Equinox Gold Corp. (NYSE:EQX) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call May 9, 2024 10:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Rhylin Bailie - VP, IR
Greg Smith - President, CEO
Doug Reddy - COO
Peter Hardie - CFO
Scott Heffernan - EVP-Exploration

Conference Call Participants

Anita Soni - CIBC World Markets
Mike Parkin - National Bank
Kerry Smith - Haywood Securities

Operator

Thank you for standing. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Equinox Gold First Quarter 2024 Results and Corporate Update. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode. And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Rhylin Bailie, Vice President, Investor Relations for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Rhylin Bailie

Thank you, Carl, and thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. We will, of course, be making a plea to visit our website, SEDAR and EDGAR to view the rest of our continuous disclosure documents.

I'll now turn the conference call over to our President and CEO, Greg Smith.

Greg Smith

Thanks, Rhylin. Good morning, and thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. On the line with me is our COO, Doug Reddy; our CFO, Peter Hardie; our EVP of Exploration, Scott Heffernan; and our VP of Investor Relations, Rhylin Bailie. Again, today, we are discussing Equinox Gold's 2024 first quarter financial and operating results.

Today is also the first opportunity we've had to publicly discuss our recently announced transaction to consolidate ownership of the Greenstone Mine in Ontario. So I'm going to start with that and then move on to the first quarter results.

So as most of you know, we already own 60% of the Greenstone Mine with our joint venture partner Orion Mine Finance owning the other 40%. On April 23rd, we announced that we are acquiring Orion's 40% interest. This transaction delivers full ownership of the Greenstone Mine to Equinox Gold and consolidates ownership of one of the largest and highest-grade open pit gold mines of scale in Canada.

The total acquisition cost is 995 million in cash and shares. 250 million will be satisfied through the issue of 42 million common shares of Equinox Gold to Orion. The remaining 745 million will be paid in cash, sourced from a new $500 million, 3-year term loan, the proceeds from the recently completed $299 million equity offering of common shares of Equinox Gold and a deferred payment of $40 million due at the end of this year.