Royal Gold, Inc.

hello everyone and welcome to the royal gold inc 2023 full year and fourth quarter conference call my name is emily and i'll be facilitating your call today after the presentation there will be the opportunity for any questions which you can ask by pressing start followed by the number one on your telephone keypad i'll now turn the call over to our host alistair baker vice president of investor relations and business development please go ahead alistair

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to our discussion of Royal Gold's fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. This event is being webcast live and you will be able to access a replay of this call on our website. Speaking on the call today are Bill Heisenbottle, President and CEO, Martin Raffield, Vice President of Operations, and Paul Libner, CFO and Treasurer. Randy Sheffman, General Counsel, and Dan Breeze, Vice President Corporate Development of RGAG, are also available for questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, including statements about our projections and expectations for the future. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in yesterday's press release and our filings with the SEC. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted net income per share, cash G&A, adjusted EBITDA, and net debt. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable gap measures are available in yesterday's press release, which can be found on our website. So we'll start with an overview of 2023 results. Martin will give some commentary on the portfolio, and Paul will wrap up with a financial summary of the quarter. After the formal remarks, we'll open the lines for a Q&A session.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the call. I'll begin on slide four. During 2023, we delivered revenue of $606 million, operating cash flow of $416 million, and earnings of $239 million, or $3.63 per share. And after adjustments, earnings were $3.53 per share. Our gold equivalent ounces, or GEOs, were slightly below our guidance range, as we indicated might occur during our third quarter conference call. And Martin will give you some more details a bit later. While inflation pressures have eased from their peak, operating companies are still seeing cost inflation and margin erosion. Without direct exposure to operating and capital costs, we are protected from inflation pressure and margin compression, and we maintained our strong adjusted EBITDA margin of 79%. We paid approximately $100 million in dividends in keeping with our commitment to return capital to shareholders, and we raised our dividend again by 7%. This is the 23rd consecutive annual increase to our dividend, which is an unmatched record in the precious metals sector. We also maintained our focus on the balance sheet and repaid $325 million outstanding on a revolving credit facility during the year. After an active year of acquisitions in 2022, we started the year with a revolver balance of $575 million. And we've quickly reduced that to $250 million increasing our total available liquidity at the end of the year to about $845 million. This is in keeping with our capital allocation strategy to use non-dilutive financing to acquire high quality assets. And we maintained our low share count during the year to ensure that shareholders have full exposure to our growth. Finally, we announced an agreement yesterday with Sentara to provide future cost support to the Mount Milligan mine that will allow an extension of the mine life to 2035 and potentially further into the future. The details are in our press release, but in summary, we will receive cash and gold consideration in the near and medium term with a value of approximately $125 million at the current gold price and a longer term free cash flow interest in Mount Milligan. In return, we'll make additional cash payments for gold and copper delivered with any support provided prior to approximately 2030 contingent upon Gold and copper prices being below $1,600 per ounce and $3.50 per pound respectively. These earlier payments are also subject to potential recovery against cost support payments made beyond 2030 when metal prices permit. This is a good development for both Royal Gold and Sentara as it should allow for further value to be realized through mine life extension. Mount Milligan has a large resource base and exploration potential and Sentara's plans include completing a preliminary economic assessment in the first half of 2025 to evaluate resources and projects that could provide further mine life extensions, continuing exploration drilling around the mine, and completing a site optimization program to improve cash flow. Royal Gold will benefit from getting further exposure to metal prices over an extended mine life, and we are pleased to provide support to Sentara as they review this potential. I'll now turn the call over to Martin to provide some comments on the portfolio.