Franco-Nevada (NYSE:FNV) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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Summary
Franco-Nevada Corp reported record financial results for Q1 2026, with significant increases in revenue, operating cash flow, adjusted EBITDA, and net income driven by high commodity prices and recent acquisitions.
The company completed four new acquisitions, expanding its portfolio with assets in attractive mining jurisdictions, and highlighted progress in sustainability initiatives, receiving an MSCI ESG rating upgrade to AAA.
Future outlook is positive with expectations of continued strong performance due to high commodity prices, particularly in precious metals, and a robust pipeline of business development opportunities supported by $3.4 billion in available capital.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning and welcome to Franco-Nevada Corp's first quarter 2026 results, conference call and webcast. This call is being recorded on May 13, 2026. At this time, all lines are in a listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a Q and A session where you may ask a question through the phone line or webcast. If you're joining by webcast, you may submit a reading question for the Q and A session at any time during this call by typing your question in the Q and A section of the webcast platform. If you require immediate assistance during this call, please press star zero at any time for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Bonavie Tech VP Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Vincent
Thank you. Vincent Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Franco-Nevada Corp's first quarter 2026 results. Accompanying this call is a presentation which is available on our website at franco-nevada.com where you will also find our full financial results. The presentation is also available to view on the webcast. During our call this morning, Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco Nevada will provide introductory remarks followed by Sandeep Rana, Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a brief review of our results. This will be followed by a Q and A period. Our 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 commentaries may contain forward looking information. We refer you to a detailed cautionary Note on slide 2 of this presentation. I will now turn the call over to Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco Nevada.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Thank you Bonavie. Good day everyone. At yesterday's agm, David Harkwell gave his last address as Chair before taking on the title of Chair Emeritus. As shareholders, we're all tremendously grateful to David for the incredible value he's created over 18 years at Franco-Nevada Corp. On behalf of the Board and the management team, I'd like to thank David for his vision, his leadership and his entrepreneurial drive that's created the success that we've all shared in. We're delighted to have Tom Albanese, who was most recently Lead Independent Director of Franco Nevada, take on the Chair role. Many of you are already familiar with Tom from his prior CEO roles at both Rio Tinto PLC and Verdanta Resources and many other corporate directive positions, his depth of experience and his intimate knowledge of Franco Nevada from his many years of prior service on the board. Turning to the first quarter, we once again realized record financial results, record revenue, operating cash flow, adjusted EBITDA and net income driven by higher commodity prices and contributions from recent acquisitions. During the quarter we also had a gain from partial buyback of our Cascade Bell stream as it moved into the hands of Jiangxi Copper, a party we believe is very capable of building and operating a large scale mine while prices have traded 70 80% higher since the US attack on Iran at the end of February. While not much of the higher prices accrued to Q1, it bodes well for our Q2 results and potentially through the rest of the year. Franco Nevada is unique as a mining equity. Not only is our royalty and streaming model largely insulated from the effect of energy prices and cost inflation, but at current prices oil and liquids can contribute meaningfully to our revenue mix. Q1 26 was one of our most successful quarters, growing our business with four new acquisitions, a gold stream with orzone on Casa Berardi, royalty financings for I80 Gold in Nevada and Minerals260 in Western Australia and purchase of a third party royalty on Banyans or Mac.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
All assets were able to secure attractive resource optionality in good mining jurisdictions. We saw encouraging progress at Cobra Panama. The quarter saw coal shipments received for the both power plant units restarted and power supplied to the grid. The Government of Panama then proceeded to approve the processing of stockpiles. This was an important step as it allows the company to restart the mills which has the immediate positive benefit of increasing employment in the Audit the environmental audit carried out by SGS Global is ongoing with five interim reports having been published without any material deficiencies identified. The final report is due in Q2 of this year. On the sustainability front, we're expanding the reach of our diversity scholarships for college or trade school programs. In collaboration with young mining professionals, we continue to grow our community initiatives, renewed our support for Encena Peru's education initiatives in Peru and also funded an education initiative with i80 Gold in Nevada. Last week we published our annual Sustainability Report which outlines our accomplishments in 2025 and our commitments to further our sustainability related leadership.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
The report is available on our website. Our efforts are recognized by the major ESG rating agencies. In particular, during the quarter we received an upgrade of our MSCI ESG rating from AA to AAA, placing us in the top tier amongst mining and precious metal players. Along with the Sustainability Report, we launched our annual Asset Handbook which details first and foremost 121 cash flow producing assets, the largest and most diversified portfolio of cash flow producing streams and royalties that exist included in the report is an asset by asset Mine Life detail both operators, current mine plans and potential mine life based on Measured and Indicated
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
(M&I) royalty ounces in aggregate for our mining portfolio. At current production rates, Measured and Indicated (M&I) resources would support 34 years of mining and inferred resources a further 12 years. The report also profiles our development projects and our higher potential exploration projects. One stat that to me highlights the optionality of the portfolio is the total value of the ounces underpinning the value of the company in all categories. Ounces that are 100% attributable to Franco have a value of 124 billion at current gold prices. That's just shy of triple our current market cap. To finish, we currently have 3.4 billion in available capital and a robust pipeline of business development opportunities. With that, I'll hand the call to Sandy.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks Paul Good morning everyone. As Paul mentioned, Franco-Nevada Corp reported record financial results for first quarter March 31, 2026. Our portfolio of royalty and stream assets continue to perform well, with both the precious metals and diversified segments having a strong quarter. On slide 4, you'll see a summary of commodity prices for first quarter 2026 and 2025. Gold and silver prices increased significantly year over year with the average gold price higher by 70% in the quarter.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
The two strongest performers year over year were silver and platinum, each up 165% and 128% respectively. The strong silver price performance benefited our silver assets and in particular Antamina, where we had a significant increase in revenue compared to prior year. This was both due to the increase in the silver price, but also significantly higher silver deliveries during the quarter. For the diversified commodities, most remained fairly flat year over year. However, with the conflict in the Middle east, the oil price has seen a sharp increase over the last two months. Current WTI prices have been hovering around $100 per barrel. This will positively impact our energy revenue for Q2. An increase of $10 relative to our assumed WTI price of $70 per barrel used in our guidance would be expected to increase our oil revenue by approximately 12%. The strong performance of our assets combined with record gold and silver prices resulted in record financial results for the quarter.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Revenue was higher by 77%, adjusted EBITDA 84% and adjusted net income 123%. Total GEOs sold for the quarter increased 8% to 136,353 compared to 126,585 in the prior year. Precious metal GEOs sold in the quarter were 117,980 higher by 17% compared to prior year. 55% of our total GEOs sold were sourced directly from mines where precious metals is the primary commodity. For the quarter we received strong contributions from a number of key assets and Tamina.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
As mentioned, we benefited from both higher deliveries and also benefited from the higher silver price resulting in an increase in revenue from 21.3 million last year to 82.3 million this quarter. At South Otoro we had a 322% increase in GEOs as we benefited from the phase one production of the open pit. Please note that the strong performance is weighted to the first half of this year. For Hemlo we had an adjustment of $10 million Canadian related to 2025 that flowed through Q1 2026.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
As you know with the Hemlo MPI it's difficult to forecast as it depends on a number of factors including how much mining is performed on Franco's interlaced lands along with how much is being spent on operating and capital costs. And finally we're benefiting from asset acquisitions made last year in particular Cote and Porcupine which together contributed approximately 6,500 GEOs or $31.5 million in revenue during the quarter. Diversified GEOs sold were 18,373 for the quarter compared to 25,962 for prior year.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Despite diversified revenue actually being higher year over year at 82.6 million versus 74.8 million. The decrease in GEOs is due to the impact of the conversion of revenue to GEOs. As you know we are now converting to GEOs using a fixed gold price of 4500 per ounce. As you can see on the chart on slide 5, total revenue increased by 77% for the quarter to 650.7 million. A record. Precious metals accounted for 85% of revenue adjusted. EBITDA also a record was 84% higher at 591.9 million.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
With respect to costs, we did have an increase in cost of sales compared to prior year due to higher fixed costs paid for stream ounces as a portion of our streams have a fixed cost based on a percentage of the gold price. Cost of sales was 46.5 million versus 38.5 million last year. Depletion increased to 77.9 million versus 68.4 million a year ago. The increase is due to depletion being recorded on some of our recent transactions Yanacocha, Western Limb, porcupine and Cote. These assets are higher per ounce depletion assets we Expect the depletion rate to decrease over time as the reserves on the properties grow. And finally, adjusted net income was 458.3 million or $2.38 per share for the quarter, higher by 123% and 122% respectively. As Paul mentioned, we did record a gain of 63.8 million which is included in net income for the partial buyback of the Cascaval royalty and stream. 50% of the royalty was bought back for proceeds of 97.5 million and 50% of the stream was bought back for net proceeds of 40.7 million.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
The proceeds for the stream were delivered through approximately 10,000 gold ounces which remain in inventory at the end of the quarter. The cascpile buyback is not reflected in GEOS revenue or adjusted EBITDA. Slide 7 highlights the continued diversification of the portfolio. 87% of our revenue was generated by precious metals and being sourced 87% from the Americas. Slide 8 illustrates the strength of our business model to continue to generate high margins. As you can see, over the last number of quarters as the gold prices increased, our margin per GEO has remained fairly consistent. Our cash cost per Geo has increased from $304 in first quarter 2025 to 341 per GEO in first quarter 2026, a roughly 12% increase over the period. However, the margin has increased from 2,559 per GEO to 4,534 per GEO this quarter, a 77% increase while during this period the gold prices increased 70%. As we turn to dividends on slide 9, the company continues to pay a quarterly dividend with 84.4 million being paid to shareholders during the quarter.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
We increased the dividend in January by 16% to $0.44 per share per quarter or $1.76 per share annualized. This was the 19th consecutive year we have increased the dividend and lastly, Slide 10 highlights our available capital as at March 31, 2026 the total available capital is 3.4 billion comprised of 715 million in cash, 1.5 billion with our credit facility including the accordion and 1.2 billion in liquid marketable securities. In addition, subsequent to quarter end our subsidiary Franco Nevada International entered into a separate credit facility for 500 million and an additional $250 million accordion. This adds additional financial flexibility for the company and with that I will pass it over to Vincent as management is happy to answer any questions.
OPERATOR
During this Q and A. If you'd like to ask a question, just simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, just press the star, then the number two. If you're joining us on the webcast, please submit your question through the Q and A section of the webcast platform. Your first question comes from George Ady from ubs. Please go ahead.
George Ady (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, good morning team. Thanks for the call. Can I start by asking about the deal pipeline? Recent deals such as the Orzone gold deal, the i80 gold sort of look like a backing more of mid tier developers. Is that a sort of pivot you're seeing in the market or is that sort of reading into a trend too much?
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Hey George, it's Paul Brink speaking. Ian is unfortunately on the road this morning, so I'll take the question. It is a trend we've seen, but it's not the only trend. In this market with high gold prices, any operator is making fantastic cash flow. The great thing for us there is organic growth. But on the acquisition side for developers it's still very attractive to access our capital. And so there are a number of them that are working to get projects over the line. So I'm hopeful that there'll be more of that through the year. But also at these strong prices, as we've seen and it's the case with Casa Berati and Warzone, the bigger players are looking at the portfolio saying what are the smaller assets can they vend out? And in this environment they can get very good value for those assets. So that is a second theme that's ongoing and then the third is BHP and their sale of the stream interest in Anna Mena I think really opened the eyes of the market of the hidden value that's in a lot of these portfolios, even big portfolios that can be created through the sale of precious metal streams. So I think those are all themes that hopefully will play out through the year.
George Ady (Equity Analyst)
Right, so you guys think there could be more BHP antimina type streams, is that right?
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think a number of the large players are looking at that and saying wow, you know what a great market reception BHP got. So I'm hopeful there will be more transactions.
George Ady (Equity Analyst)
Yep, no, that's clear, thank you. And maybe just one other on the operations. But Candelaria, can you remind us please on the step down timing next year and just the latest thoughts on the potential underground expansion to.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Sure, Sandeep here. So the step down will be in mid-2027. It'll drop down from 68% down to 40%. As for the underground expansion I don't believe Lundin has made the formal decision to move forward with that. They're still reviewing it, but if they do, we were expecting it towards the end of this decade.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from Fahad Tariq from Jeffries. Please go ahead.
Fahad Tariq (Equity Analyst)
Hi, thanks for taking my question on Cobra Panama. Can you provide some color on whether there's any discussion around potentially changing the stream terms
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
here on COBRA Panama? All the discussions are first quantum with the government. We're not involved in any of discussions. The only interaction we have had with the government is obviously around our arbitration. Our overall position there is we're not operators, we're not on for operating risk. So we don't know what the outcome will be here. But I think it's unlikely that you'll see any material change.
Fahad Tariq (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. And then just thinking about growth. Just any commentary on potential consolidation in the royalty streaming subsector? I mean there's a long list of junior royalty streaming companies that could be acquired. Just any thoughts on that versus looking at individual transactions? Thanks.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
From time to time we run the numbers on the various royalty players but inevitably what we find is that there's better value in doing private transactions. Your royalty players typically traded at premium, so it's in terms of relative value. I think the most likely thing that we'd be doing is more private deals.
Fahad Tariq (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Next question comes from the line of Cosmos Chu from cibc. Please go ahead.
Cosmos Chu (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. Paul Sandeep and team. Maybe my first question is on your portfolio of equity investments. As we've seen some of your in your peer group, they've started monetizing their own portfolio of equity investments. Maybe thinking that's a good time or to finance larger acquisitions. You're a little bit different. You continue to add to your portfolio. You added. And now Sandiba, as you mentioned, it's grown to $1.3 billion. So you know, I guess my question is could you maybe remind us of your philosophy and your strategy behind these holdings
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
and the, the two largest holdings that we have are, are with GMAN and with Discovery Silver Corp. And you know, overall our strategy with these companies is, has been find really good teams, find the best mine builders, mine operators in the industry and not just be transactional in providing them with the stream of royalty financing but position ourselves as a financial backer for the company and try and differentiate them with that financial strength with our endorsement. And that's worked tremendously well for those companies. So the first part of that is we see ourselves as supporting those companies for the long Term and see ourselves as participating in the equity or longer term, you know, that's it. We're in this to make money for shareholders. So at the right time we will take some money off the table. You know, when I think of both of those two plays with GMAN right now with the build of Oko, I think there's tremendous value that's going to be created as they bring their second mine into operation. Likewise with Discovery Silver Corp, the transaction they've been able to do securing Kid Creek allows them to hopefully almost double production output coming out of that asset as they reroute the ores through the Crate Creek mill over time and it opens up the incredible potential that they have at Dome and to start processing that ore through the Dome mill. So both plays, I think there's tremendous value that'll be created over the next one.
Cosmos Chu (Equity Analyst)
Great. I guess as a follow up, I did notice that you did not take an equity investment in Orzone. Maybe, maybe touch on that. And then you know, further on on Orzone, I saw that, you know, CASA variety, a lot of positive chatter out of Orzone drilling, extending mine life beyond two years. You know, they're talking about the gap between the west shaft and the east shaft just to confirm it would be a direct benefit to Franklin Nevada if any of those kind of materialize. And also just curious, you know, when you look at these deals, how much of this potential upside have you factored into original $100 billion investment?
Matt Beguman
Hey there. Yeah. So I think as far as the equity question, you know, that was just sort of the capital structure they were looking for at the time. That wasn't a large part of the capital need they needed. And so we just played our a little bit smaller role just on the stream and they had the other sources of funds from their other sources of capital. As far as the upside there, I think, you know, our view is there's extensive upside over time. Yeah, Patty's got a very extensive plan with the company to drill that out to make that connection and we will benefit from that. I mean I think as you've noted where fixed ounces for the first five years but thereafter a variable stream. And we think there's significant exploration upside over time. You know, particularly in the underground where Patti's going to be very actively looking to optimize that. So we're very optimistic for the, the growth there.
Cosmos Chu (Equity Analyst)
Great. Maybe one last question, Sandeep, as you mentioned, you know, there are some NPIs in your portfolio. One MPI is the muscle white MPI. And in your MDNA you mentioned that a lot of exploration potential, the Camp A near surface, you know, target, for example, you might now be, you know, part of a larger company given the deal that happened Equinox and oil and mining today. So I guess my question is, could you maybe remind us of the Mechanics behind how MPIs work? And for example, if Muscle White is able to bring Camp A something new into production, when could you start seeing some kind of contribution to Franco, Nevada?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Sure. Cosmos. So NPIs, they vary by contract. You know the one, it's not consistent. Sometime it's you recover 100% of your capital, other times it's based on the profit, based on accounting. So as I said, they're not consistent. But with respect to muscle weight, you know, our MPI covers the entire land package. But if they were to develop that, they would be able to deduct whatever capital is required. So that would be 100% deduction against it. So in terms of timing, depends on the quantum of what capital would be applied against it. So there would be a bit of a lag. But it all depends on how much is being spent. Yes, exactly.
Cosmos Chu (Equity Analyst)
So maybe one last question just quickly on Palmorejo, you know, the 50% Goldstream as you mentioned, core mining has actually done, you know, fairly well, very well in terms of increasing gold reserves, extending the mine life by five years. My understanding is that there's the Franklin concessions and there's land beyond the Franklin concessions. So based on your understanding, how much of this upside that they are talking about at this point in time falls within the Franklin concessions, shorter term and also long term as well.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
So they've been drilling, so you're right. So our stream doesn't cover the entire land package. They have been drilling on Franco land, where the stream applies as well as non stream land. They've been successful on both. So based on the results of last year, they have been able to extend the mine life of Palmarijo, Guadalupe, where we do have our stream. So we don't know exactly at what point they will move completely off Franco land. But at this stage our stream at the guidance that we provided runs out to at least the end of this decade, early 2000-30s.
Cosmos Chu (Equity Analyst)
That's great to hear. Thanks again, Paul, Sandeep, Matt and Bonavit, those are the questions I have congrats on a very strong start to 2026.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Thanks Kosmos.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakoskonik from Scotiabank, please go ahead.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Great. Good morning everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm going to start just back on the transaction opportunities. Thank you Paul, for giving us some sense of what is out there. I just want to flesh it out with again, what is the main size that you're seeing? And number two, are most of the opportunities in silver, gold or are you still looking for non precious metal transactions? And then are there big ones where you'd be open to syndication? So that's my first question.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Yeah, a couple of things in there, Tanya. In terms of deal sizes, there's a whole range in dealing with the project developers, it's that typical range, 200, 500 million. If there are some of the bigger players that do consider streams, those would be far, far bigger deals, but don't yet know what the scale of those could be. Terms of syndication, we're always open to syndication in terms of managing risk if the ticket size is too big and we feel that that will be the best balance in terms of exposure and risk, although nothing currently that we're contemplating on that front. And in terms of revenue mix, most of what we're looking at is precious metal. But as always we're open to diversification. And so there are a couple of diversified deals that are also in the pipeline.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
And Paul, when you say nothing is too big, like could you do a 4 billion on your own, would you be comfortable doing that?
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
You know Ken, we've got three and a half billion available capital so I think that is quite easily achievable. It's just a question of, you know, where is the asset, how much risk exposure, do you want a particular asset? That's the circumstance that we'd think about syndication. But if you're dealing with a great asset, great jurisdiction, you know, no need and plenty of capital.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, got it. And then for the non precious metals, what size would that be?
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
You know, there are a few things out there that some that are moderately sized, some that could be more meaningfully sized. Source range.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, moderately sized. Okay, so would I be thinking 200 to 500 million for those as well? Okay, thank you for that. I'm going to move over to Sandeep if I could. So you mentioned sandeep that there's 10,000 ounces that you are holding right now with the sale of the Cascavel. How should I be thinking of those 10,000 GEOs, am I thinking those are to be sold in Q2? Are you holding those for a while and if so, do they then come into the, you know, how are you going to handle it from a disclosure? Would you put those as ounces back into the, your GEO ounces if you sold them and reported them?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
So Tanya, in terms of, you know, when we sell them, they're in inventory right now, they'll probably be sold throughout the rest of the year. It just depends on, you know, our gold trading strategy at the time. But when they are sold, they will not go through GEOs, they will not go through revenue. They'll be treated as we treat the royalty gold ounces that we sell where we book a gain or loss on the sale. So they'll flow through outside of revenue on that line item on the income statement.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, so I should just think over the year the 10,000 ounces will be gone. And then just as I think about your, you know, you've had a good quarter, how should I be thinking about the rest of the, of the year as it develops in terms of, you know, is it, you know, back end weighted? I did, you did give guidance that, you know, stronger Q2 with the higher oil price, how should I be thinking about the rest of the portfolio?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
So you know, overall the following quarters will be stronger, just especially as Paul also mentioned, if the energy prices stay where they are. Because now that we are dividing by a fixed gold price of 4,500, as energy revenue increases, it'll lead to additional GEOs. So from a top line metric, it should be stronger as the year progresses. In terms of specific assets in Q1, we didn't have any deliveries from Con desoblo Casa Berardi. You'll start to see those come in. You're going to see cocaine ramp up as the year goes on as well. So you know, I don't have specifics quarter by quarter, but the, the rest of the year will be stronger than Q1.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay. And as I think about it, as things are ramping up, would it be quarter over quarter sequential increases?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
I think you should, I think you should see a stronger Q2 and then probably, probably pretty consistent. As for the remaining quarters, similar to Q2.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, all right, got it. So it's hard to forecast these.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
We have so many, yeah, we have so many assets, right Tanya, that you know, one quarter, one can slightly underperform while another one outperforms. So it's hard to really go quarter by quarter.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And then, you know, just. Sandy, on the increase in Barbados, when was the last time that you increased your credit facility in your Barbados division?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
So we implemented a credit facility in 2018 for a few years. It was a smaller in size. It was $100 million at the time. And I believe it expired in 2021 and we didn't renew it. Now we just, we looked at, you know, our available capital. We always looked for financial flexibility. And the banks were very forthcoming with very good terms. And we thought it was a good opportunity to add some additional financial flexibility and additional tool for us. So we put in a $500 million credit facility.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
500 with the 200 million accordion. So you have 750 in Barbados and 1.5.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. And 1.5 at the parent level. So 2.25 in total.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay. All right, we'll watch. Stay tuned. Thank you very much for answering my questions and taking my questions.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Thanks, Daniel.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from heiko Ile from H.E. wainwright. Please go ahead.
Heiko Ile (Equity Analyst)
Hey, good morning, Paul and team. Thanks for taking my questions. Mostly been answered in all fairness. But I got two more little follow ups, really. Exploration at Yanacocha. I mean, it looks like Newmont seems to be willing to spend that site. You want to maybe give a bit of color on what you're seeing, your discussions with their team overall
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
on that Yanacocha site, that property, you've got the oxides, the potential sulfides project. Going forward, you've got conger, you've got. The big issue in the region is community support. And their area of concern has always been around water quality. So Newmont has a huge program that they're investing in the order of 2 billion over the course of four years to try and address that issue dealing with water management. Part of that is providing fresh water to the town of Cajamarca. So I think that that's the program that I think will unlock all those deposits in time. The, you know, right now sulfide is on pause. They're looking at some of the other projects. The, you know, the easier one and you know, one that may have a higher return of capital is Quellish. So I don't know how they proceed, you know, in what order they proceed with those projects, but in any discussions, they're very committed to the area and resolving those issues, building good social license so that ultimately they can develop all of those deposits. And there's, you know, the summary in Yanacocha is that they've mined 40 million ounces from that property and there's at least 40 million ounces of gold equivalent ahead of them. So it's a prize worth winning. Fair enough. And then completely different one. I mean, you got a very strong balance sheet, you got a high available capital, you got ongoing growth in geo margins. Gold prices don't seem to be going down anytime soon. Have there been calls for a special dividend at the board level? I know we sort of talked about M and A earlier, which is the exact opposite, but I mean, should we be more focused on elephant hunting or has there been meaningful calls at the board level to make like a single time payout?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Hi, Haiko, Sandeep here. You know, we do have the discussion. You know, our philosophy on the dividend has always been consistent. You know, overall and just in terms of, you know, where we use our cash, the priority is always adding good long life assets to the portfolio. But with respect to the dividend, it's, it's being sustainable and progressive. You know, raise the dividend every single year regardless of what commodity prices are doing and, and be in a position to raise it for an extended period of time. And we're proud of the way we have handled the dividend 19 years in a row in terms of increases. So that's the strategy. I don't think you'll see any sort of special dividend coming to Franco.
Heiko Ile (Equity Analyst)
Fair enough. I only brought it up because it's now come up in two investor calls over the past call it month. Perfect. Thank you so much. I'll get back to you.
Paul Brink (President and CEO)
Thanks, Tycho.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from Brian MacArthur from Raymond James, please go ahead.
Brian MacArthur (Equity Analyst)
Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. A lot of them have been answered. But can I ask first of all
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
on the cra, you got the money back and looking through the account, it looks like that's fully settled now. That is, there's nothing outstanding that they owe you, is that correct, Brian? Yes, that is correct. So any deposits that we had put down during, you know, proceeding with our dispute have now been returned by CRA along with interest. So there's nothing reflected on the balance sheet.
Brian MacArthur (Equity Analyst)
Okay, then the second thing, can you just, if you can, this whole federal
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
government change here in Canada to transfer pricing. I know you say you're still evaluating it, but this potentially bigger. Do you have anything you can comment on that? You know, we're still looking into it. I think at the end of the day, you know, we were very successful with the settlement we reached with CRA. I think as they went through their process and actually got down into the details, we went through discovery, they realized how good our structure is and the processes we have in place and the way we operate our business internationally. So, you know, the new transfer pricing rules, we're still evaluating, but we think we've got a very good structure in place. Right, but this will only be, as you said, from 2026 forward. They can't go back on anything still. Right. Okay. Correct. So then my next question is, and following up what Tanya asked, so opening the facility in Barbados, does that give you other than obviously access for capital at good rates, does it give you any other advantages or like why put it there versus just more in Canada? I mean, it was a decision by the Franco International board, Ren Nevada International, the Barbadian subsidiary. Their board wanted some additional flexibility. They requested it and so we proceeded with it.
Brian MacArthur (Equity Analyst)
And my last question just you mentioned constant established you didn't get paid this quarter. But. But is that. Just remember that correctly.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
It's just you switched the way this works. So it's just one quarter. You didn't get it, you make it up in Q2 and everything going forward is just on a 1/4 lag.
Brian MacArthur (Equity Analyst)
Is that how that works?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
So it's so. Yeah. So we were fixed deliveries up until the end of the year and then once it switched into Variable production in Q1, our delivery is mid April. So. So it was one quarter, but there was a lag. So we will now be getting deliveries in the first month of the quarter following quarter. So, you know, Q1 Productions in April, Q2 production will get delivered in July and so on.
Brian MacArthur (Equity Analyst)
Okay, so it's just a timing issue really.
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, it was just a 1/4 window there. Great. Thank you very much for answering my questions.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Derek Matt from TD Cohen. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Derek Matt (Equity Analyst)
I just wanted to ask one question on the second revolving facility in Barbados. Actually, are you able to utilize that at the parent level for royalty and on stronger transactions or does that get too messy from a structure perspective? No, we were able to use both for whatever purpose we see in front of us. It doesn't matter if it's royalties or extremes. Just a question of how you. How you move the funds between companies. But it's open, there's no restrictions. Got it. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from John Tamazas from John Tamazz's very independent research. Please go ahead.
John Tamazas
Thank you. And congratulations on all the records. Could you explain the accounting of the interest income that shows up in the revenue line versus the finance income that's below operating income next to finance expense?
Sandeep Rana (Chief Financial Officer)
And why both numbers were smaller this quarter than prior period? Sure. So John, this quarter at the top line, revenue, interest income was zero compared to having an amount last year. That interest relates to any loans that we make. So we had provided financing to G Mining, to emx and we were recording revenue or interest income associated with those loans. Those loans were repaid in Q4 of 2025. And so now we have no loans outstanding per se. The interest income line, that's below, down at the bottom of the income statement is your typical interest that you earn on your. Your cash in your bank accounts. And as you know, we deployed a significant amount of cash last year. So with that lower cash balance, the corresponding interest income was lower. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
There are no further questions over the phone lines. I'll now turn the Q and A session over to Wannabe Tech who will take questions from the webcast.
Vincent
Thank you, Vincent. There are no questions from the webcast either. So this concludes our Q1 2026 results, conference call and webcast. We expect to release our Q2 results on August 12th after market close and we will have a conference call the following morning. Thank you for your interest in Franco, Nevada.
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