Gold Royalty Reports Q2 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Gold Royalty (AMEX: GROY ) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. Below is the complete transcript from the call. This transcript is brought to you APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit for a consultation.

6 million for the first half of 2026. The company remains optimistic about its organic growth, maintaining a full-year production guidance of 7,500 to 9,300 gold equivalent ounces (GEOs), and expects significant growth in production and financial results over the next five years. 3 million in cash, no debt, and a fully undrawn $150 million credit facility, allowing for potential growth through acquisitions and organic development. Key strategic initiatives include acquiring additional royalties on Barrick's REN project and two Nevada royalties, continuing a disciplined approach to value-enhancing transactions.

Management highlighted the company's insulation from cost inflation due to its royalty model, providing strong margins compared to peers and a positive outlook for gold prices as a store of value. Full Transcript OPERATOR Welcome to the Gold Royalty Corp Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero.

After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Garofalo, Chair and CEO. Please go ahead.

David Garofalo, Chairman & CEO Thank you, Operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in today's call to review our second quarter 2026 results. Please note for those not currently on the webcast, a presentation accompanying this conference call is available on the presentations page of our website. Some of the commentary in today's call will include forward-looking statements and I would direct everyone to review slide 2 of the presentation, which includes important cautionary notes.

All dollar values in today's call are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Speaking alongside me this morning will be our President, John Griffith, Andrew Gubbels, Chief Financial Officer, and Jackie Przybolowski, Vice President, Capital Markets and Sustainability. For the first quarter in several years the gold price was down, falling by 13% or nearly $600 per ounce in the second quarter of 2026. However, to put this price movement in the proper perspective, the commodity was still up strongly year over year by nearly 18% or over $700 per ounce, reflecting the risk-off sentiment that has prevailed in our sector since the onset of the Iran war.

Gold mining equities levered to gold fared even worse than the commodity price. The GDX and the GDXJ, VanEck Gold Miners and Junior Gold Miners ETFs, each fell 18% in the second quarter and Gold Royalty, as a small-cap and illiquid stock which has outperformed our peers through 2025, was down 23%. This downward movement in the gold price, equities, and in our share price in particular are severely overdone and reflect neither the fundamentals of the commodity nor those of the robust and accelerating growth of Gold Royalty's business. All the key drivers for gold remain in place.

Continued government fiscal deficits, elevated government spending and persistent inflationary pressures have the potential to further erode the purchasing power of the US dollar and other fiat currencies. In this environment, we believe gold remains well positioned as a store of value and is expected to be driven vastly higher from increased investor and central bank demand. Improved outlook for gold and the growth Gold Royalty is experiencing from our world-class portfolio will act as a tailwind for gold equities and in particular for our share price. Unlike the gold miners, we have no inflationary pressures weighing on our operating margins.

The increasing costs for oil, fuel and other petroleum-derived products such as explosives which have impacted operations this year will continue to be fully borne by our operating partners, allowing our shareholders to enjoy unmitigated leverage to the gold price. One of the great features of our royalty model is that we are insulated from most sources of cost inflation. NSR royalties are royalties on revenues and are not impacted by mine site operating costs, nor do they have fixed or variable payments back to the operators. And nearly all of our royalties are NSR royalties which gives us strong margins even compared with our royalty and streaming peers.

The data in slide 5 show our strong operating margins versus peers and we note that our margins continue to improve as we continue to realize our peer-leading revenue growth over the next few years. To be clear, our operating costs are essentially fixed. Every dollar of revenue growth has and will continue to fall right to the bottom line. Our operating margin is projected to continue to grow over the ensuing quarters and years.

Our portfolio, which is weighted at 92% gold, is highly leveraged to gold prices and is poised to benefit from the expected improved outlook for gold that we've already discussed. With strong growth in all key production and financial results expected over the next five years and peer-leading trading liquidity, we are poised to outperform both gold producer equities and our royalty peers. Turning to the results for the quarter, the second quarter was another strong one for Gold Royalty. 6 million.

As Andrew will go through in more detail in a few moments, we also continue to be very optimistic about our outlook for organic growth for the second half of 2026, as Jackie will discuss shortly, and remain on track to meet our previously disclosed full-year production guidance of 7,500 to 9,300 GEOs. John will also lead you through the steady progress we are making in business development, as we added a second royalty on Barrick's REN project in June and two additional royalties subsequent to quarter-end to complement the consistent creation of cost-free royalties from our royalty generator model.

These are in addition to two major acquisitions completed since late last year of the Pedra Branca and additional Borba Raymo royalties. As a reminder, we published our updated Integrated Report, a combined Asset Handbook and Sustainability Report. com. We also hosted Gold Royalty's annual Capital Markets Day in the second quarter where we discussed in detail our exciting organic growth, already fully bought and paid for, our continued disciplined approach to accretive growth and the high quality of assets in our portfolio.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about our royalty generator model, Jerry Baughman took a deep dive into the royalty generator model and the opportunities we're seeing, and we were joined by representatives of Corex, DPM and Orla to review some of the most exciting assets in our portfolio. A replay of the June 18 event can be found in the Investors and Events section of our website. I'll now pass the call over to our CFO, Andrew Gubbels, to discuss the financial results for the quarter and the year to date. Andrew Gubbels, Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Dave.

As Dave mentioned, we're pleased to report new records for revenue and adjusted EBITDA in the first half 2026. 9 million, translating to 1,757 GEOs in the quarter. 4 million in the comparable quarter in 2025. Our balance sheet also remains strong.

3 million of cash, no debt and a fully undrawn $150 million credit facility. As we continue to generate cash, our portfolio is expected to generate consistent positive free cash flow, positioning Gold Royalty well to self-fund its business going forward. With a clean balance sheet, we now have the flexibility to execute our long-term strategy. Our current intent is to maintain a modest cash balance and to allocate additional cash generated from operations towards growth opportunities where appropriate.

As our cash flows continue to grow, a capital return policy is actively being considered by our Board of Directors and will be announced in due course. I will now pass the call to John Griffith to review our recent growth transactions. John Griffith, President Thanks, Andrew. We have balance sheet and undrawn borrowing capacity to make meaningful acquisitions, potentially as large as 200 million and larger in partnership with Taurus under our cooperation agreement.

Competition for larger transactions, especially with near-term cash flow prospects in good jurisdictions and with great operators, has been robust, negatively impacting implied returns. It is with this backdrop that we've remained disciplined in our pursuits of value-enhancing accretive transactions. That is not to suggest the potential pipeline is not robust. We continue to pursue a significant number of exciting opportunities and we maintain a deep pipeline of potential transactions to drive growth beyond our already peer-leading organic growth.

We continue to be active on smaller transactions as well. In June and July we made two separate acquisitions. 1875% NSR royalty on the REN project operated by Barrick and jointly owned by Barrick and Newmont under the Nevada Gold Mines Joint Venture. 5% NPI royalties that we already hold.

Barrick continues to expect that REN will achieve first production by year-end and will ramp up to its full 140,000 ounces per year production run rate by 2027 year-end. The second transaction was announced subsequent to the end of the second quarter. 5% NSR on portions of Granite Creek operated by i-80 Gold. This Granite Creek royalty covers portions of the Felix and Bluebell pits.

Neither Felix nor Bluebell are included in the proposed mine sequence over the initially envisaged eight-and-a-half year mine life at the Granite Creek open pit as per the March 2025 43-101 PEA study. But these deposits do represent large longer-term optionality to us. I'll now pass the call to Jackie Przybolowski to review our guidance and key catalysts underpinning our peer-leading organic growth. Jackie Przybolowski, Vice President, Capital Markets and Sustainability Thanks, John.

Looking at our portfolio in more detail, as David noted, we reported 1,757 gold equivalent ounces in the second quarter 2026 and 3,677 GEOs in the first half, or 44% of the midpoint of our guidance range of 7,500 to 9,300 GEOs in 2026. We're already very encouraged with this result because it's better than the 40% first-half weighting that we were expecting for this year. We continue to expect that volumes will be more heavily weighted to the second half of the year as Vars and County Line ramp up to their full production run rates through the year and as we could see production growth at Borden, Côté and Pedra Branca.

Finally, while it's not factored into our guidance, the rock mass movement at the Canadian Malartic Barnat Pit could bring forward processing and sale of stockpiled material under our royalty coverage. Just a quick reminder that our 2026 guidance was set at $5,150 per ounce gold price assumption for the full year. Lower gold prices would work in our favor as conversion of the land agreement proceeds and interest and conversion of revenue from copper and other metals would translate to higher GEO values. Please see our March 18, 2026 press release for a table showing the sensitivity of our guidance to gold prices.

And reiterating John's comment from earlier, Gold Royalty expects production to grow to 28 to 34,000 GEOs by 2030, or approximately six times our actual 2025 result, from assets that are already fully bought and paid for in our portfolio. Our extensive portfolio continues to offer exciting news flow and catalysts and we have a number of exciting asset updates in our earnings report. I'll just highlight a few on this call that we're expecting in the second half. First, DPM has restarted the Varus mine, on which we have a stream on all copper produced.

The operator expects to achieve commercial production by the end of September and full production run rate by year-end 2026. Second, first production at REN, jointly owned by Barrick and Newmont, is expected by year-end. Third, Equinox Gold continues to plan to start construction on South Railroad in mid-2026 pending receipt of final permits. The mine could be in production in late 2027 or early 2028.

44% NSR on South Railroad. 4 million tons per year is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year. An updated mine plan to reflect the integration of IAMGOLD's Côté and Gosselin zones at Côté in Q4 2026. While we don't have any exposure to Gosselin in our royalty coverage, pushback of the Côté Pit wall to accommodate a Super Pit design could add additional material from our Zones 5 and 7 coverage into the mine plan.

A feasibility study for i-80 Gold's Granite Creek underground is expected in the third quarter of this year. A pre-feasibility study by First Majestic Silver on a Jerritt Canyon restart is expected to be completed in Q4. And finally, shaft number two technical evaluation at Canadian Malartic's Odyssey project is to be completed by Agnico Eagle also in the fourth quarter of this year. Please see our earnings release for additional asset updates.

With over 250 assets in our portfolio, we continue to expect a steady stream of exciting positive news flow. I'll pass the floor back to Dave for closing remarks. David Garofalo, Chairman & CEO Thank you, Jackie. There's indeed lots to get excited about as you look across our portfolio and the various high-quality assets ramping up and entering production.

We continue to see compelling upside to our share price as our portfolio assets continue to develop. As the market gives us credit for this organic growth, our valuation could be further boosted by accretive growth. But we emphasize that we will remain patient and disciplined as we consider any acquisitions. As we review our capital allocation options going forward, we continue to prioritize accretive growth as always.

However, as we continue to build cash, we view a modest capital return as a signal to the market that we will remain disciplined on our growth and that we have matured as a company. We reached first positive free cash flow in mid-2025 and we expect to continue to strengthen our balance sheet with higher GEO volumes, stronger gold prices and lower costs as we've eliminated interest costs and we continue to rationalize our G&A. Thank you everyone for tuning in to the earnings call. We'll now open up the call to Q&A.

OPERATOR We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw the question, please press star then two.

At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

C. Wainwright Hi David, it's Case, stepping in for Heiko. Congrats on the successful quarter and for taking our questions. David Garofalo, Chairman & CEO Thank you.

C. Wainwright So, first question. You still have a fairly wide range in your guidance, 7,500 and 9,300 GEOs for the year. I assume we're going to see this range narrowed with the next quarter.

And building on that, which assets are you watching the most? And in turn, I guess, which one should we be watching the most that could get you to either end of the guidance range. David Garofalo, Chairman & CEO Well, thanks for the question. I'll pass it on to Jackie to address.

Jackie Przybolowski, Vice President, Capital Markets and Sustainability Yeah, thanks, Dave. Thanks, Case. Good to hear from you. We've kept the guidance range as is.

I think there's still a lot of time left in the year, I'll say, and a lot of things can happen. One thing that we're definitely watching for would be the ramp-up of certain assets that are starting production. Varus is probably the best example. That's probably the most meaningful example.

DPM, since it's taken over the operation of Varus, has done a tremendous job and so we're very optimistic that Varus could meet or exceed the guidance that DPM has given. In addition, because that's a copper stream, it will also have an impact from the commodity prices, the relative commodity prices, when we're calculating gold equivalent ounces.