Welcome everybody to the Franco-Nevada Annual Meeting. This is a combined, in-person meeting. I'm so delighted to see so many people turn out. We were having our meetings today, and some of our Directors were suggesting we just do virtual meetings. It's so much easier. I think it's the one-on-one impact is very important, and I'm just delighted that so many of you came out in person today. I'd like to welcome you to the 2023 Annual and Special Meeting of the Shareholders of Franco-Nevada. My name is David Harquail, and as Chair of the Board of Directors of the company, I will chair the formal portion of this meeting. Following that, Paul Brink, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide some remarks and take your questions.
Thank you for joining us today and also by webcast or by person and for sending in your proxies. What to do first is introduce the head table. I have seating immediately on my left here, Paul Brink. After him is Sandip Rana, our Chief Financial Officer. After that is Lloyd Hong, our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. I'd like to also introduce some other members of our leadership team. Ian Gray standing right over there. Jason O'Connell also right next to him. All of our Directors are present today that are being nominated for election today. Apart from Paul and myself, I'd like to introduce the other Directors. I'll ask them to each stand as I say their names. Tom Albanese. Derek Evans. Dr. Catherine Farrell. Maureen Jensen.
Jennifer Maki, Randall Oliphant, and Jacques Perron, our newest director. Franco's celebrating 15 complete years in terms of filing full financial statements since our IPO in 2017. We've been carefully renewing both the board and the executive team while trying to preserve the culture and DNA of the company. Last year, I regretted very much, but had to speak about Graham Farquharson who passed away. He had been a long-term director and part of the original IPO team of the board of directors of this company. This year, we also accepted the retirement of two other Directors, Louis Gignac, who was part of our original IPO along with Graham, and he was a personal friend. He was. His advice and counsel was tremendous, and I think he was.
played a big part in the success of our company. Also Elliott Pew, who was a more recent Director. He was with us approximately three years, and he was part of our oil and gas efforts, especially in the U.S. His counsel and advice was tremendous, especially in the number of the newer gas deals that we did in the U.S. that were very successful. Also his counsel both on governance and strategic aspects in terms of the broader things of aspects of what the company was looking at was also very appreciated and had a profound impact on the company. We're gaining some, we're losing some as part of the renewal process.
I think one of the aspects of what the board's trying to do is make sure we preserve the DNA that's made this company successful, and I'm confident we can manage that. We'll now move the formal part of the meeting. What I'd like to do is I'd like to ask Lloyd Hong to act as the secretary of the meeting and Kirshino and Shirley Tom as representatives of Computershare to act as scrutineers. The scrutineers will report on the number of shares represented at this meeting or by proxy. Proof of service of this notice calling the meeting has been filed. I direct that a copy of this notice and affidavit proving service thereof be annexed to the minutes of this meeting.
I have been advised there is a quorum. I request that the scrutineer's report be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. I believe we've had one of the highest turnouts voted in the history of the company and, remarkable actually for a lot of companies. I think in excess of 83% of the votes have been cast for this meeting. I'm very pleased by that. It's a remarkable number. I declare this meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. I'll ask that our Chief Legal Counsel, Mr. Hong, provide the details on the logistics for this meeting because they're too complicated for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As mentioned, this will be a hybrid meeting allowing both in-person and virtual participation. Please bear with us if any technical issues come up. Here are a few logistics for the meeting. If you're on the webcast, detailed instructions are displayed on how to vote, ask questions, and get technical assistance if necessary. If you require technical assistance with your electronic voting device, representatives from Lumi are available at the registration table to assist. If you're on the phone line, please note that you cannot vote or ask questions. We will conduct the votes on the matters before us by poll. On a poll, every shareholder entitled to vote on the matter has one vote in respect of each share held by that shareholder.
I would now ask Lumi to open the polls for voting on all matters of business for this meeting and keep the polls open until after all of the items have been presented and the chairman has asked for the polls to be closed. For those shareholders present in person, you should have been provided with an electronic voting device or a ballot form if you registered with the scrutineers on your arrival. If you are a registered holder or a duly appointed proxy holder and have not received an electronic voting device or ballot form, please go to the registration desk and one will be provided to you. The polls are now open, you are able to cast your vote on all items of business until the chairman closes the polls at the end of the meeting.
You do not need to wait for each specific item of business to vote and are free to vote at any time. Moving on to questions. For those here in person who have any questions on the items of business, please raise your hand at the appropriate time and a microphone will be brought to you. If you are participating on the webcast and have any questions on the items of business, please type in your question or comment in the messaging section of the Lumi platform in advance, as there is a delay between the live meeting and the webcast. I will read the question aloud. We will take applicable questions after each item of business.
If your questions are more general in nature, we would ask that you please wait until the formal business of the meeting has been concluded, as we will have a Q&A session afterwards. After all the matters of business have been presented and the voting has been closed, Computershare will tabulate the results, and the Chairman will report them to the meeting. Mr. Chairman, back to you.
Thank you, Lloyd. I'm very happy you did that instead of me. The financial statements. We'll move the first matter of business is to confirm the receipt of the financial statements in the auditor's report. The consolidated financial statements of the company and its subsidiaries for the year ended December 31, 2022, and the reports of the directors and auditors thereon have been mailed to all shareholders who requested them together with the notice of meeting. The financial statements are also available on our website, and you can request paper copies by phone or by email. The next matter of business is the election of directors. The nominees of management of the company were identified in the information circular mail to each shareholder of the company. I introduced to the directors to you earlier and had them stand. Will someone please nominate the Directors?
nine directors are required to be nominated.
Mr. Chairman, my name is Ian Gray, and I'm a shareholder of the company. I nominate David Harquail, Paul Brink, Tom Albanese, Derek Evans, Dr. Catherine Farrell, Maureen Jensen, Jennifer Maki, Randall Oliphant, and Jacques Perron.
Thank you, Ian. could I have a second?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Phil Wilson, and I'm a shareholder of the company, and I second the nominations.
Thank you, Phil. Are there any questions from the floor? There are no questions. Are there any questions from the webcast?
There are no questions.
I declare the nominations closed. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. Will someone please move a resolution for the appointment of auditors and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of such auditors?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Jason O'Connell. I'm a shareholder of the company. I move the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Chartered Accountants be appointed auditors of the company until the next annual meeting at such remuneration as may be fixed by the directors of the company, the directors being hereby authorized to fix such remuneration.
Thank you. Could I have a second?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Christian Doerfert, and I'm a shareholder of the company. I second the motion.
Thank you. Are there any questions from the floor? Seeing none, are there any questions from the webcast?
There are no questions.
The next matter of business is the say-on-pay advisory resolution. Since the vote is advisory, it will not be binding on the board. However, the board will consider the outcome of the vote as part of its ongoing review of executive compensation matters. Will someone please move a resolution for the say-on-pay advisory resolution?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Candide Hayden. I'm a shareholder of the company. I move that on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the Board of Directors of the company, their shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation as disclosed in the company's management information circular dated March 17, 2023.
Thank you, Candide. Could I have a seconder?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Adrien Wong, and I'm a shareholder of the company, and I second the motion.
Thank you, Adrien. Are there any questions from the floor? Any questions from the webcast?
No.
That was the last final item of formal business for this meeting. If you've not yet voted on the motions that have been tabled, I'll ask you to now complete your voting. We'll pause briefly for final votes to come in, and I'll let Lloyd wave to me when I can proceed. I declare, I guess I declare the voting is closed.
Yep.
Ask the polls to be closed. For those using physical ballots, please raise your hands. I see none, there's nothing to collect. Do I need an additional pause?
No.
Okay.
Go ahead.
I think since 83% of the votes came in already, there's not much left to collect. Are there any other items of business that any shareholders in attendance would like to raise? Is there anything on the webcast?
There's nothing from the webcast.
The formal business of the meeting is been completed. We have received the preliminary results and declare that each of the motions in this meeting have been carried by no less than 92% of the votes, including the election of Directors. I declare the persons nominated have been duly elected as Directors of Franco-Nevada. Congratulations. The final results of the meeting were reported on SEDAR by tomorrow. The formal part of the meeting is now concluded. Now, the fun part starts. I'm gonna turn it over now to Paul Brink and to provide his remarks and to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, David. Good afternoon, everyone. Please heed the cautionary statements. When we set out 15 years ago relaunching Franco-Nevada, we didn't know what the future would hold. There were some core principles, and the first was our view was gold is a risk-off investment, and we set out to create a company that would be the lowest risk possible gold investment company. The second was the appreciation that the greatest amount of value in the mining industry is generated at the drill bit, and to create a business that provided shareholders exposure to that exploration optionality. The third piece was an understanding that we were investing in highly cyclical market, and that's best done with a conservative balance sheet to make sure that we'd have access to capital when others didn't. That has worked remarkably well.
Here's a snapshot of how the business has grown over those 15 years. You can see whether it's the GEOs, the revenues, the EBITDA, it's grown in the order of 6- 7x . The market cap in the bottom right-hand corner has kept track with the growth in the business. The share price appreciation that represents is roughly a 17% CAGR over that 15-year period. In terms of dividends, our approach has reflected that philosophy. The first is make sure that we could sustain the dividend regardless of the gold price environment, to provide that risk-off investment that shareholders are looking for. The second was our hope that the dividend would be progressive. With the growth in the business, we've been able to increase that dividend 16x consecutively. The total dividend's now $1.98 billion.
Our next dividend is due June this year, and that will take us past the $2 billion mark of dividends paid. Our IPO investors in U.S. Dollars are realizing close to 9% in CAD, a 12% yield. Speaking a bit about our business model, and there are two main aspects, and the first relates to growth. As we've mentioned, the greatest value in the industry is that exposure to exploration optionality. That has been a huge growth driver in our business. The second is because our interests are non-operating interests, management's not spending its time on operating issues. We're able to spend all our time, thinking and executing on the growth of the business.
The third, again, relates to non-operating interests, is we can grow a much more diversified portfolio than an operating company can because we don't have to operate each of those assets. The second aspect really relates to the instruments that we invest in, royalties and streams. They're both top-line instruments. That means a couple of things. It's a free cash flow business. There are no capital calls that we have to answer to. We're not exposed to operating costs and for that reason, not exposed to cost inflation. Inflation is one of the main reasons that so many investors invest in gold. Lastly, it's a very high-margin business, both those interests are top-line interests, so we have a very strong cash flow generating business. We recognize our role in the business is largely allocating capital on behalf of our shareholders.
It means, in doing due diligence on our assets, we put a high priority on ESG, making sure that any of the assets that we invest in minimize the environmental impact, making sure that there is a net benefit to communities, and also ourselves engaging and making contributions towards those communities. In terms of governance, the first thing in governance for us is alignment with shareholders, and what that means is ownership. We treasure our culture of ownership in the business. I'm proud that between the management and the board, we own more than $200 million of stock. It is very key to us to make sure that we act like owners and not like managers. The last one I'll touch on is we really strive to have an inclusive workforce.
We have set goals in terms of diversity, both at the board and at the senior management level. This year have increased those goals, I am sure that we will be able to execute on them. Briefly on our asset portfolio. Our business is unique in its scope, both in terms of being a royalty and a streaming business, 421 assets in total. We've been able to benefit from the optionality, the exploration optionality that those royalty assets have brought, as well as the stable cash flows and the long life to assets we've been able to invest in with our stream assets. We have the most diversified portfolio amongst our peers, whether that is by asset, by operator, by jurisdiction. With that diversification comes that low risk aspect of the business.
Our core assets are all precious metal streams on some of the world's largest copper assets. For all these investments, they've been outperforming since expectations since we made the investments, and they really do represent that truism, which is great assets get even better over time. All assets do have their bumps in the road, and we have had some starting a couple of years with Candelaria and earlier this year at Antamina, with social disruptions in Cobre, as First Quantum has renegotiated with the government. Going through those bumps in the road really has, for me, reiterated the strength of our business and how robust it is in that even when we've had production disruptions and production halted for short periods, there's no loss in long-term value to our business. It's just a deferral of revenue.
If that ore isn't mined one week, it's mined the next, or if it's not one quarter, it's mined the next. When I think about how robust our business is, I really feel that we are blessed. Turning to our growth outlook, three main elements to our growth, and the first is the ramp up of Cobre Panama. It is our largest asset. First Quantum is in the process of ramping throughput up from 85 million tons per year up to 100 million tons per year. They announced just last week they've completed the physical aspects of that expansion. They're very confident in their ramp up and achieving that throughput by the end of the year. The second is a number of mine expansions. We have the Stillwater Mine being expanded by Sibanye. We have the Tasiast Mine that's being expanded by Kinross.
Perhaps most exciting is the expansion of the Detour Mine. Over the last couple of years, Kirkland Lake was tremendously successful expanding the resources there up from 20 million ounces up to 30 million ounces. Now the asset in the hand of Agnico, they continue drilling, continue having success at depth on Detour, and now speaking about ramping up production from what used to be in the order of 650,000 ounces a year. Their target is now up towards 1 million ounces a year of production from Detour. The last of the categories is new mines. We have royalties on 10 new mines that we expect to come into production over the next five years. We also have a stream that we acquired on Tocantinzinho, which is being built by G Mining Ventures in Brazil.
They're making good progress on their mine, a tremendously experienced mine-building team, Tocantinzinho due to come on near the back end of 2024 will really drive our next leg of growth. In terms of capital available, we currently have $2.2 billion. That is $1.2 billion of cash. We have a credit facility for another $1 billion. The company has no debt, we're very well-positioned to add incremental assets to the company. To finish off, through our success in the industry, the success of our peers in the industry, it has attracted new players into the industry. There are a number of companies now that have royalty and stream assets. I don't think that holding those assets alone is what makes you successful in the industry.
I think it's your approach to the business. I think Franco is unique in that respect. The first is what I've spoken about, is that concept of ownership. Having management and the board incented to make sure that every deal that we do, we're adding value, that we're driving the share price higher. We're not incented just to make the company bigger. The second is how we manage the balance sheet and putting a premium over financial flexibility as opposed to financial leverage. That really has given us the ability to have capital available when others haven't. It's been a huge driver in our success. The third that I'll mention is asset selection. Royalty and streams are a fantastic way to invest in the mining industry. Ultimately, you're investing in mines. Your success depends on your asset selection.
Do you invest in the right assets? Our focus has always been, make sure we do good technical work on our assets, manage the downside. The upside will look after itself, and at Franco-Nevada, it has. With that, I would love to take any questions, and we will take them both from the floor and from the webcast. First of all, are there any questions from the floor? I see a gentleman in the back.
Hi. I'm Paul Durnin from Burlington. It's almost unanimous, European, Asian and North American car manufacturers, it's full speed ahead on electric vehicles. Yes, that's very true. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, but even more copper. Chrysler Stellantis, Windsor is committed. St. Thomas is committed to Volkswagen. Volvo's committed to Quebec. The exploring copper mines and the under construction copper mines aren't gonna give us a whole lot of copper in a hurry. If we go up from 5%- 25% of all cars electric over the next handful of years, we need a whole lot of copper in a hurry. Chile is the largest copper exporter of the world. I see your commitment to Panama, First Quantum, and I'm sure you have other commitments to copper.
I have to almost think, how could there be anything else but a shortage of copper going ahead? There's only so many major copper mines operational in the whole world. is it time for this management to be a whole lot more serious about copper and because prices will be higher, and there will be a shortfall. Tammy Ingersoll is, as of last year, is making electric delivery trucks.
They-
Okay, go ahead.
Well, thank you. Appreciate the question, and it is very topical. You know, as the world electrifies, there's no doubt we will need more copper. I think with that outlook, Franco-Nevada will do fantastically well. Two main reasons. The first is those big gold streams that we have, precious metal streams, are all on big copper mines. As you say, it takes a long time to bring new mines into production, so the first thing that people will do is expand those existing mines. I've already spoken about First Quantum expanding Cobre Panama, but with higher copper prices, I expect that you will see more of the ore being mined out of Antamina, out of Candelaria, and out of Antamina. I think we will benefit very much from that trend.
The next thing you would do is to say, what are the next generation of copper mines that should get built, and we're very fortunate we're exposed to many of those. That includes Cascabel, which is a very attractive block cave development target in Ecuador. We're exposed to Nueva Union, which is a joint venture between Teck and Newmont down in Chile. We are exposed to Vizcachitas, another asset down in Chile. We have a royalty on what is now called Copper World in Arizona, that Hudbay is looking to get permitted. I think we will do very well with that trend, and that exposure is not just to copper. Amongst the other battery metals, nickel, is one that will also see increased interest.
Again, we're exposed to Mount Keith operations, at BHP, in Australia. A couple of interesting development projects. The Ring of Fire, the first asset that will get built there is the Eagle Mine. It's a nickel mine. We're exposed to that, as well as to the Crawford Nickel deposit, which is a very large nickel deposit in Ontario. Thank you. A very good question and I think you highlight some of the upside at Franco-Nevada.
Thank you, Paul. What do you think the impacts are from these interest rate hikes to Franco-Nevada?
I'm gonna hand that question to Ian Gray, who heads up our business development.
Thank you. I think that's an excellent question. Certainly, it has caused a number of ripple effects through the mining industry. One thing I would point to is the dislocation that interest rate hikes have had in the bond market. I think that's quite for us. With other providers of capital like the bond market, not being there, it gives us an opportunity to fill that void. Additionally, I think our cost of capital is increasingly competitive in this environment, and it's quite favorable for new business going forward.
Thank you, Ian. Yes, I see another question.
Hi. The company has accumulated a rather significant cash position. What's the potential for a special dividend?
I am gonna hand that question to Sandip Rana, our CFO. Sandip?
Thanks, Paul. That's right. As Paul mentioned, we've got $1.2 billion in cash on the balance sheet. Our priority is and always will be to continue to add long life, good assets to the portfolio. That is the number one priority. We're very proud of returning capital to shareholders as well. As highlighted, we've raised our dividend for 16 years in a row. I think that's the policy you'll see going forward, is steady increases each year. To say for a special dividend, not at this time.
Any further questions from the floor? I don't see any for now. Lloyd, any questions on the webcast?
We have no questions from the webcast.
All right. Let me return to the script. We have concluded the event. With no further questions, before we close the meeting, a reminder that we'll be releasing our Q1 results later today, and a press release should cross the wire earlier this evening. We hope you're able to join us for our Q1 conference call, which is scheduled for 10:00 A.M. tomorrow morning. Thank you all for your support of Franco-Nevada, and have a good afternoon.