AGM 2023

May 10, 2023

Slides

First of all, before we get going, I'd like to just welcome everybody here. Thank you for coming to our annual general meeting. The second thing I'd like to say is, most of you noticed we've had sandwiches and drinks back there. I want you to know that we have paid for all of them. I do not want to see any of them left there when the meeting is over. We are a value-driven company. Okay. As I said, welcome. I would like to thank you again for attending our 2023 annual meeting. My name is Marvin Romanow, and I'm the Chairman of Freehold. Today's meeting marks our 26th annual meeting in our history. We've had a lot of ups and downs in our industry, but we take pride in the returns that we've delivered to the shareholders over our history. I would also like to advise you at this time that the meeting is being webcast. It's being webcast audio only, and all references to monetary values in my presentation and David Spyker's presentation are in Canadian dollars. Before we get into the formal procedure of the meeting, I would like to highlight a few business issues and the strength of the company that you own. Since embarking on a significant change in strategy through the expansion of our U.S. portfolio in November of 2020, just take yourself back to November of 2020. This was the early days of the pandemic. This was before vaccines were available. We had just recovered from negative oil prices, something that hasn't occurred in our industry in 150 years. We embarked on an asset acquisition strategy in the United States in the depths of the pandemic. I think it was bold, I think it was courageous, I think it was thoughtful, and most importantly to you, it was successful. Since then, we have returned over 245% through share price appreciation and dividend repayment, and that is the top-performing publicly traded royalty company over that period. That's performance. The move to the United States was not an easy decision for the board of directors and management. It involved a material change of strategy for the company. It also involved some changes to management that better positioned Freehold to deliver value for our shareholders. Looking back now, Freehold's North American expansion has made us a materially better company in several ways. Let me go through these several attributes that I think are important. To begin with, firstly, the size and scale of the U.S. opportunity remains relatively untapped. We estimate the value of minerals as an asset class within the United States at approximately $1 trillion. I know that's a number that's hard to fathom. It's got a lot of zeros, but I think you get the grasp of that. It's $1,000 billion. With 5% of this being held by publicly traded companies, 45% is held by private equity institutions, and 50% is held by mineral title owners. To put this in perspective, what we see there is approximately 10x the level of opportunities on the business development side versus transactions that are sourced in Canada. As a result, our US expansion has provided added depth and quality to Freehold's portfolio. Let me go through a couple more characteristics. We have acquired more reserves for less dollars than we would realize in Canada. Whether it be by the number of benches that we have access to, and benches are geological zones for the non-technical folks in the crowd, or the absolute number of locations we have within a specific play. The move to the US has enhanced the return profile for Freehold's investors and made the company more sustainable to volatility in commodity prices. If you watch the recent environment, we've gone from $120 WTI down to the low 60s, and now we're back in the low 70s. That's a lot of volatility, and I believe that's an important characteristic investors should look at, is how companies are sustainable through that. If you also look at our 2022 results on a proven reserve basis, we had 115% of our 2022 production replaced organically through free drilling that occurs on our royalty lands. We invested no capital to do that. We positioned ourselves in good acreage, and the operators chose to drill it, and they made us 115% sustainable over 2022. This is the first time in many years we've been able to achieve that, and it really is a testament to the strength of our portfolio. Our expansion into the U.S. has also improved our sustainability through superior pricing. For example, in 2022, our average U.S. realized price was just under $91 a BOE. Our Canadian average was CAD 68 a BOE. Since embarking on this North American strategy, our average commodity price we've achieved has improved 15% on a realized basis during this period. This is closer proximity to markets, a more friendly regulatory environment, less transportation cost, and quality of product. Those all are important drivers that are important things to consider when you think about where you want to invest. One of the key drivers in going to that basin was to ensure consistent drilling on our asset base. When we evaluate many of the plays in our land base in the United States, they are capable of supporting drilling in a $40-$50 barrel price environment. Again, that better pricing and economics and low breakevens makes us more sustainable. Given the proximity to multiple pricing points, along with a more friendly business environment where infrastructure advancements are not tied up for years in bureaucratic delays, we expect the U.S. will have a premium pricing environment for years to come. Thirdly, our Canadian and U.S. portfolios enable a broader footprint for our shareholders to participate in North American oil and gas development, including an improved roster of payers drilling on our royalty lands. 70% of our payers of our American royalties are investment grade. In 2022, over $4 billion in industry capital was spent by over 350 industry players on Freehold's royalty lands. This was a record for the company. Our current portfolio provides multiple years of upside to emerging oil and gas plays, including the Permian, the Eagle Ford, and in Canada, the Viking and the Clearwater. Under the current commodity and price environment, and even lower, we look like we have a 10-year drilling inventory. Our management and board have been very consistent in the execution of our business strategy with the goal of providing shareholders a strong balance of returns. Since the lows of COVID that I referred to earlier, Freehold has provided a consistent income source for shareholders, always providing a dividend. From our CAD 10 a share IPO 26 years ago, Freehold has returned approximately CAD 2 billion in dividends over its history. That's over CAD 34 a share in cumulative dividends. With the improvement in commodity prices from the lows of 2020, Freehold has increased our dividend by over 500%, and we have a current yield of about 7%. It's one of the top returns on the TSX Energy Index. At the price environment that we're experiencing and expecting, this represents roughly 60% of our forecast cash flow, and we are able to maintain this dividend without having to borrow to pay for our dividend down to a sub-$50 US WTI pricing environment. Since the depths of COVID, we have invested CAD 500 million to expand our North American royalty portfolio. We believe this investment has made Freehold a better company and positioned it to deliver for multiple years down the road for our shareholders. Moving to more recent times, in 2022, we invested CAD 190 million in royalty transactions, adding to positions in the Howard County, the Permian, and expanding already a strong land base in the Clearwater in Canada, two of the most active oil and gas plays in North America. Our business development team, and many of them are here today, so feel free to reach out and say hello to them after the meeting. They see a strong suite of opportunities in the near term, and they're committed to maintain a consistent return threshold when executing on transactions while also ensuring we remain committed to improving our underlying royalty portfolio through each transaction. Our goal is not simply to get bigger. Bigger is okay, but what we really focus on in making sure every transaction gets us better. We exited 2022 with a net debt to trailing funds flow of operations of 0.4x. It's one of the lowest in the oil and gas industry, notwithstanding that we could perhaps handle a bit more debt because we don't have operating costs or royalties to pay or capital costs. Notwithstanding that, we have an extraordinarily strong balance sheet. We also continue to maintain considerable financial flexibility through our existing credit lines. They're less than half drawn, and we have raised proceeds through two successful equity raises over the last three years. Hopefully, many of you had a chance to participate in those because those have returned strong returns. While these were done at considerably lower prices than our current share prices, they were accretive both then and certainly now. In tandem with the shift in our strategy, our board executed a change in leadership with the promotion of Dave Spiker, an internal candidate. He was formerly the Chief Operating Officer. We promoted him to CEO in January of 2021. Over the last several years, he has proved he was the right individual to execute our North American strategy. I would like to thank him personally as a shareholder, as a chairman, and as a colleague to doing such a great job with his team, and they all exhibit this great talent of leadership, skill, and drive, and they really delivered in 2022. Thank you, Dave. Take note, that's my daughter and my wife there. Generally, there's no applause at AGMs. That generally doesn't happen. Just please note that when you give me the after-comment criticism. Taking notes. Very good. In addition, last month we announced the promotion of Rob King to Chief Operating Officer. Susan Nagy, who is also here, the Vice President of Business Development. Both Rob and Susan played instrumental roles in developing and executing our revised strategy and will continue to play a key role going forward. These are clear indicators of the bench strength we maintain within our organization. Overall, 2022 was a year of records for the company, with Freehold achieving record revenue, record funds from operations, record dividends paid, record production, and record drilling. While we're excited about what we have achieved over the past 25 years, we are equally enthusiastic about what the next 25 years holds for Freehold and our shareholders. For those attending this AGM for the first time or those new to Freehold, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our executive team, and I'm going to ask each one of them to stand when they're introduced. No need for applause here. We don't want it to go to their heads. Dave Spyker, President and CEO. Hi. Rob King, Chief Operating Officer. Rob's right over here. David Hendry, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Ian Hantke, Vice President of Diversified Royalties, and Susan Nagy, Vice President of Business Development. Thank you. For the purposes of the meeting today, voting on all matters except for termination of the meeting will be conducted by ballot. I would like to introduce our directors standing for re-election today. Again, would you please stand when your name is called, and please withhold your applause. Sylvia Barnes, Gary Bujold, Peter Harrison, Maureen Howe, Douglas Kay, Valerie Mitchell, myself, Marvin Romanow, David Spyker. He gets a lot of attention that day. Aidan Walsh. Thank you very much. I would also like to introduce the representatives from KPMG, our auditors, and I'd ask you to stand up as well. Heather Steinley and Lindsay Fone. We would also like to recognize Art Korpach, who is not standing for re-election and who will retire from the Board in about 25 minutes. Mr. Korpach was appointed to the Board in May 9th of 2012. That is 11 years almost to the day. He was Chairman of the Compensation Committee from 2012 to 2015. He also chaired the Audit Committee from 2015 to 2022. He was instrumental in helping us through a number of transactions. He's a former banker and is very knowledgeable in that space, and this included the advancement of our U.S. portfolio, and we greatly benefited from his transaction experience. Art has always provided excellent insight. He is well-informed. He has extremely deep industry knowledge, and he delivers all of this in a concise and effective manner. He was a guy you really wanted on your side. We would like to thank you, Art, for your very hard work. Wisdom and leadership throughout his tenure was superb. We will miss you, Art. I will miss you. Could you please stand and be acknowledged? You guys are really good. You know when to clap and when to hold it back. I'm impressed. One component in the advancement of our ESG strategy was driven by Freehold's commitment to achieving 30% gender diversity to our board composition. We reached this target in 2022 with the appointment of Sylvia Barnes and Valerie Mitchell to the board. First of all, I want to say these are extraordinarily capable directors. They just also happen to be women, and we're happy to have them on board, and we are very fortunate to have them on board. Ms. Barnes, who stood up earlier, is a seasoned board member. She's a business leader and co-founder of Tanda Resources, a privately held energy advisory firm focused on upstream investments and consulting, and she's based in Houston, Texas. Her board expertise includes ESG audit, compensation, and risk management. Ms. Barnes has over 30 years of experience in energy investment banking and has a background in engineering. One of her most astute observations today is how much she liked the climate in Calgary today. We do live in a relative world, don't we? That was good, Sylvia. Thank you for us locals who like to complain about it. Valerie Mitchell is President and Chief Operating Officer at Troy Energy, a private independent oil and gas acquisition, development, and exploration company based in Oklahoma City. She oversees all aspects of company strategy and growth, including operations, reserves, acquisitions, human resources, IT, ESG. The buck stops always at the CEO level. It never gets to the chairman. She has over 25 years of experience in the energy industry. We are very fortunate to have both Sylvia and Valerie join our boards. They have a wealth of knowledge, and trust me, in their meetings, they have delivered commitment, skills, and the experience that's valuable not only for our operations in the United States, which they're deeply familiar with, but our operation of our company as a whole. That concludes my opening business and strategy comments, and I don't think I've ever made more comments on a single slide in my career. I have just created another record for Freehold. Thank you for being patient with me. We'll now start the formal part of the meeting. To make best use of our time, we have pre-arranged with certain individuals attending to move and second the resolutions which we will consider in a single motion and which are set out in the notice of meeting. While all matters to be considered will be put forward by a single motion, shareholders will be able to vote on each of the matters separately by ballot. If you have already sent in your proxy, your vote has already been counted, and you do not need to vote at this meeting. We ask that questions during the formal part of this meeting, which we're now in, only refer to matters set out in the notice of meeting. Following this formal part of the meeting, David Spyker will make a presentation regarding the operations of the company and our future plans, and he will add more depth and insight into the comments that I have already provided. At that time, he and I would be happy to answer any additional questions. The meeting will now come to order. I am Chairman of Freehold and will act as Chairman of the meeting. Brianna Guenther, who is at the far right there, my right, will act as Secretary of the meeting, and representatives of Computershare Trust Company of Canada will act as scrutineers. I have received a sworn affidavit as to the mailing of the notice of annual meeting of shareholders, information circular, instrument of proxy, and the annual report to shareholders. I direct that the sworn affidavit, together with copies of the documents mailed to shareholders, be kept by the secretary with the minutes of the meeting. A quorum for a meeting of shareholders of the corporation is 25% or greater of the outstanding common shares present in person or by proxy. There is a quorum present at this meeting. In excess of 48% of the shares have been voted by proxy. The interim scrutineers report indicates that between 92% and 99% of the shares voted have voted in favor of each of the matters to be considered at today's meeting. I now declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. We will conduct each vote by way of ballot other than termination of the meeting. I understand that the scrutineers have collected the ballots. If you have a ballot that you have not provided to them yet, please provide it to the scrutineers now. The annual financial report to shareholders, which includes the financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2022, and the auditor's report for the same period, was mailed to those shareholders who requested it. There are extra copies of the report available here today. They are also available on our Freehold website, and they're also available on SEDAR. As noted earlier, to make best use of our time, I will be asking for a motion to consider, and if thought appropriate, to approve each of the remaining items of business set forth in Freehold's notice of annual meeting and annual management information circular. However, before doing so, I will first speak to the remaining item of business, the nomination and election of directors of Freehold. According to a governance agreement between Freehold and Rife Resources, a wholly-owned CN entity, Rife has the right to nominate two individuals for election as directors. Rife has nominated Peter Harrison and David Spyker for election as directors of the corporation. In accordance with the governance agreement and the advance notice bylaw of Freehold, the only individuals entitled to be nominated as directors at this meeting are the persons named as nominees in the information circular. Therefore, as directed by the board and in accordance with the notice of meeting and information circular, Sylvia Barnes, Gary Bugeaud, Peter Harrison, Maureen Howe, Douglas Kay, Valerie Mitchell, Marvin Romanow, David Spyker, and Aidan Walsh are hereby nominated as directors of Freehold Royalties to hold office until the next annual election of directors or until the successors are elected or appointed. This is all subject to the provisions of the Business Corporations Act of Alberta and the bylaws of Freehold Royalties. Is there any discussion or question from any registered shareholder or proxy holder? Marika? The Chair is talking about the director election. Correct. Okay. I will limit my remarks to the directors and carry on about something else later. The first thing I do want to say is kudos for having a meeting in person. I want to thank everyone for doing that, because otherwise there are too many people that are disenfranchised because you have to go through three websites, know where your SUID number is, and all the other nonsense. It's very difficult for other people to get in on these web crap meetings, as I call them. Anyways, back to the directors. Well, just thank you for that comment because we, in fact, talked about that. Our game plan for the foreseeable future is that we will continue these face-to-face meetings. The survey tells us about a third of our competitors in our space do virtual meetings, about a third do hybrid, and a third do face-to-face. Our game plan is to continue to be in the face-to-face realm of that. We'll keep an eye on that. Thank you. Because as I say, I know how difficult it is to get into these Lumi meetings, going through three separate websites and all that other nonsense. Okay, back to the directors. I have a little bit of a problem with a few of the directors. Ms. Barnes. Ms. Barnes only owns 6,269 shares. I own almost twice as many, and I think I know that the reason is obviously that you're going to give us is that, oh, they have such and such a time to get these shares. Crap. Nonsense. If I can own more shares, then she can surely own more shares. I don't think that the full intent and the heart of a director is there if they own such low number of shares. Number two item, Ms. Barnes is also on another directorship elsewhere plus a committee. We're already paying people to be here. We're not paying them to be somewhere else. comes Ms. Mitchell, young Ms. Mitchell, and I do applaud the fact that she's done very well in her life. Some of us, as females, have a difficult time doing that. I can attest to that, including myself. Anyways, she also only owns 6,269. If she's a CEO, my good God, she's got the money in her pocket to have a little more skin in the game with Freehold. I have to say something about that because I'm not happy about that either. Because, I mean, hey, we're paying her flight and hotels to fly up here so she can put some more skin into it as far as I'm concerned. Number three, and I'm sorry I'm picking on all the females this year, but Ms. Howe. Ms. Howe, she, yes, has 27,000 shares, but it's still not enough. However, my big bone with Ms. Howe, and it always has been, she's too busy elsewhere. We don't pay for people to be busy elsewhere. She's got what? One other directorship and a committee that she's on with that. She's got another directorship with, I think, two other committees. I'm sorry. We're paying you already to put your mind and your business and your hiney into a chair to do Freehold business and not to get money from elsewhere. I have to say the same thing about Ms. Mitchell. If she's running a corporation, guess what, folks? She really doesn't have proper time for us. Therefore, I cannot vote and did not vote for any of these three females, even though I love females, and we have to somehow support each other. This time, I've put my reasons forth, and those are them. Thanks for your comments, Marika. I'll address, I think, a handful of your observations, and hopefully, I'll catch all of them. I took some notes here. We do have a lot of encouragement for both directors and officers to own shares. We have targets for them to meet. We gave them some time to meet those targets, and I expect that we will meet their targets. I think in fairness, if you look at the board as a whole, we have continued, all of us have continued to escalate our ownership. We have put our money where our mouth is, and many of us have a substantial portion of our wealth tied up in the company. I think you're right. That's the way it should be, and that's the way it's intended to work, and I believe that's the way it will work. With respect to people being too busy to fulfill their duties and their responsibilities, there's a bit of a saying in life that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. I appreciate there are all of these guidelines that we have from the rating agencies, or at least the governance rating agencies, not the credit rating agencies, on what over-boarding is. Over-boarding is when you're considered to be on too many boards. None of our directors exceed those thresholds. The business point I think I'd really make about Sylvia, Valerie, and Maureen. Maureen is on three boards. She's on our board, she's on the board of Pembina, and she's on the boards of Methanex. Those are really admirable and respectable companies. She brings a lot of depth and a lot of experience to the board. She brings her knowledge from her time as an investment analyst. Her contributions are not only coming from her skill base, but what she experiences on an ongoing basis. Having engagement in these other boards, in our view and in my view, is an asset. It's not a detriment. We appreciate that she chose to come onto our board because I believe she has many choices. She didn't have to choose us. With respect to Sylvia and Valerie, I'd make similar comments that we gain a lot of perspective and insight on some of the ins and outs of the United States business environment, basins, specific land tenure issues, regulatory issues that are unique. We have capable people who understand those things within the company. The added dimension that these board members bring give us really an additional competitive advantage, and we're happy to have them on our board as well. Any more questions or comments on the director slate? I declare those nominated as duly elected directors of Freehold. Particulars of the votes cast on the election of directors will be available via news release after the meeting. I now ask for a motion to approve each of the remaining items of business set forth in Freehold's notice of annual meeting and management information circular. Mr. Chairman, I move that the firm of KPMG LLP Chartered Accountants be appointed auditors of Freehold until the next annual meeting or until their successors are appointed, and that the resolution set forth in Freehold's information circular regarding Freehold's approach to executive compensation be approved and adopted. Mr. Chairman, I second the motion. Thank you, David and Paul. Is there any discussion or question from any registered shareholder or proxy holder? I have been advised by the scrutineers that each of the matters considered today have been approved by the requisite majorities. I direct that the scrutineers' report be annexed to the minutes of this meeting as a schedule. As mentioned earlier, the detailed results of the votes will be made available in a news release to be issued by Freehold and in a report of voting results to be posted on SEDAR. Unless there are any questions from the floor, I would entertain a motion for the meeting to be terminated. Before I ask for that motion, any questions from the floor? Marika, this is in the formal part of the meeting that you still want to comment because there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation. Go ahead. You want to go now? Good. I believe I did put a vote forth, or there was a vote on the ballot in regard to executive compensation. Am I correct that there was something on the ballot? That's correct. Okay. There were three motions, directors, compensation, and auditor appointment. Okay. Maybe I was asleep at the switch, but I didn't hear anything during this part of the meeting about executive compensation, so I wanted to speak to that because that's part of the formal meeting. Go ahead. Okay. I take a look here, and there are two issues that I have. One is with Mr. Hantke. He's been with us since 2014, yet I also see that there's extremely little skin in the game that he has. According to the management circular, he's only got 4,015 shares. Come on, folks. I've got a hunk more than he does. Okay? Yes, I know I've been around a whole lot longer since the inception, but the point being, that's not good enough if you've been here since 2014. Please, then don't give me the C-R-A-P about him being given time because that's already nine years from now. Okay? Let's get with it, young man. Number two issue is, love as I do Mr. Spyker, somehow or other, I see here again from information provided that he received between years 2021 and 2022, 16.6% increase just in salary. Somehow on this planet, I don't think a lot of people get that. I have real issue with that. Please don't give me, oh, we've got to keep up with everybody else crap, because that isn't good enough either. When I look further over, I see in his total compensation for those two years, that went up 70.96%. That's 70, not 17. 70. I mean, holy Hannah. Let's get real here, folks. Nobody needs to get that kind of an increase. I have a real issue with those two items that I just brought forth. When it comes to also, like you said, some of us, the directors being on other boards, I have skin in the game with a lot of the other companies as well, Pembina for one. Hey, I don't want my people to be working here and there. I want them to be working and focused in one place. Thank you. Although I didn't quite hear a question there, I'll respond to your comment. Is that okay? Will that be helpful? I think you kind of will know where I go for at least part of it because you anticipated what you didn't want to hear. I'll try my best possible to provide the best perspective as I can. To begin with, being on a board is a part-time job, and it should be a part-time job because we don't need a second management group trying to manage a management group that's there full time. It's a governance structure that I think is very effective. It's worked well in North America. It's much more straightforward than the complexity of supervisory boards they have in Europe, and it's one of the reasons that North American companies consistently outperform, I would say, European companies. They have a better governance structure, and I think we have taken very good advantage of that to do what we're supposed to do, and that's deliver the growth and the dividend and all of those other things that I talked about. That's what we're really here to do, and I think we carried the mail on that. Superbly. Your comment on ownership of various individuals' share levels. First of all, ownership of shares has to do a lot with personal situation and personal preference and personal choice. We provide a strong and encouraging environment and targets, but we don't mandate them. I think moving to mandate them creates a lot of mischief. You can go back to companies where shareholder loans were extended to executives so they could get their numbers up. Then in the deep cyclicality that we have in our industry, those shares didn't cover the loan value, and there had to be even more complexity. I think what we've done is a pretty straightforward and a pretty supportive and a pretty encouraging environment. One thing, Marika, you did not talk about is every company has a unique history. When you look at what our ownership levels in our company were for both board and executive, they were very modest five years ago, extremely modest. We've substantially improved that, and we continue to move on that path. Your message is actually appreciated because I think owning and putting your money where your mouth is important. I think you see continual growth in ownership of stock. Even my lovely wife asked, "Why do we own so much of that company?" I says, "Well, because it's a good one. We're going to make some dough on it." That's what we have been doing and will continue to be doing. When it comes to compensating our CEO, I think you got to look at that relative to what he's delivered. You got to look at that relative to the competition. You know that response because you also anticipated the response. Sure, when you pick a couple of unique numbers and you pick percentage changes, you can get some pretty wild stuff. The first thing I'd mention is, Dave, I don't know the precise number, but I think about 85% of your compensation is at risk. Something like that? Dave doesn't get just salary come good, bad, evil times, whatever. He takes some risk and puts some skin in the game. You, I think, appropriately mentioned that skin in the game is important because we agree with you on that. We'll continue to keep his compensation and executive compensation with skin in the game. Secondly, you probably also looked at that Freehold was a little behind our competitors. We've attracted a lot of attention with our growth and being the top royalty performer in North America. Our talent gets recognized. We want and need to keep it. One of the things I always ask to look at is how much retentive power does our incentive compensation hold. It's not the only way to keep your talent there, but it's an important component. I am thrilled that we were able to deliver this compensation to our shareholders because he delivered the results to the company. I think that's the test that we will always hold. Yeah, you might show up sometimes and say, "Well, that's a lot more than inflation. That's a lot more than the average individual gets." I think that comment always has to be put in the context of performance. I appreciate some of your observations are well-intended, and this board does take very seriously this especially good point I think, Marika, you made of having skin in the game. We get that. Are there any other questions from the floor? Mr. Chairman, I move this meeting be terminated. All in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? Note unanimity. Not a dissenting vote on that motion. I declare the formal part of this meeting to be terminated. I'll turn it over now to David Spyker, who will comment on our activities. I'll be back before the podium at the end of the meeting just to close it off, and we will both be available to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm a bit of a hand waver to the slide, so I kind of apologize that we got two different slides. Anyone looking this way is going to get the benefit of hand waving. Anyone looking there is going to have to guess a little bit. My name is David Spyker. I think I've been introduced eight times already. Please provide a short update on our operations and the strategy for Freehold. As Marvin mentioned, we'd be happy to take any questions after. All right. Marvin alluded to this, but it's an important part for us. We have always had a history of returns. Paying a dividend is the number one way that we can return value to the shareholder. No matter what the underlying commodity price has been, we've always paid a dividend since we started in 1996. If we look at 2023, we're looking to return CAD 163 million back to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Right now, to accomplish that's at 9 cents a share per month. As Marvin mentioned, it's about a 7.6% dividend yield. I just want to talk about this a little bit and just how we feel that we've got this dividend right. I think that there has been some movement of dividend levels amongst companies as we go through these varying commodity price cycles. Right now, we're modeling for 2023 an $80 a barrel WTI price. We look at this chart, the way to look at it is that the gray parts in each of these bars, whether you're at 50, 80, or $100, is really the money that's available to return to shareholders after the cost to run our business, which is the orange line or the orange bar. That'd be about CAD 30 million a year. Regardless of the commodity price, that would be the cost. The green bar is what we pay in cash taxes to the federal government both in Canada and the U.S. That one you can see moves a little bit with commodity price. If we look at where we're at, Marvin mentioned all the way down to the $50 level, and we still got gray bar showing above that dotted orange line, which is our current dividend commitment. That's why we can say that we're very comfortable paying the dividend down to that $50 level. I think you can see there's a little bit more room on that gray bar that prices were a little lower that we could accommodate that as well. We think that that's important. It really speaks to the work that we've done to really build up the resiliency of the business with the work that we've completed over the last three years. I want to give our shareholders confidence in the dividend level that we have. We talk about a payout ratio quite often, and with 60% would mean on this $80 case, that 60% is being paid back to shareholders above the line. The other 40%, that's what we use to pay down debt, or we use to finance acquisitions. As we go down into the $50 price environment, you can see that we'd be approaching a payout ratio, getting closer to that 90%-100%, and we're okay with that. 60% is our guiding number. It's not a firm operating number. Yeah. That was too short a leash, I guess. Anyway, we'll start this again. Just wanted to talk about our portfolio. It's pretty very balanced, both from a commodity perspective and a jurisdiction perspective. Right now about 65% of our production comes out of Canada, and about 35% comes out of the U.S. We look at that. Can't get too far. The bulk of the Canadian production, we're oil-weighted in general. Our gas assets are a little bit more of the Deep Basin and west of Highway 2 in Alberta. In the U.S., the portfolio is primarily focused in Texas and in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford. We've got a little bit of production that comes out of North Dakota. From a commodity perspective, two-thirds oil and NGLs, about just over a third natural gas. From a revenue perspective, we're always going to be weighted more to the oil side. 80% of our revenue would come from oil. Marvin mentioned this in just about the superior pricing that we get on the U.S. side. I think it's important. When we look at the business, you're really tweaking all the variables that we have to really make sure that we're firing on all cylinders. In the U.S. side, the benchmark price for natural gas, which is NYMEX gas price, was $4.46 Mcf in this quarter. In the U.S., we got 3.93 in Mcf, and in Canada, we got 3.29. Same with the crude. Just over $100 was the benchmark price. In the U.S., we got just over $100, and in Canada, we got $80. That really equates to this 15% improvement in the pricing we get for our product because of the exposure we have to the U.S. markets. Okay, last year we had the record drilling with over 1,000 wells, and we're off to excellent start this year. We've got 350 wells drilled in our portfolio year to date, so year to date first three months, and split pretty evenly between Canada and the U.S. In Canada, where we're really seeing the drilling activity, is the Viking, Cardium, Southeast Saskatchewan, and the Clearwater Play that we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute here. On the U.S. side, primarily in the Permian. When we think of Permian, there's both sides of the Permian. The Midland Basin and the Delaware side of the Permian, and then in the Eagle Ford as well. If you look, 6.9 net Canadian wells versus 0.8 U.S. wells. When you think about that, the productivity of a U.S. well is about 10 times that of a Canadian well. You could think of, say, roughly 8 wells, equivalent Canadian wells to kind of put that into perspective. Just taking a little bit closer look at both our portfolios. Our Canadian production base over the past 3 years has been exceptionally steady. We've had a steady ramp-up in drilling activity, and despite minimal acquisition capital being invested in Canada. Where we have put a little bit of money is in some of this early-stage Clearwater development, and that's one of the most exciting oil plays in Canada right now. Right now in Q1, Clearwater would represent about 450 barrels a day of oil production, and that's up about 25% from the previous quarter. One of the areas that we see quite a bit of growth in the portfolio in Canada. Looking ahead, we see a lot of opportunity in the greater Lloydminster heavy oil fairway, as new drilling technology is revitalizing this area and heavy oil pricing has improved significantly. We're also seeing opportunity in southeast Saskatchewan, where there's a number of new entrants coming into those areas. That's as a result of some of the bigger companies, like a Crescent Point or Vermilion or Whitecap, selling some assets that they weren't directing a lot of capital to. These new management teams are coming in, and those are their core areas. We're already seeing an increase in licensing on those assets as they change hands, and the new management teams are looking to grow those assets. In the U.S., it looks a little bit different just because it's a newer part of our business. In 2020, we had about 150 barrels a day of U.S. production. 2021, that grew to 2,200 BOE a day. Last year, it doubled again to 4,400 BOE a day. We've achieved that through patient and disciplined acquisition work, and we've established core land holdings primarily in Texas in both the Permian and Eagle Ford. Drilling activity in the U.S. has been robust and it's been growing. Two things, part of that growth is coming from, we're adding more lands into the portfolio, but the other part of it is that we're just seeing more rigs directed to our land base overall. We also see drilling dominated by multiple pads or multiple wells being drilled from a common pad, and that's a little bit different than in Canada. You will see anywhere from 4 to 20 wells being drilled on a pad, and they start drilling on one end of the pad, and they'll drill consistently until they get that 20th well drilled in that example. Then they'll move a completion crew in, and they'll complete those wells one after another. It's quite a time frame to execute that drilling and completion program. It can take several months or even up to a year. We'll expect to see a lot more volatility in the U.S. portfolio just because of the way production comes on than we would see in Canada. You can see that on this chart. Specifically in Q4, we had substantial new wells brought on production in the Eagle Ford and in Midland Basin. That we'll get a little bit of that flush production comes off quarter-over-quarter, and we see that in our Q1 numbers where our Canadian numbers were strong and growing. We got a little bit of decrease quarter-over-quarter in the U.S., primarily associated with that flush production. I think I'm going to have to practice this more next time. Specifically how that rolls together for first quarter results. After a year of records in 2022, we're very happy with our first quarter. Results were in line with forecasts, with the expectation that volumes will ramp up modestly as we go through the second half of the year. Q1 production was 14,724 BOE a day. Like I mentioned, it was slightly impacted by colder weather in Canada. That wasn't the biggest story. We always see a little bit of seasonal slowdown. I know we don't think of cold in Texas, but it does actually impact production, particularly in the Eagle Ford, and then the flush production that I've already talked about. Funds from operations totaled CAD 58.6 million or CAD 0.39 a share. Looking at a year earlier in Q1 of 2022 compared to Q1 2023, we made production gains, but we also saw a retreat in commodity prices. In the quarter, we paid down about CAD 13 million in net debt. At current commodity price levels, we're paying down about CAD 20 million of debt per quarter. We exited the period with net debt of CAD 116 million, or 0.4x net debt to funds from operations. That's one of the lowest marks in our history. The work that your leadership team and your board of directors has completed has delivered a bigger and better Freehold, driving record revenues, funds from operations, and production. This has allowed us to substantially increase dividends paid to you, our shareholders, and have a business that is much more resilient to the ups and downs of commodity prices. This has all been achieved while maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning more than 245% of value to our shareholders since late 2020. Marvin talked about this a little bit, but just thought we'd show this slide. It really shows the quality of the payers that we have operating on our lands right now. On the Canadian side, our top 20 names would include Tourmaline Oil, Whitecap, CNRL or Canadian Natural, with our U.S. portfolio comprised of big entities like an ExxonMobil, a ConocoPhillips, and a Marathon Oil. Why this matters is that these guys aren't fickle to whether oil price is $65 or $85. They've got long-term development plans. They think in five-year intervals, and they're not going to be impacted by the short-term volatility of oil. We see that the consistency of being able to have our lands developed by these players really improves by having these investment-grade operators, being the primary operators on our land. Our top 10 payers would represent about 50% of our 12-month trailing revenue and our top 30 payers, which is split pretty evenly. It's about 18 in Canada and 12 in the U.S. That would represent probably about 80% of our revenue between those top 30. The diversity of payers, the diversity of the plays that we're in, eliminates the concentration risk and really enhances sustainability and return profile for our shareholders. In January 2023, Freehold published its second sustainability report outlining commitment to create value for stakeholders with sustainability a top priority. As a royalty business, we are not responsible for the operation on our leased land, including how production and operations are managed or how wells are abandoned and reclaimed. We do, however, strive to partner with the highest quality operators across our North American land base, and I think that really shone through when we showed the players on the previous slide. Additionally, some highlights. We achieved net zero on both our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Marvin talked about how we're advancing the internal business and the promotions, and 50% of the executives are internal promotions with really an emphasis on personal development, early stage hiring, and developing those individuals within our organization. We feel that we've strengthened our board considerably with the additions of two U.S.-based female directors and really has given us a better perspective of the risks of the U.S. business and how we should think about that when we're making investment decisions. I only had to survive one more slide. Okay, this is it. Okay. We just want to highlight the simplicity of the royalty model. 60% dividend payout ratio is what we targeted. If that moves up higher than that, like we showed on the slides, it's a 50%, 80%, 100%, we're okay with that. We want to keep a strong balance sheet at less than a half a turn of debt. Right now, we see that leaves opportunities that we can... Two things, that we can preserve our balance sheet in the event of weakness in commodity prices or allows us to pursue smaller acquisitions without issuing equity. Lastly, we want to balance both the balance sheet and the return to shareholders of dividends by continuing to advance and enhance our royalty portfolio. We still see ample opportunity both in Canada and the U.S. with disciplined, opportunistic investment to grow the portfolio and continue on our path of building a better Freehold for our shareholders. I think I'm saved with this thing now. Yeah, pleased to answer any questions that any of you may have. Marika? I'm glad to see that you've got a 48% diversity for females, but I do want to stress, females of competence, yes. Please, let's not just get diversity for diversity's sake, okay? I was one of the very first females in Canada with an oil company that oversaw 34 service stations, and I know how difficult it can be. Please, I don't care if you're yellow, green, black, white, gender trends, or God knows what else in this world, but let's get people always of quality and not just because they tick a box in diversity. Thank you for your thoughts, Marika. Yeah, we're very fortunate to have a really high-quality board of directors that is also diverse, not both from a gender perspective, but also from an experience perspective. As a result of that, it makes us a stronger company, and that will shine through in how we return value to shareholders. Thank you for that. No, I'm not going to ask you a question, Dave. Nice. If you want me to, I might think of one. Marika, I just want to add to Dave's answer there. Trust me, in the boardroom, we are entirely focused on high performance, and we're entirely focused on talent, and we're entirely focused on making sure that we have not just gender diversity, but thought diversity and idea diversity and all of those other things that actually do. There's strong evidence to show that those kinds of companies build better businesses and build stronger businesses and build longer-term businesses. I appreciate your focus on performance, and trust me, it's job one for us. Now that we've destroyed the microphone and don't have another one, Dave and I can share the second one. Any more questions? We have a rule in our boardroom that if the room is quiet for eight seconds, and eight seconds is an incredibly long time, then people are done. I can always answer more questions. You're welcome to. No, I know the sandwich is waiting. You know, you got it right out of my mouth. I don't want a sandwich left there at the end of the meeting. Let me close off here by just, first of all, thanking. We've got a few employees here. I want to thank you folks who are employees of Freehold for the wonderful job you've done over the last three years, and many of you for a much longer period of time. I've been in this industry for over 40 years, and I can with confidence say we have some extraordinarily talented people here, and I see them perform every time I show up to a meeting and sometimes when I show up between meetings. Thank you for everything you do for us and our shareholders. Thank you to the investors for showing confidence in us and putting your money with us. Thank you for coming to our live AGM, and I hope we can continue this practice as is our intention in future years. Thanks, and have a good afternoon.