Thank you. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today for the release of Deterra's first half 2022 results. I have with me Brendan Ryan, our Chief Financial Officer, and Matthew Schembri, who leads our Investor Relations. We released a presentation pack with the results this morning. I don't propose going through on a page-by-page basis, but rather will give a short overview, stepping briefly through some of the key slides, and then move to questions. I'll begin by saying that I'm pleased with the performance of the business in the first half. We have a simple model, and so in many ways it is a simple message. Operationally, the underlying assets are performing well.
In particular, strong production and sales volumes from the Mining Area C operation as a standout feature of the half, with production up 45% and sales volumes slightly more on second half 2021. This reflects the ramp up of volumes from the South Flank expansion, which BHP notes remains on track to deliver the full additional 80 million wet tonnes per year by mid-2024, and reached a peak run rate of 45 million wet tonnes per year during the half. These volumes have underpinned another strong half financially with revenues of AUD 92.8 million. We've also been active in pursuing growth opportunities. We continue to evaluate options to add royalty assets to the business and have increased our investment in that activity.
In that regard, we announced this morning that we have refinanced our existing AUD 40 million facility, increasing the credit limits to AUD 350 million, which will provide us with additional flexibility to act on accretive opportunities. The fact that we were able to do so on competitive terms and reduce the overall weighted average margin is a reflection of the strength of both the MAC royalty and the Deterra business model. Third, we continue to prioritize shareholder returns, and the directors have declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.1168 per share, fully franked, which represents 100% of the net profit after tax for the period. As I said, it's a simple business model.
We have a cornerstone royalty over a world-class operation with a significant growth profile still ahead of it, a lean corporate structure that supports high margins, and a capital management approach that supports providing our investors access to the cash we generate. One other aspect of the business model that perhaps isn't as well appreciated is how it performs through the commodity cycle. For example, there's been an increasing focus on cost inflation in the resources sector of late, and I think it's worth making the point that our revenue royalty payments are driven by sales, and so are not impacted by any changes in operating margins driven by cost inflation. In fact, to the extent they are reflected in pricing, we're leveraged to those factors, as any increase will be reflected in our royalty receipts.
With that, I'll hand over to Brendan, who will cover the financial results in a bit more detail.
Thanks, Julian, and good morning, everyone. My task today is twofold. Firstly, and easiest, is to take you through a fairly clean and simple set of results. Secondly, is to update you on our new credit facility and discuss the capital management framework. If we first turn to Slide 8 so I can address the financial highlights for the half year period. As you can see, total group revenue for the period was AUD 92.8 million. This amount includes MAC royalty revenue of AUD 92.7 million attributable to the 1.232% revenue base royalty only, and circa AUD 180,000 in revenues from our two smaller Western Australian mineral sand royalties. This AUD 92.8 million dollar revenue delivered a healthy AUD 88.7 million in earnings for the period.
This represents an EBITDA margin of 96%, driven by the small and low overhead structure of the royalty business model. Finally, this resulted in both record NPAT and dividends for the period of AUD 61.7 million. Based on this result, the board have declared a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.118, and I remind you this represents 100% of NPAT and confirms our commitment to return surplus cash flow to our shareholders. Moving quickly to Slide 9, I'd like to discuss the performance of Mining Area C. Overall, you can see from the yellow line on the chart the significant ramp of the MAC asset via the South Flank expansion has now commenced.
The ramp up over the past six months resulted in record sales volumes of 45.8 million tonnes delivered by MAC in the December half year period, setting consecutive sales records in both the September quarter of 21 million tonnes and the December quarter of 24.8 million tonnes. Based primarily on these record sales volumes, total MAC revenue for the H1 also set a new record of AUD 92.7 million. This was further aided by record iron ore prices in September, although as you can see, a material decrease in price was seen in the December quarter. On Slide 10, we've tried to reflect a simplified illustration of the P&L. What this slide demonstrates is the lean cost structure and transparency of the cash flow distributed to shareholders.
On the revenue side, as discussed earlier, we show two sources of cash that contribute to the AUD 92.8 million. On the right-hand side, we show the distribution of these cash flows. Total costs for the half year period were AUD 4.3 million. Of this, AUD 3.7 million relates to the normal ongoing operating expenses with a further AUD 0.2 million in, for D&A. We have also specifically called out in our accounts the AUD 0.5 million in one-off BD costs. This reflected increased BD activity in the first half year period. Net tax of AUD 26.8 million reflects an effective tax rate of 29%. As per prior page, this results in net profit after tax of AUD 61.7 million. Now turning to Slide 11.
The objective of this slide is to show how the capital management framework prioritizes shareholder returns. As you'll see from the chart, the current AUD 61.7 million dividend builds on the prior two period dividends of AUD 60.9 million and AUD 33.3 million, all of which represent a payout of 100% NPAT for the respective periods. In our release, we have tried to further clarify our capital management framework. We will prioritize shareholder return whilst understanding the intent to invest in growth. In doing so, we will continue to return all surplus cash from royalties to shareholders, franked to the maximum extent possible. We will optimize use of debt for future acquisitions. The intent is that the cash flows from the future new royalties will, at least in part, be utilized to decrease leverage.
We expect that all new royalties will be able to contribute as standalone value accretive investments, and will be capable of providing returns greater than their respective cost of capital. We'll also maintain and target leverage within the range of 0%-15% of enterprise value over time. This leverage ratio reflects the desire to maintain a strong balance sheet and protect the option to act flexibly when value accretive opportunities arise. On Slide 12, we describe the new capital management framework with respect to the funding of new acquisitions. You will see as part of today's release, we have also announced the refinancing of a new AUD 350 million bilateral credit facility.
The new credit facility increases total credit limits from AUD 40 million to AUD 350 million, extends existing maturities to three, four, and five years, builds relationship with Australian and international banking group with strong resource financing credentials, and demonstrates how a competitive process has allowed us to improve terms and conditions and pricing. The net result that for Deterra is that in addition to increasing quantum, we have also increased our weighted average maturity profile, plus reduced our weighted average margin over prior facilities. We are very pleased with the outcome of the new increased credit facilities. The excellent outcome reflects both the underlying quality of the and creditworthiness of the MAC asset, plus the lower risk nature of the royalty cash flows. The new facility will provide Deterra with increased flexibility to act on growth opportunities.
The framework also aims to ensure that we do not cross-subsidize new growth opportunities with MAC revenues, ensuring that all new investments must be capable of providing returns greater than their own cost of capital. Hopefully, you'll recognize from these slides, we have worked hard to deliver upon our commitments in terms of corporate structure. We continue to run a lean and simple team designed to maximize returns to shareholders. In terms of capital structure, we retain a conservative balance sheet with the new AUD 350 million facility designed to increase options to act flexibly for value accretive opportunities. In terms of shareholder returns, in declaring a final dividend of AUD 0.1168 per share, fully franked, we continue to deliver on a record of maximizing return on surplus cash flow to our shareholders. With that, Julian, I'll pass it back to you.
Great. Thank you, Brendan. Turning now to growth. I mentioned earlier that we have significant growth in the business already through the Mining Area C royalty. As I said, this is a world-class asset that it's low cost and long life, and it has significant leverage to the more than doubling in production from FY 2021 levels that we anticipate by mid-2024 as South Flank continues to ramp up to full capacity. We've provided a sense of that leverage in the pack on Slide 16, where we've set out a very simple table showing how receipts might look under a range of sales volumes and price outcomes. That being said, an important part of the business model is also looking to add other growth options to the portfolio.
As you'll recall, you know, we were established with a broad growth mandate in terms of commodities. But as we've said many times, you know, we see little value in focusing on commodities such as precious metals that are highly contested and where we don't feel we have a strong source of competitive advantage. That very much remains the case. As with any business, we're continuing to refine our focus on growth opportunities. Our activity to date has been focused on the areas where we think we can really bring value to transactions, which is in the bulk base and batteries metal space.
The deal flow that we've seen over the half has been strong, particularly in secondary opportunities, and we've seen and evaluated a number of opportunities in this period, although none were sufficiently compelling for us to act on. We've seen substantial competition and full pricing for assets that have transacted. To be clear, it remains very important for us to maintain our discipline and patience as we pursue these growth opportunities and stay focused on their potential for value accretion. Lastly, at our annual results last year, we outlined our ESG framework. We're continuing to implement that framework and have taken some important further steps in the half. We've been accepted as a signatory to the UN Global Compact.
We've issued our first modern slavery statement, and we're well advanced on our commitment to net zero operational greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the current financial year. With that, I'll wrap up the introduction and be happy to move to questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Your first question comes from the line of Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Oh, hi team. Thanks for the opportunity. Look, two quick ones from me. You talked about having looked at opportunities during the period. Are you able to talk to a few, maybe not specifically related to transactions, but perhaps the commodities? Then if you do look at Slide 14. If you do apply the geographical preference that you have onto that pie chart of the non-precious focus listed companies, what sort of a reduction do you see in the available space that you can bid on? That's the first one. Let me come back with the second.
Sure. Okay. Thanks, Rahul. In terms of your first question about the opportunities we've looked at, yeah, obviously, you know, we won't talk to specifics. You know, we have, as I mentioned, seen pretty strong deal flow in the secondaries market space. We've seen a number of opportunities come to market. You know, whether that's as part of a broader portfolio or individual assets. In terms of, you know, the question around where we're seeing those commodities, there has been quite a bit of activity, particularly in the base metals space. We've also seen some opportunities in bulks.
In terms of the geographic overlay on the pie chart, look, I must admit, it's not a clear answer I can give off the top of my head. You know, when we talk about our geographic preference, you know, we are focused on jurisdictions that we think are more stable and more well-established. That's Australia, that's North America, it's most of South America. When we look at the sort of overlay that on both commodity production, you know, those are major mining jurisdictions. I think that, you know, there are a significant number of opportunities that we see in those geographies.
Sure. I mean, perhaps if I follow up on that second question then a different way. You did acknowledge that a lot of the opportunities are fully valued. If we take a step back and look at the strategy, you have very bankable cash flows going forward from Mining Area C. Does that perhaps allow you, or should you think about early stage assets, exploration assets, because you have the ability to hold that royalty for a period of time before it starts generating the cash flow? Perhaps you can find some better opportunities in that space. I mean, what is stopping you from looking at perhaps, you know, early stage assets that are not under construction yet, but perhaps have a proven study in place and are going into the funding stage?
Yeah, look, you're right, Rahul. We certainly do. You know, we have very strong cash flows. That puts us in a position where, you know, we really can be very patient and disciplined about how we think about investment opportunities. You know, that applies across the whole range of, you know, development stage. You know, at the moment, we are more focused on those producing or near production opportunities because we see those as, you know, they provide the cash flow that will support the business going forward over time. To be clear, we, you know, we have seen early stage opportunities.
I think the way that we think about the value they can deliver is perhaps a little bit different because they clearly have quite a different risk profile. You know, the other point to make about those as well is typically the earlier stage that you invest, you know, the value is, you know, you're taking greater risk. It's earlier stage, so typically the quantum invested is perhaps a little bit lower.
No, that's fair. Okay, that's my two. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thanks, Rahul.
Thank you for the questions. The next question comes from the line of Jin Jiang from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Julian. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a follow-up from Rahul's question. Just on the primary royalties versus the secondary existing royalties, would you be able to provide more color on the market? Like you mentioned focus on battery materials and the bulk. Would you consider coal given you have ESG mandate? That's first question. Secondly, just in regards to your capital management program, so any cash flow from future projects, I mean, from the future royalty transactions, is your priority to repay debt or are funding for potential M&A or return back to shareholders? I have another one after that. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. I think just to be clear, you asked a question about coal. I'll maybe just address that first. I think, you know, we've been fairly consistent in saying that, you know, we don't look at coal opportunities. They don't fit well with our ESG framework. We don't look at coal. The broader question about the primary versus secondary, you know, they are quite different markets in terms of the competitive dynamics. In the primary market, you know, we would be looking to act as a source of funds for a miner or a developer. The competition is generally with other sources of capital, you know, whether those are debt or equity.
You know, clearly, those other markets go through periods where they're more strong and less strong. You know, we believe very strongly that the royalties and streams have a place in funding stacks for most projects. You know, clearly the competitive dynamics of the primary market are quite strong. Capital is clearly relatively freely available from other sources. In terms of the question about capital management, I mean, the intention is that cash flow can be used to manage our balance sheet. We've, you know, been, I think, quite explicit today about where we see that leverage range on the balance sheet.
I might ask Brendan to address that one in a little more detail.
Yeah. No, thanks, Julian. Yeah, no, the intent of new assets is that cash flow from those new assets will go back towards decreasing leverage. You know, we've set a framework where we've got targets around our leverage ratios. Depending where we are, there is flexibility within that to sort of adjust depending on where we are. If we were at the higher end of the leverage ratio, we'd obviously be trying to delever the balance sheet so that we can actually be ready to participate in the future. If we're at the lower end, we may keep some debt, you know, on the balance sheet as well.
It depends, but the intent is to make sure that new acquisitions are value accretive in their own right, can more than pay their cost of capital, let alone the cost of debt in the new facility, and that they can sort of help pay themselves back, you know, while still maintaining the MAC cash flows so they can be pushed back to shareholders as best possible.
Perhaps, sorry, just to
Um, just-
I might just add a little bit. I'm not sure I fully addressed your question about those, the primary and secondary market. You know, to be clear, we see those primary opportunities as a very important area for us over time. You know, we certainly are spending a lot of time and effort laying the groundwork for those and pursuing some opportunities. To be clear, we have seen some opportunities. It's just that, you know, the nature of the business model is different, sectors will have sort of different competitive forces at different times. You know, we're seeing a lot of secondary opportunities.
Primary market perhaps is not quite so active at the moment, but, you know, that those markets obviously evolve over time as well.
Thanks, Julian. Do you think primary royalties are more competitive than secondary royalties, given most of the primary are focused on precious metals?
I think, you know, I wouldn't say they're more competitive. It's just a different, you know, different dynamics, you know, somewhat different players to an extent. Certainly in terms of the deals that we see written globally, you know, many of those are in the precious space. You know, certainly a part of our business model and our thinking about our strategy is that, you know, that royalties and streams are, you know, potentially a very powerful form of funding outside of the precious space. You know, we see a real opportunity in that. To be clear, you know, we think that sector has been underserved historically.
We see, you know, a niche there for us to look to explore further, an area that we think hasn't had the same level of service.
Yeah. Jin, to your point, you know, primary royalties in precious metals are more frequent at the moment. That's because 90% of the market is focusing on primary, you know, primary royalties in the precious metal space. You know, we do think there's opportunity there to sort of to help other companies in other commodities to sort of to use a royalty funding mechanism as well as part of their arsenal of project financing options.
Sure. Thanks, Brendan. Thanks, Julian. I'll pass it down. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Stein from CLSA. Please ask your question now.
Great set of results. Just a question on the acquisition strategy at this point in the cycle, noting the increased liquidity. Is the funding strategy inherently procyclical, given currently commodity prices are at their peaks? So if you do go for a secondary royalty, you're paying premiums to acquire those. And secondly, through funding primary royalties, whilst you are getting in earlier in the life cycle of an asset, you're in effect crystallizing high inflationary and escalatory cost drivers that are currently present in the jurisdictions that you're focused on. The second question I have is around then a follow-on question around liquidity.
Sure. No, perhaps we'll address the first one. So in terms of the, you know, the facilities that we've announced today, clearly we've increased the limits. We saw an opportunity to put those facilities in place, and we're able to do so in a way that's not only reduced our weighted average margin, but has actually pushed out the tenor as well. You know, I think that one of the things that's very apparent to us, and particularly when we talk about primary market opportunities, is having liquidity is very important to the counterparties we're talking to, having liquidity on our behalf.
You know, clearly the ability to be able to commit funds with a degree of certainty on relatively short time frames is advantageous when we're having those conversations. You know, to be clear, liquidity at this level is certainly lines up with our target investment parameters. It's also when we look outside of the precious metals-focused players, it is, you know, we believe that this is something that's a potential differentiator for us relative to others in that space. In terms of, you know, is the strategy sort of inherently pro-cyclical? I guess I'd just come back to, you know, the comments that I think we've made all the way through since the company was established.
You know, that's around patience and discipline. That you know we are very conscious that the opportunities we look at will deliver value over the long term. We need to be very focused on how they deliver value over the long term and how pricing may evolve in the medium and longer term, rather than be distracted by short-term movements in pricing. You know, that that's very much reflected in our approach, which is to stay disciplined and not chase assets.
I think we've also, you know, between us, we've seen a few cycles as well and, you know, we're also chasing long life low cost assets, ideally because they sort of work their way through the cycles better, as well as the fact that, you know, you've more of the value is in the long term sort of nature of the asset rather than the shorter term sort of price fly-ups.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks for that, clarification. It, I think it is reassuring to hear the patience and discipline aspects. I guess the secondary question then is on the liquidity and increasing that. Are there any sort of covenants or restrictions around being able to access that liquidity if commodity prices roll against you?
Listen, you know, the covenants and T's and C's on the facility are, you know, probably commensurate with a facility of this size and nature. In saying that, you know, they are not very restrictive and there's nothing to restrict us, you know, apart from normal sort of ratio tests that we would have to sort of meet. No, I don't believe there's any in there that will sort of limit us from participating, particularly with the growth profile of the Mining Area C, from participating in or using the facility, you know, so even if the prices did drop.
You can keep your powder dry, so to speak?
Sure. Yes. Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Next questions will come from the line of Matt Greene from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good morning Julian, Brendan, and Matt. Let's just, I guess, starting off with the growth theme here. Look, I appreciate you seeing some transactions that are being fully valued. You've done the work on them internally, I'd imagine. You know, just based on this work and the headline numbers that these opportunities have been transacted out at, are you able to give us an indication of the range of IRRs that your peers are willing to pay in this market?
I think, you know, the range is exactly that. It's a range. It's, you know, it's very difficult to talk about IRRs without sort of talking about specific opportunities. I think, you know, in terms of announced deals, you know, I think that, you know, you see even within those potentially a bit of a range of implied IRRs. I think what is fair to say is that IRRs probably have been coming down a bit over the past 12 or 18 months, particularly in the precious metal space. You know, when we think about how we look at those opportunities, you know, it is about value accretion.
You know, to the extent we see assets that we really like, you know, we're prepared to put a lot of time and effort into evaluating them and looking to be competitive. You know, we're not gonna chase assets. We're not gonna look to transact simply for the sake of it. You know, we have growth in the profile through South Flank. We have strong cash flows and, you know, we don't need to invest for the sake of investing. Certainly won't be doing that. As Brendan said, I think we've all been through a few cycles. We know that there are gonna be better times to invest and times that perhaps aren't as good to invest.
We'll make sure that we're not only investing in the right opportunities, but investing at the right times.
Okay. Got it. Thanks. Just on provisional pricing, you saw a bit of a negative PP in the December quarter. Like, I'm sure you're getting more granular in pricing information from BHP, so how should we be thinking about PP adjustments going forward? Is there any sort of color you can give us on that? Are we simply looking at kind of spot price at the end of the quarter, or is there some sort of forward-looking pricing being baked into that? Any additional context you can give us there would be great.
Yeah. Listen, unfortunately, we don't have, like, absolute visibility into the nature of the BHP contract, so it's difficult to sort of give you a broad brush sort of method there. You know, all I would sort of say is if you look at the last month of each quarter, you know, and the volatility in that last month relative to the prior quarter, that will sort of help guide as to, you know, on a broad brush perspective, where the adjustments will be. You know, I think in this period, we sort of saw the September quarter.
Last month of September quarter was sort of quite volatile, and the last month of the December quarter was quite volatile, and they've had to make adjustments there, which we've done the analysis over time, and we'll get it all back. On any particular quarter or half, we may be out by an amount which gets picked up in the next quarter. Sorry, I can't give you too much more than that because we don't have complete access to their sort of book, you know, their contract book, unfortunately.
Yep. No, that's helpful. Thanks. Then just lastly, on your credit facility, you've highlighted AUD 2.5 million of minimum cost, but are there any one-off refinancing or establishment costs that will come through this half?
Yes. Sorry, to be clear, that AUD 2.4 million number we put out there includes annual amortization.
Yeah
of those upfront costs.
Yeah.
Okay. Got it. Thanks a lot, gents.
Thank you for the questions. Next questions will come from the line of Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Ask your question.
Yeah, good morning, guys. Thanks for the briefing. Just a couple questions from me. Firstly, just around the capital allocation framework and in respect of your royalty streams with Credit Suisse, the next slide. You talked about new strips potentially paying their own way and then you know, payout ratio on top of that base of shareholders. Do you have a sense of what those payout ratios will be thinking like the current shareholders from the royalty stream that do rely partly on debt funding?
Yeah. It's, you know, pretty difficult, and I think that's why we've tried to give a bit more sort of color around our thinking on the framework. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it depends very much on the profile of the new investments, the cash generation, capitalization schedule, sort of where we are from a balance sheet perspective within that sort of 15% leverage range. It's very difficult to be prescriptive about that. We, you know, we'll talk more about the way we think about that. Clearly, you know, as you say, the intention is that we will use cash flow to manage that approach.
If there is surplus cash flow, you know, it's an important part of our philosophy, which would be retaining surplus and, you know, cash to shareholders.
It is very much dependent on, you know, on the size, the profile and, you know, and the position of the company in terms of its balance sheet. Those three factors will sort of impact how we think about the sort of you know what instruments we use to fund the new, you know, acquisition, as well as sort of how we pay it down over time, how we sort of repair the balance sheet to make sure that it gets back to a position that we are ready for any commitments that are out there.
All right. Thank you. Second question from me. Just on the mining area, see a couple of points here. Obviously, you know, COVID is starting to spread in the community. Are you comfortable about preparedness around that? Secondly, just on timing of South Flank getting to full run rate, BHP is talking pre-ramp up, but I know December quarter, they were annualizing at about 100 million tons a year. How should we be still thinking about timing of Mining Area C getting to that 145 million ton per annum run rate? Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, obviously the you know, COVID's a topical issue for us here in WA at the moment as we're looking to opening up the borders next week. I think you know, BHP has noted there's potentially some operational volatility to be expected in the next half as a result of COVID. But you know, we're you know, clearly BHP is very focused on managing that impact. You know, we understand it's very well prepared. That's something that you know, I'm sure they'll manage effectively, so we're not overly concerned about it.
They have a track record of sort of managing the smaller outbreaks that they've had so far very effectively across their Western Australia iron ore and Yandi assets as well.
You know, to be clear, to the extent it's reflected in additional costs associated with the business, just to sort of reiterate, you know, we're not exposed to any increased cost as a result of that. You know, our exposure is obviously to production volumes and to price.
Okay.
In terms of ramp up, as you say, I think, you know, very strong performances are noted upfront over the last half. You know, BHP is still guiding or, you know, talking to expectations around reaching full run rate by mid-2024. Look, we don't have any reason to believe otherwise. We're certainly very pleased at the ramp-up performance to date and confident that they'll hit the targets that they've stated publicly.
Whether the shape of the curve is a straight line or parabolic, it's sort of yet to be determined.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Next question comes from the line of Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Julian. Julian, I'm wondering if you could just help elaborate a little bit on the internal process when a royalty opportunity comes in. You know, just the timeframe you've got to look at it, you know, how quick you have to act. 'Cause I'm a bit surprised if you've been looking at, I think you said 40 last financial year, and you said you need to be able to act quickly, yet you've only just put a debt facility in today. So I'm a bit surprised. But just trying to understand, I mean, if you have to act quickly, I mean, is this suggesting that you can only limit yourself to sort of AUD 350 million or not?
I'm just trying to understand how the process works and, you know, like, you know, when they come in, how quick, et cetera. The consultancy spend, I mean, is that? I know it's only small, but in the context of what you spend annually, it's large. Is that just to look at one royalty? Is that what you could expect to spend on BD when you do a deep dive into one opportunity, or is that a number of opportunities? Just trying to understand the whole process. Thanks.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Glyn. Yeah, in terms of the processes, you know, as I said, I mentioned last year we've looked at, you know, more than 40, and we continue to look at them. To be clear, you know, many of those are opportunities we see and we can do, you know, a pretty small amount of work out. You know, as you know, I'm sure with any business like ours, we have an upfront screening process where when we see opportunities, you know, we screen them against the criteria that you know, we use for assessing our investments. You know, those, the parameters that we talk about pretty regularly around commodity and jurisdiction and size and the like. You know, many of them can be ruled out pretty quickly.
To be clear, that's a funnel that narrows pretty quickly. To the extent it depends very much whether we're looking at, you know, primary or secondary opportunities. But yeah, there's a process where we go through and we do some initial work to having cleared the screening process, some additional work to assess the opportunity. Then if it's still prospective, clearly, we take a deeper dive. I think in terms of the facility that was announced today or the extension of the facility, it is about flexibility, I think probably is a better way of thinking about it rather than speed. You know, speed is important, I think particularly in that primary market.
As much as anything, it's the liquidity that we're able to offer. It's the being able to make firm commitments to counterparties in terms of our ability to fund. You know, we are a small team. We wanna be able to react nimbly, and I think having this funding capability in place is an important part of that. In terms of the spend, look, you know, that's to be clear, that's not a single opportunity. That includes a number of opportunities that we've looked at, you know.
It also involves some additional work we've done on sort of background work in terms of firming up views on particular sectors or sort of groupings of opportunities as opposed to single opportunities.
The other one, Glyn, I know you talked about the size, you know, the sizing of the facility of AUD 350 million, you know, is that as high as we can go? The answer is no, we could go higher. The AUD 350 million was sort of sized around. We were replacing a AUD 40 million working cap facility, plus we wanted to, we had a target range or a sweet spot we talk about of AUD 100 million-AUD 300 million. The AUD 350 million seemed like a logical place to sort of to put it at. We, you know, we had excellent sort of responses from the banks in a highly competitive process, and we could have gone, you know, materially larger than that should we have chosen to.
I think in building these relationships with these banks as well, that sort of helps, hopefully in future creates an opportunity to sort of to build on that, as we go forward as well, should we want to.
Okay. Can I just clarify a couple of things then? How long would you have from something coming in the door to when you need to act? Is it, are we talking you get days, weeks, or months to review some of these opportunities? Like, how quickly do you need to turn these things around?
Yeah, look, you know, obviously everyone's a little different and probably, you know, differences between primary and secondary opportunities. You know, when we're looking at, you know, competitive processes, you know, typically it's a question of weeks to, you know, couple of months, maybe three months, for a full process. You know, we'd certainly be looking to take a view internally on our appetite for the opportunity. You know, it's a question of weeks.
I'd say indicative bids, you know, generally 6-12 weeks. The smaller the asset, you potentially go a bit quicker, but the bigger the asset, the longer it goes.
Okay. I mean, I know it's a hard question to finish on 'cause it depends what comes in the door, but, you know, $500,000 on BD, is that the, should that be the normal go forward, or is it just, it's gonna be too hard to quantify?
It's gonna be lumpy, but it's, you know. I think it's probably not a bad sort of placeholder, you know, potentially a little bit more as we go, you know, depending on the size, as you talked about. You know, not all processes are equal, and you don't need the amount of some of them we can manage more internally, some of them we need more external resources. You know, and the more complex they are and the larger they are, the more diligence you'll do on certain sort of technical parameters, you know, and that will sort of dictate some of those things. It's hard to say. Listen, I think it's not a bad run rate. Maybe a little bit more would be my guess.
Sorry, just getting the leverage down if you bought something, you obviously have two methodologies. One, use the cash coming in the door, or one, equity. You know, like, how do you think about the two of those to get the leverage back down if you did push it up towards the top end or through it?
Yeah, look, you know, as you say, those are both available to us. I think it probably depends on the sort of where we are at the time. I think, you know, if we've got strong cash flow generation, then that's certainly, you know, available to us. You know, equity's always there as well as an option. Look, it's very difficult to preempt that decision. I think, you know, that really depends on a lot of factors at the time.
the same three factors.
All right. Thanks.
Size of opportunity, profile of the opportunity, and you know, the situation and of the existing balance sheet at the time will dictate where we go with that, Glyn.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the questions. Once again, if you would like to ask question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We got follow-up questions from the line of Jin Jiang of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please ask your question.
Hi. Sorry, just a follow-up on your growth. Is the cash flow from MAC 100% secured for shareholder return? That's my first question. Secondly, by looking at commodity prices for base metals, battery metals, mostly at record high and the bulks like iron ore spot at $139 a ton, which is well above most people's long-term iron ore price forecast. A lot of second royalty deals would be fully valued. Do you have any timeline or under pressure to grow given record high commodity prices for what you are targeting? And also what's the plan if you cannot find any deals in the next 12-24 months? Thank you.
Yeah. Perhaps to address the second question first. No, look, we're not, you know, we're obviously very active in looking at opportunities, but we're not under any pressure to invest. I think, you know, as we've said, I think pretty consistently we will be patient, we will be disciplined. We will be very much focused on value accretion. We're certainly busy looking at those opportunities. You know, as we've said already today, I think, you know, we are conscious that they need to be value accretive and that, you know, there are gonna be times where it's better to invest. We won't be chasing any assets.
Yeah. I think your question around MAC cash flow is secured to 100%. As in, it's not like debt, they're not secured. You know, the capital management framework is designed to sort of make sure that we are maximizing our returns to shareholders, which, you know, we intend on the MAC cash flows sort of having the ability to. Sorry. People invested, you know, in Deterra were for, a lot of them were for the MAC cash flows, and we owe it to try to return them as best possible to shareholders through the cycle. That new acquisitions will sort of be able to sort of self-fund themselves. That was sort of, that's sort of what the intent of that sort of framework was.
I think the other question was around if we do no deal in the next sort of, 12-24 months period.
Yeah. Look, as I said, we're actively looking at opportunities. We're not gonna chase assets and invest simply for the sake of it. I'd rather be talking to you and investors about why we haven't done a lot of deals than talking to them about why we've done bad deals. You know, we'll stay patient and disciplined.
Yeah. Part of keeping a lean cost structure is to make sure that the input of that, you know, of retaining the head office or retaining a small sort of corporate sort of function is not too expensive. You know, we do try very hard to run a lean business model with sort of no excess fat in the system.
Thank you, Julian. Thanks, Brendan.
No problem. Thanks.
Thank you for the question. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. There are no further questions at this time. If you did not get the opportunity today to ask questions, or if you have any follow-up questions, you may email them through to our investor relations team at investor.relations@deterraroyalties.com. I repeat, it's investor.relations@deterraroyalties.com. I would now like to hand the conference back to today's presenters. Please continue.
Great. Thank you very much, and thank you everybody, for your attendance this morning. We look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.