio management and supports technical diligence at Triple Flag. As a background, James has over 20 years of experience across mine sites, head offices, and consulting, most recently as head of Canada at Mining Plus. Triple Flag achieved a new quarterly GEO sales record to start the year with sales of roughly 28,000 gold equivalent ounces, resulting in $48 million of EBITDA during the quarter. This strong performance has positioned us well to achieve our 2024 GEO sales guidance of 105,000-115,000 ounces.
Most notably, in line with our guidance for a stronger 2024 due to higher gold grades from the E31 open pits at Northparkes, our flagship asset delivered a nearly 90% increase in GEO sales quarter on quarter. We continue to expect these pits to deliver higher grades through at least 2024 and 2025, and look forward to a feasibility study for the E22 underground ore body, which our partner Evolution expects to complete by the end of Q2 of this year. E22 is expected to represent another source of high-grade gold ore at Northparkes in the medium to long term. In March of 2024, we surfaced further value from the Maverix portfolio with a settlement agreement reached with Coeur Mining on the Kensington NSR royalty, which has commenced paying and will be discussed later in the presentation.
Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention the current favorable precious metals price environment, which on the back of sustained central bank buying, Chinese retail purchases, and seemingly never-ending geopolitical uncertainty has remained at near-record levels for gold prices and solid silver prices. It's been a great time to have continued meaningful GEO growth in our portfolio coincide with a period of strong price support. We expect to deliver our eighth consecutive year of record GEO sales in 2024, and with the first quarter of high-grade growth from Northparkes now achieved, we look forward to the prospect of continued higher gold and silver prices on our portfolio's cash flow per share. I'll now turn it over to Sheldon to discuss our financials for the first quarter of the year.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Thank you, Shaun. As noted, we had a strong first quarter with the portfolio producing just under 28,000 GEOs, which puts Triple Flag right on track to achieve our 2024 guidance. As expected, Northparkes and Cerro Lindo were the two largest contributors to Q1 production, with Northparkes showing year-over-year growth due to the higher gold grades realized. In Q1, we also recorded our first revenues from the Kensington royalty, which we acquired as part of the Maverix portfolio. The strong Q1 production and the record quarterly gold price resulted in record levels of revenue and Adjusted EBITDA significantly higher than the prior year period. Operating cash flow per share is the metric that I am most focused on. Our operating cash flow before working capital and taxes increased over 22% as compared to the prior year period.
As a short-term timing matter, our working capital increased by $6.5 million in Q1, resulting in bottom-line operating cash flow in the quarter that was unchanged from the prior year. Typically, our Adjusted EBITDA and our operating cash flow track quite closely, and I expect that this will continue to be the case for 2024 as a whole as the shorter-term working capital changes reverse. For 2024, we are well positioned to drive increases in operating cash flow per share as we are realizing higher production levels from our existing portfolio, and the higher gold price is translating into increased cash flows. In Q1, the gold price averaged $2,070 per ounce, a quarterly record. In Q2 to date, the gold price has averaged over $2,300 an ounce, a significant increase over Q1. We view a growing dividend as a core part of our capital allocation strategy.
In this quarter, our dividend has been maintained at $0.21 on an annualized basis. I'm proud that we have increased our dividend every year since our IPO, and we will continue to assess potential for further increases going forward. In addition to our dividend, we also returned over $3.5 million to shareholders via share buybacks in Q1. Last, I'd like to comment on our balance sheet. We exited the quarter with net debt of just $30 million or less than one quarter of cash flow. A clean balance sheet, robust cash flows, and our evolving credit facility of over $500 million gives us the financial capacity to deploy capital to drive further growth for the benefit of shareholders.
Going to the next slide, we continue to highlight three key aspects of our investment thesis, namely asset diversification, precious metals focus, and a portfolio which is predominantly centered in Australia and the Americas. Our asset diversification is well understood, so continuing on Shaun's earlier comment about a strong precious metals environment, I would like to highlight Triple Flag's 98% exposure to precious metals in Q1 2024. This pure play exposure ranks among the highest in the sector, with a meaningful portion weighted to silver at 34%. I feel fortunate to have this level of exposure given the many favorable tailwinds for both gold and silver in the near to medium term. Finally, our portfolio is predominantly located in mining-friendly jurisdictions, a key criteria as we look to expand our portfolio through acquisition. By geography, the country with the single greatest contribution remains Australia, notably during the quarter.
Another one of our Australian assets was featured as a core part of an M&A transaction, with Westgold announcing a friendly takeover of Karora, who operate the Beta Hunt Mine. We are pleased to have the cash flow and exploration potential Beta Hunt spotlighted by Westgold. Over to you, Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Thanks, Sheldon. A core part of the 2024 story for Triple Flag is our anchor asset at Northparkes. To give the market better context to the impact of this expected grade improvement versus historical results, the slide highlights mineral head grades at Northparkes over the past three, four years of our stream ownership from 2021 to 2023, which has ranged from 0.13 g/tonne to 0.17 g/tonne. Therefore, the Q1 2024 processed grade of 0.28 g/tonne is undoubtedly a significant step up from the past, and Evolution Mining has done a great job in delivering what was promised. On the next slide, an asset that has been a clear winner for Triple Flag from prior year's Maverix transaction is the Kensington NSR.
Kensington is operated by Coeur Mining, which commenced production in 2010 with over 1 million ounces produced to date and is expected to have a minimum five-year reserve life by the end of 2024. The mine is located in Alaska, a jurisdiction that is no stranger to mining. For the settlement agreement now executed, this NSR commenced paying in Q1 with further share consideration from Coeur in settlement of royalties and arrears. As part of the settlement agreement, we received roughly 737,000 shares of Coeur, which we divested earlier in the second quarter of 2024 in the open market. We expect to receive a further fixed value of $3.75 million worth of shares of Coeur in the first quarter of 2025, which will be the final share consideration received under the agreement.
We look forward to working with Coeur as operating partners for the years to come on Kensington. To that end, we have had a strong start to 2024 with a new record quarter of GEOs and earnings that puts us nicely on track to achieving our guidance of 105,000-115,000 GEOs for the year. This represents our eighth consecutive projected year of record growth for our business and builds on the 34% cumulative annual growth rate in operating cash flow this team has delivered over the past seven years. We highlighted at the end of the last year a period of substantial growth from our cornerstone asset in Australia, Northparkes, for the next couple of years.
To be able to demonstrate a nearly 90% increase in GEOs for the first quarter from this asset while delivering another robust performance from Cerro Lindo as a top five asset in our portfolio is something we're very pleased with. We manage a large portfolio of 234 assets. The core assets as anchors to our portfolio and guidance are clearly delivering for our investors, and we've seen the power of a large portfolio being demonstrated with the Kensington royalty starting to contribute GEOs this past quarter. The two underperforming assets we've highlighted in our release today have been well communicated in the past, have been factored into our 2024 guidance, and we provided additional disclosure to make it clear that we're commercially well placed if they continue to underperform to maximize value for our investors.
So finally, with our ample firepower of roughly $670 million in available liquidity, as well as a cornerstone base of 32 producing assets, we're nicely diversified and well positioned to benefit from the current metal price environment as we continue our relentless pursuit of growth and value per share for our owners. With the board and management team being large shareholders ourselves, we're completely aligned in ensuring the best outcomes and are excited about the significant opportunity ahead for our portfolio to deliver further value. So with that, Jericho, please, I'm happy to open the floor to questions.
Operator (participant)
I'll open for your questions. So to ask a question this time, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We've got a pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. First question comes from the line of Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
Hi. Thanks, Shaun, Sheldon, and team. Maybe my first question is on Northparkes, your anchor asset. As you mentioned, there's going to be a feasibility study to be released by the end of Q2 on the E22 underground ore body. Could you maybe share with us what yours or our expectations could be and what might be the next steps for the operator and potential timeline as well, Shaun?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, Cos. Hi. It's good to hear from you. Cos, I'm going to really defer this question until Evolution release their study in the middle of the year. And the reason is we've got a great new partnership. It's not really appropriate for me to front-run it. I think all I can say in terms of expectations, and I think we covered this on the last call we had a while ago, is you've got a group here with a really impeccable track record in that jurisdiction with Cowal. And my expectation is they've been very successful in taking their time, investing in exploration prudently. There's over 1,000 square kilometer package here, ore bodies open at depth. And they've been very good at, I think, studying astutely.
I think we touched on previously that even though there's an existing study that would have inherited on E22 with yet another block cave, they were looking at a sublevel cave as an alternative. I have no knowledge at this stage, which I can share, but I think that would give them perhaps earlier access and would benefit us if indeed they went that route. So we're looking forward to seeing that release. And I think if you look at their public disclosures, as you'd expect with Jake and Lawrie, their real focus is on just integrating the business well, which I believe they've done very successfully, getting these studies done, and then just settling into delivering. For us, what I look for is always risk on a transition as someone who's been in a lot of mining companies over the years, and it's stabilization through integration.
You can see from these results, they haven't missed a beat. I think they've done very well. James, I don't know if there's anything you wish to add, but.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
No, I think you captured that well, Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Thanks.
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
Great. Thanks, Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Cos, anything else?
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
Yeah, for sure. Maybe switching gears a little bit. Shaun, as you mentioned, it's good to see strength in the gold and silver prices year to date. My question is, how does that kind of impact the opportunity set in terms of acquisitions, new stream and royalty acquisitions? As Sheldon mentioned, you have a strong balance sheet, $640 million undrawn on your line of credit. Is that kind of like is that sufficient? What type of size? Does that speak to the size of these opportunities that you might be looking at?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, Cos, it's an important and sort of evergreen question. I know some investors look at a high gold price environment, and they kind of get confused by it because they say, "That must mean that there's a fire hose of capital available to gold miners. And clearly, there's not a lot of business therefore for streaming and royalty companies to do." And that's really not the reality. I think if you consider that nearly 70% of our ounces come from polymetallics, that's not by accident. I think those sorts of transactions are very symbiotic, as we've discussed before. We are seeing a lot of activity of that nature. We had a board meeting yesterday, and I think we've highlighted there that I think it's fair to say it's probably the busiest deal pipeline we've seen in our eight-year existence.
A number of those, we've got some smaller transactions that are nice tuck-ins at decent rates of return where we were exclusive on. That doesn't mean we'll conclude them, but I think we've got a good line of sight on those. Then there are larger ones out there, which really are substantial in size, many, many $ hundreds of millions. You can hear from Sheldon's comments that we have ample firepower, but I think part of our consideration is not only the fit for the portfolio as shareholders, but very much what does the portfolio mix look like? So I think the bulk of what we're looking at, we can easily cover with our existing financing. There are some where we would perhaps look to syndicate just purely from a portfolio mix if indeed it went that route.
My feeling at this stage is that just given this macro environment, we're seeing really good deal flow activity. I don't believe it's an anomaly. I suspect in this environment with rates seemingly being the way they are for some time to come, I think it's a particularly good outlook for deal flow for us. Sheldon, is there anything you'd wish to add to that?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
No, I think that covers it quite well, Shaun.
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
And then, Shaun, maybe one last question. Going through your income statement, I saw that there was an expected credit loss of $6.851 million as a charge. You kind of touched on it. There's some operators that have had some financial issues. I'm just trying to look for more details on it, and what are they related to?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, Cos, I'll ask Sheldon to comment, but I want to preface this a little by saying I think an organization that is only looking at your things is not. We've got to balance risk and reward. And the whole focus here for us is staying true to the model, which I think we've demonstrated over years, and managing a portfolio. The numbers you're mentioning in particular are one of over 140 assets we acquired during the Maverix transaction that we knew was problematic at the time. We're very happy with that transaction. We've announced Kensington. I think we delivered our synergies, and it's gone quite well. But this is one of the examples we've been working with the management team to try and support them while really focusing on value.
You'll see, I think, with our track record as well, we've not dallied with the idea of providing a lot of additional equity and other kind of financing. We really have stayed true to our model. But occasionally, as part of the portfolio management, we do have impacts like that. And we're very clear. I mean, you would have seen in the last period with I think we took a charge at the end of the Renard experience. And at that one, we've just, for example, done a write-back. We tend to try and err on the side of conservatism. But Sheldon, do you want to pick it up?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Shaun. And thanks, Cos. Cos, that relates, as Shaun alluded to, to an expected credit loss that we recorded for reflecting our investment in the Moss Mine. And it's run by Elevation Gold. Basically, Elevation has been quite public that they've experienced some cash flow difficulties and that they're actually looking at different alternatives. At the end of the day, it's a producing gold mine in the United States, a fantastic gold price environment. But they've been a little tight on cash flow as they've ramped up the new pad. We just wanted to be conservative. We wanted to take this allowance. We'll see how their process plays out. I can't really speak too much for that, but we continue to monitor it quite closely. And I will add that we're in first secured position on everything there.
We just wanted to be conservative and take this expected credit loss and see how this matter plays out.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Cos, I think the last thing, just for materialities and context for some of the audience on the call, we're talking about one of our 234 assets that is the NAV, I believe consensus NAV, is in the teens. So given a $3 billion U.S. market cap right now, that hopefully is useful context.
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
To confirm, Shaun and Sheldon, so I guess the stream and also the royalty and the promissory notes, they're all secured on the assets of Moss or Elevation Gold. You do have a right to recover your investment, but you are just trying to be conservative.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah, yeah, that's right, Cos. We're first secured on that. The stream, again, it's a silver stream on a gold-silver project in the United States. But when we look at the total burden on the property, we think that the credit loss is just the prudent way to go. And so we've taken that, and we try to be quite upfront about that.
Cosmos Chiu (Managing Director and Director of Precious Metals Equity Research)
Yeah. I understand your point, Shaun, about materiality. For sure. Those are all my questions. Thanks once again.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Thanks, Cos. Great questions.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Greg Barnes with TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Greg Barnes (Managing Director and Head of Mining Research)
Yeah, thank you. Shaun, can you talk a little bit about what the grade profile does look like at Northparkes for the rest of 2024? And you said higher grade in 2025 and 2026. Just give us some idea of what we should be looking at there.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Morning, Greg. I'm going to ask James just to comment within what's disclosed extension, I guess.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah, so as discussed, the E31 South and North, they're continuing to ramp up. We should see that continue into Q2 and level off for Q3 and Q4. And then this itself will start to continue into 2025 and then start to ramp down going into the fourth quarter of 2025. And then after that, then it's E22, which we're waiting for that study to be released. And then that'll be the next higher grade zone once that's constructed.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
And Greg, you may recall we've shared some of the grades, like E22 from memory, with something like 0.39 g/tonne. So that really was. You could sort of think of that when that becomes the mainstay of the mine plan as really being at the sort of levels we expect to see this year continuing for many years beyond. I think this year, for some, may have been a show-me for Northparkes. I think hopefully this quarter is a helpful indicator of what we've been talking about for gold generation from the asset.
Greg Barnes (Managing Director and Head of Mining Research)
Okay. James, you broke up a little bit. I couldn't really hear what's happening in Q2 and Q3. I think that was this year.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Oh, so sorry. Q2, expecting GEOs to increase again as well as into Q3 and then leveling off and then going into 2025 before ramping down kind of later in that year for the pits and the higher grade material.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Did you get that, Greg?
Greg Barnes (Managing Director and Head of Mining Research)
So higher GEOs in Q2 and Q3, then flatlining of that level in Q4, I think, for 2024. And then 2025, what would be?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Sort of continuing on. And yeah, I think the only thing on that is, as you'd appreciate it, we get like, I don't know, was it 13 deliveries roughly? They're fairly lumpy during the year. So there are shoulder phenomena that we do get with this. We try to factor that into our guidance. So you need to see through that as you think about the year versus the quarter.
Greg Barnes (Managing Director and Head of Mining Research)
Gotcha. Thank you.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Thanks, Greg. Anything else?
Greg Barnes (Managing Director and Head of Mining Research)
Nope, nope. That's it from me.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes on the line of Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hello, is that me?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Tanya, I think it was. Yeah, good morning.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. All right. Good morning. I just didn't know who that was, so. Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats on a good quarter. I'm just going to follow up on Greg's question. Is Northparkes the only asset within your portfolio that is looking to have this stronger performance and everything else is relatively equal? I'm just trying to see if there's any other assets that I should think about as a stronger second half.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
No, Tanya, I think that's a good way to look at it. I think it's something we've made no bones about is we don't just take the aggregation of the public guidance of the operating assets in our portfolio and sort of put those out there. Our guidance is sort of handicapped accordingly. And I think we telegraphed quite well in advance last year that we were expecting this sort of growth to come from E31 and from Northparkes this year. So it's a meaningful catalyst from a very well-established multi-decade-long mine, which I think should be well celebrated and recognized. And then the growth is not coming from Hail Mary stuff. We're waiting to come in later and just to beat the dead horse on this. But I think that is the beauty of the portfolio effect on this, again, is little things like Kensington.
We have over 200 of these things at some different time horizons that are not captured in our guidance. We do expect some acquisitions to also represent good growth for our investors. But I think the way you and Greg are thinking about it is exactly right.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. Thank you. And then, Sheldon, can you remind me just the book value of Moss and Pumpkin Hollow, the two ones that are with not-so-strong operators?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. So Tanya, Moss, the stream has a book value of just under it's around $18-$19 million. Pumpkin Hollow, the stream has a book value of $85 million.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. And then how should I think of just this cash flow that you're generating? How should I think about your balance between paying off your debt, your share buyback, and potentially growing your dividend? Maybe that's over to you, Shaun, for that one.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Actually, I'll give Sheldon that mic. He marinates in it pretty much every day.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
All right. Sheldon, over to you.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. Yeah. So Tanya, I'll maybe start with the first, I think, and best use of our cash flow is accretive transactions for shareholders. And as you know, we're always looking at things and hoping to deploy. And right now, we're well-positioned for that. The dividend, we've increased that every year since we've been public. I would expect that to continue probably at a similar pace, but we'll wait for further in the year for any sort of update on that. As you get cash flow and you have net debt, it's really simple. You just pay down your net debt. But we're quite comfortable drawing on our revolver to make acquisitions and to add value to shareholders that way. We don't like share dilution. So we'd love to use the revolver strategically and then pay down over time.
NCIB, we've been quite active over time, and we've continued to use that to view that opportunistically. Again, it's returning capital to shareholder, and our feedback from shareholders has been positive on that front.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. And then maybe, Shaun, to you, just on Cosmos's question on the M&A environment, transaction environment. So did I understand correctly the larger transactions, the $500 million+ that are spoken about out there? And there's a couple. I heard three, four, maybe even five in that sort of range. Are you looking at those in terms of your ability to do them only ex-syndicated, or would you also look at doing those on your own?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
No, so it's a great question. I think, firstly, I was looking at some of the transcripts of Franco's calls. They've telegraphed it. And I think you may have covered the question at the time. And I think what we're seeing is very, very similar to, I think, what was articulated there. So there's always development stuff. You've got to be very discerning how much of that exposure you want. But I think for the first time, and perhaps since our existence, we are seeing these sort of $500 million+ or thereabouts type transactions reemerging that I think we last saw in sort of 2014, 2015. I think the one thing that's different, which we've sort of highlighted with our board, if you take yourself back to that time and you remember we did one of these at Barrick when I was their CFO, rates were close to zero.
Commodity prices, or at least gold prices, were at nearly cyclical lows for quite some time. We are not in that same space. We're spending a lot of time thinking through the risk-reward and portfolio fit. I'd say with a couple that we are active on, we are comfortable that the check size is one that we would easily finance. These are cash-generating assets, so it actually adds to our funding capacity, and we wouldn't be overleveraged. The other one is one where it's not clear whether or not it's just a thing on cost of capital and fit or indeed they would want to go for size. I believe we're more than covered. If not, we may be a syndicate member. What we won't do is pursue growth for growth's sake. None of these are must-dos for us at all.
I mean, you can see our growth that we have in the existing portfolio. This is purely a question of, does it fit with our strategy, and will it add value over time?
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. So from that, should I be thinking that sort of these larger ones would be ones that likely could be syndicated, and you would participate in that, but the majority of what you're looking at would be sub-$500 million? Would that be a fair way of thinking about it?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, I think that's a reasonable way of looking at it. It's hard when we're talking in generalities. The specifics are so different in each of these cases, each with their sort of real benefits and complexities, as you'd expect. So it's really hard for me to comment any further. But I think at the size we're at and with what we have and I think what we've demonstrated remember, we did Northparkes at $550 million a few years ago. At the time, that was the largest just pure precious streaming deal in the space, I think, still to this day. We're starting to see these larger things come out. So if a Northparkes emerged tomorrow, I think we'd easily cover that off. But yeah. So hopefully, that gives you a flavor, Tanya.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
All right. I gathered +500 you could do on your own as well. All right.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah. Okay. No, I think that's it from my side. Thank you.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Sorry, maybe just a nuance on this. If this was that sort of check size, and you were funding something which had a ramp associated and cash flow many years out, that's a very different prospect to an operating asset with maybe some substantial immediate cash flow that type of thing.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
That's what I was going to ask. That they would be a producing.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. There's a bunch of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty interesting environment.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah. I would assume that the smaller ones would be further out, non-producing development type.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
No, no. Actually, no, that's not the case. I hope to give you some news in the months ahead. But no, we're seeing this environment is not super supportive of single-asset producers, private businesses, and others. I think even though we've perhaps seen a bit of a reduction in some of the inflation and margin compression that the sector's experienced, I think there's a lot of guys out there who are looking at their equity and saying, "What happened? Gold's had a run, and we've been left behind." So I think we are seeing some really decent better return, good optionality, smaller opportunities that are just great tuck-ins. And yeah, we're active on some of those too.
Tanya Jakusconek (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. Good. Look forward to seeing more. Thank you.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Thanks, Tanya.
Operator (participant)
Next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder with BofA Securities. Please go ahead.
Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you, operator. And good morning, Shaun and team. Thanks for taking the question and for the presentation today. I'd like to ask about Pumpkin Hollow and two points on that. I mean, one, obviously, I mean, I think they require some more financing and wanted to understand whether or not Triple Flag would consider applying additional capital to that situation. And I think in the context of you guys still believing in the asset longer term - correct me if I'm wrong - and then longer term, I mean, when should we kind of think about putting some production from that asset into our model, particularly vis-à-vis your long-term guidance?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Listen, yeah, as you know, this has been an asset that has been on our growth outlook for some time. It's one of our five larger projects that we were funding into production. And I'd say it's been quite notable, and it sort of struggles with inflation and liquidity from time to time. So to your point, we last supported this in 2023, a couple of years ago, really with the royalty and some funding that was secured in line with our model. I don't see a scenario here where we look to continue to add to the burden, if you will, of the asset and to continue to fund us through. We will focus on if we do any capital, it'd be small in this scenario where they don't secure the funding they need. And really, it's just really to optimize value from our perspective.
I think there's nearly $1 billion of sunk capital on a copper asset in a permitted situation with a fully developed underground mine and a shovel-ready open pit. I think it's an intrinsically valuable situation. So I can't tell you sitting here today whether the party or parties that they're engaged with, which would provide that remaining capital and continue to grow the asset, will come to fruition. I guess what we really wanted to communicate was update you on that and just make it clear that what our situation, our ranking would be, depending which fork in the road this was to go down. But you shouldn't expect us to be like a big equity check to get this into production or something. Sheldon, I don't know if there's anything you'd add.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Shaun. Thanks, Lawson. Yeah. So Nevada Copper, they've disclosed that they're in discussions with another party and that they need more capital. So I think everyone knows that. We certainly do believe in the asset, copper, United States, all the sunk capital, all those reasons. But that said, we're not operators. We have no desire to be operators. So we're not going to be the source of the funding to bring this into production. And we just, we've probably invested our piece. And as Shaun said, we don't want to add to the burden there. So hopefully, that gives you the direction that you need.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Listen, I think the last thing I know I look forward to hearing more at your conference next week. But I think it's probably the best copper backdrop I can remember in some time. So you would think if they could solve the liquidity situations and you've got a levered asset in this backdrop in the United States, that should be good, right?
Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah. Makes sense to me. And I appreciate the clarity. It's very helpful. Could I also just ask on your thinking around corporate M&A? Obviously, your last experience, I mean, at least in my view, I think was very successful. Are you still looking at that as an avenue for growth going forward? And do you see opportunity in the current environment?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. Look, I think to your point, it's I spent the large part of my career in companies like Xstrata that really grew substantially through M&A. I worked on the BHP Billiton merger, for example. And the power of people not falling in love with their assets because I think everybody likes to they know more about their businesses than others. They always think that their children is smarter and better-looking than everyone else's. But if you just focus on value, I think at any given time, you have a very good line of sight, and you should be focusing, as we all do, on the organic pipeline, your ability to transact. But if you go back to your point to Maverix, we'd just come through an environment of a couple of years where we'd normally do $ a few hundred million a year.
We saw billions get deployed in mostly development-stage assets with very low returns versus an M&A transaction that was accretive, made sense for both sets of shareholders, struck at a low premium that really delivered synergies and made value. I don't know why that isn't an obvious thing more for the sector. So directly to your question, yes, we're always looking at the universe of the possible. There's only so many toys to play with. And just to reiterate the obvious, I'm very happy as a shareholder, whether that means we're an acquirer or an acquiree. But I think usually, the social barriers are the largest to consolidation in the sector. I do think that the investor scale requirements these days for it to be relevant are higher, notably higher than when we started our company in 2016.
So I think that's a factor that should be a feature in every boardroom and every management team. And I think when we look at the sort of menu of possibilities, very small things we tend to struggle with. Like Maverix, if you recall, had a lot of assets. But more than half the NAV that we acquired came from 14 assets. There was over 100, as you recall, which were generating cash. A lot of the really small stuff, there's a lot of NAV which is quite long-dated. And we often struggle to see our path to value there, even though on a P-NAV basis, they might seem well discounted. And then, yeah, whether it's intermediates or seniors, if there's sensible things to do, we're always open to them. But yeah, there's barriers there. So probably more than you wanted to hear, but hopefully, that gives you a sense.
We're always open for business if there's business to be done.
Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
There's never too little. Let's put it that way. Thank you very much for those comments, Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
No worries. Thanks, Listen. See you next week.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. We've heard a number of people talk about these big deals potentially out there of $500 million+ and refer back to the last cycle where it was all for debt restructuring. When people talk numbers of $500 million, can I assume those are true streaming deals, meaning they're not like, say, $300 million of streaming, and you're putting $300 million of equity in or something? Because as you've mentioned, these deals are getting more hybrid, more complicated in the sector. I'm just trying to figure out to make sure that these are what I would call true streaming lower-risk deals as opposed to complicated financing transactions.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, Brian, good to hear from you. It's a really good question. It's funny. I'd say a year or so ago, I started getting questions from investors at conferences and elsewhere about, "Is Triple Flag going to start doing more hybrid deals?" because we've seen some larger guys do it. And we've seen the private guys like Orion do that very successfully. I believe it concentrates risk, and it violates the model. So it was very clear that we're not going to engage in doing that, and we haven't. So don't expect anything along those lines from us. And directly to your question, no, these are streaming deals. It isn't, "Hey, boy, have we got a deal for you? Here's $500 million." But as you say, $300 million of that is a stream, and you're going to lob in a $200 million equity check. So no, they're streaming deals.
I think in many cases, it is stuff that just represents, at a moment in time, perhaps a better alternative on cost of funding, either balance sheet repair, improving liquidity, or things of that nature. It's just hard to think about it.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
Thank you. That's very clear, also, what I wanted to hear. Second question, just a different vein a little bit. Can you just go through the rationale at ATO and Steppe? I mean, again, we do another prepaid, which is another type of financing. Again, is that just they're ramping up? Is it the seasonal working capital you're doing this for? Or I assume this is nothing like elevation or anything else, to be clear for everybody. But if you could just give a little bit of rationale for that.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. I'll ask Shaun to expand on this. But I think the important thing is, from time to time, we have assisted where the capital markets for these guys are brutal. And we've done this once or twice with Steppe where we've made a good return on our money. It was very helpful financing for them. Yeah. And that's a partnership, as you call it, goes back I think it was our second transaction. So these guys, we've helped them IPO. We've helped them deliver successfully. They've got this transaction now. They need some bridge funding. We're happy to assist. It's a decent return. And it's a team that I think is demonstrating some ambition and growth and a very strong Mongolian champion. But Sheldon, what would you add to that?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Shaun. Thanks, Brian. Yeah. So Steppe, it's actually a pretty impressive story if you see what they've accomplished over the years. They're a relatively small company, and they managed to find financing, a significant amount of financing for Phase 2. We benefit from that, which is fantastic. It was a bit of a heavy lift for them. Q1 is often a harder quarter for them just due to the Mongolian winter. And this particular winter in Mongolia was particularly hard. And they basically asked us for some funding to help them out there. We were happy to give that because we could see the value there. And actually, since we did that prepay with Steppe, the Boroo transaction got announced. And that's actually a real game-changer for them.
It's going to really give them some really good, robust cash flows that marry up quite well with the development project they have with the Phase 2 expansion. The rates of return were obviously attractive for us. Quite frankly, got a little lucky on the gold price timing. And that's just the way it worked out.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
And sorry, that was going to be my second question. But this was kind of independent of the Boroo transaction, right? It was just a seasonal thing you were helping them get through? Or I mean, in a sense, I don't think of it as funding that transaction or anything.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
No. It's not funding that transaction. It's independent.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I meant. And maybe my third question under the category of hidden assets or I don't know if it's hidden or not. But you obviously highlighted some good value in Kensington, which had been worked on for a year. Is there any possibility of getting any value out of Omolon? Is anything happening there anymore? Or is that just totally very difficult?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Look, it's a great question. I mean, we've got a contractual entitlement. But as you know, we've written that down. We did that on the announcement of the transaction. We made it clear that we are not guiding investors to expect anything. But we do have a contractual entitlement that perhaps in the future could have some value. I just wouldn't want to raise any expectations to that effect. I think it's just one of those bags of things that perhaps in the future could unlock some value for shareholders. Yeah. Sheldon.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
Fair enough. Thanks.
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah. And just when we bought Maverix, we ascribed zero value to Omolon. So there was no write-down associated with that. We just ascribed zero value to it. And we did that transaction after the Ukrainian war had started. So we kind of had some good visibility there. And like Shaun said, I mean, we have a contractual entitlement. It's a great ore body. We like to mine. But obviously, the Russia factor means we're putting zero value on it right now. And I wouldn't encourage anyone to put any value on it right now. History is long, and times may change. But I wouldn't put anything on it right now.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah.
Brian MacArthur (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks for answering all my questions.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
No. Thanks, Brian.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of John Tumazos. Please go ahead.
John Tumazos (Managing Director, Principal, and Director of Research)
Good morning. Some of your assets are smaller companies. Well, I apologize. I might not be current. What percentage complete is Pumpkin Hollow? Or how much money do they need to complete the project?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Hey, John. I'll ask Sheldon to comment on that one for us. Yeah, Sheldon, what would you like to say?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
Yeah, John, it's pretty difficult for us to give that figure because that's obviously Nevada Copper's bailiwick. I don't think they put that number out in the public domain. And we just don't have the freedom of maneuver to give that figure.
John Tumazos (Managing Director, Principal, and Director of Research)
Concerning some of your non-producing properties that are making progress, how many years out or what year or range of years do you think might be first revenue in Hope Bay, South Railroad, Tamarack, or Fenn-Gib?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. John, I think it was in our prior corporate updates that we had at the conferences. We've tried to provide some sense of a five and ten-year window for those sort of smaller royalties that we touch on. You would see that the 140,000 GEO, bearing in mind last year was, what, 105? We're guiding 105-150 this year. And then that 140 average on the five-year really is focused on mostly the producing assets with very limited contribution from any of these smaller things. So you've got that bucket of nearly 200. I think, to your point, we've got some opportunity, I think, in the periods ahead to look a little bit more at the advance and be able to draw some attention from an investor point of view at those subsets.
I think things like Kensington is an example where none of these are massive in their own right. But as a collective, these are things that I think can actually add over time to some meaningful GEOs and outperformance. And to your point on Hope Bay, it's been interesting. I was on an investor conference in Zurich recently. Ammar was talking about the significant progress they're making there. I know they're talking about perhaps 300,000-400,000 ounces a year. And they're getting some good exploration results there. So our hope is, certainly before the end of this decade, they're the right operator in that location. They're clearly investing significant money and time. And we've got a pretty meaningful royalty on there. So I think in that sort of timeframe, we'd hope to see good contributions starting to come from that. Sheldon, anything you'd add or?
Sheldon Vanderkooy (CFO)
No. I think that covers it really well, Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah. John, I think, to your point, it's a good nudge for us to also focus beyond because we've always tried to focus on growth, risk, and optionality. I think we've done a bit to highlight some of that optionality. I know there's a lot of guys dining out on that. But I think we need to do more to probably showcase more of that opportunity for investors.
John Tumazos (Managing Director, Principal, and Director of Research)
Concerning Agbaou, Koné, and Enchi Africa, do those operators have a target date for production? And are they in your longer-term five-year forecast?
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yes, they do. And we have included. You wouldn't think of them as being massive GEOs contributors. But we've gone on their public guidance as we thought about it. And again, I'll draw your attention to. It's on our website. We've got a short summary of a couple of those royalties. And that's both in the five-year and in the sort of ten-year timeframe.
John Tumazos (Managing Director, Principal, and Director of Research)
Thank you.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Thanks, John.
Operator (participant)
Yeah. No further question at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Shaun.
Shaun Usmar (CEO)
Yeah, Jericho, thank you. And thanks, everyone. There's a great collection of questions. Look, I'll just end by saying thank you to our partners and our team. It's great to start off with the record quarter, a very well, I think our busiest deal pipeline, and a pretty handy commodity price backdrop for this company. So we just turned eight. It's been an exciting eight years, a good start to 2024. And I'm really excited to see what lies in store for us for the remainder of this year. So with that, all the best for the rest of your day. We're off to our AGM. And thanks so much.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.