How did Triple Flag Precious Metals perform in 2024?

Two key factors contributed to our success this year— record sales from our assets and record gold prices now over US$2,700/oz. 

Are the financing challenges that juniors are facing creating opportunities for Triple Flag? 

With certain companies having less available financing than they were anticipating, it creates an opportunity for streaming and royalty companies like Triple Flag to come in, look at the intrinsic value of the company’s assets and then provide financing on competitive terms to help them accomplish their goals. When we started Triple Flag, the bulk of our capital focused on producing or near producing assets. That being said, there is room in our portfolio for earlier stage opportunities that usually require smaller capital deployment. The majority of our portfolio value remains within producing assets and we also have a significant portion of near-producing assets that we expect to come online within five years. 

Which key assets have driven growth for Triple Flag in 2024?

The star of the year is undoubtedly Evolution Mining’s Northparkes copper-gold mine in Australia. Entering 2024, we knew that Northparkes would show a real step-up in gold volumes, which we will continue to benefit from well into 2025. The mine has decades of mine life ahead of it and the people at site speak of its potential as a hundred year mine. 

Nexa Resources’ Cerro Lindo zinc-copper-lead-silver mine in Peru also had a strong year, contributing greatly to our cash flow per share. Recently, we have also seen positive news flow on other assets such as Montage Gold’s Koné project in Côte d'Ivoire and Skeena Resources’ Eskay Creek project in BC, which we anticipate will significantly boost our cash flow per share in the near future. 

Does Triple Flag have plans to increase its exposure to non-precious metals commodities?

Triple Flag has always been precious metals focused, and we aim to maintain 80-90% at a minimum of our NAV in precious metals. Currently, around 93% of our NAV is in gold and silver. If we were to see an opportunity in another commodity like copper or lithium, and it ticked all our boxes, we would deploy some capital but not to the point of changing the company’s core focus on gold and silver. 

For instance, we recently announced the acquisition of a 0.5% GOR royalty on the Tres Quebradas project for US$28 million from Lithium Royalty Corp. This transaction was a unique, counter-cyclical opportunity to deploy capital and gain exposure to a high-grade lithium brine asset operated by Zijin with a multi-decade reserve life, attractive cost profile, expansion optionality and significant resource upside. 

Is it getting harder to find new assets due to competition from other streaming and royalty companies? 

Competition is great and healthy, and Triple Flag competes with a select few established large streaming and royalty companies. I would say the level of competition we face has not increased significantly since our inception in 2016. Mines deplete over time, and there will always be a need for capital to finance greenfield projects. Given a finite pool of capital available, there is a never-ending demand for financing from companies like Triple Flag. Additionally, we see an increasing number of projects catering to the green energy transition. Triple Flag is also able to support these projects – by underwriting by-product gold and silver streams on base metal projects, for example. There have been a number of smaller streaming and royalty companies that have started in recent years, but most do not compete directly for the financing of large projects but instead focus on accumulating existing royalties. 

Do you have a final message?

Triple Flag is seeing record performance from our portfolio, and gold and silver prices remain very high. We have embedded organic growth in the portfolio and expect to achieve 135,000 to 145,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2028. This would be a significant step up from our guidance of 105,000-115,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2024. Additionally, we will continue to make new external investments and grow our portfolio. We are still in the early innings and the best is yet to come.