Franco-Nevada Corp (NYSE:FNV) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 6, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Candida Hayden - Senior Analyst, IR

Paul Brink - President and CEO

Sandip Rana - CFO

Jason O’Connell - SVP, Diversified

Euan Gray - SVP, Business Development

Lloyd Hong - Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary

Conference Call Participants

Josh Wolfson - RBC Capital Markets

Lawson Winder - Bank of America Securities

Cosmos Chiu - CIBC

Tanya Jakusconek - Scotiabank

Martin Pradier - Veritas

Jackie Przybylowski - BMO Capital Markets

Greg Barnes - TD Cowen

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Franco-Nevada Corporation's 2023 Year-end Results Conference Call and Webcast. This call is being recorded on March 6, 2024. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct the Q&A session, where you may ask a question through the phone lines or webcast. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Candida Hayden, Senior Analyst, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Candida Hayden

Thank you, Alura. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Franco-Nevada's year-end 2023 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 Sandip Rana, Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a brief review of our results. This will be followed by a Q&A period. Our full executive team is available to answer any questions. Participants may submit questions by telephone or via the webcast.

We would like to remind participants that some of today's commentary may contain forward-looking information and we refer you to our detailed cautionary note on Slide 2 of this presentation.

I will now turn over the call to Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada.

Paul Brink

Thank you, Candida, and good morning. Our diversified top line business has a history of generating leading returns. But in late 2023, we were challenged by the unprecedented production hole for Cobre Panama. We're hopeful that the issues can be resolved, although we've taken a prudent approach to the carrying value of the asset.

Despite the issues at Cobre Panama, our business remains robust. We finished the year with no debt at $1.4 billion of cash. Balance of our long-duration business still generates industry-leading cash flow. Top-line business model is fortunately not impacted by industry cost inflation. And in 2023, we generated an 83% adjusted EBITDA margin During the year, we added a number of attractive royalty interests, principally on gold mines and projects in Canada, Chile, Australia and the U.S. Drop in U.S. natural gas prices also allow us to add to our natural gas royalty interests.