Hello. Welcome to Triple Flag Precious Metals Q1 2026 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, just press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, just press star one again. Thank you. Now I would like to turn the call over to Sheldon Vanderkooy, Chief Executive Officer. Sheldon, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Triple Flag's first quarter 2026 results. With me on the call this morning are Eban Bari, our Chief Financial Officer, and James Dendle, our Chief Operating Officer. Triple Flag is off to a record start in 2026, with Q1 representing the strongest quarter in the company's history across every key metric. This includes over 30,000 GEOs, $129 million of adjusted EBITDA, and operating cash flow per share of $0.55 U.S. These are all quarterly records. The Q1 result is a straightforward demonstration of the model working as intended. High margin, top-line exposure to higher gold and silver prices, translating into per share cash flow growth of 67% year-over-year.
On the transaction front, we kicked off 2026 by unlocking the high-grade E44 gold deposit at Northparkes, which was not previously included in Evolution's life of mine plan. Triple Flag will receive guaranteed minimum deliveries from E44 over seven years starting in 2030, which aligns with Evolution's approved plans for a block cave at E22 and a potential mill expansion to 10 million tons per annum, all of which position Northparkes as a clear growth asset for Triple Flag. In March, we acquired a 3% gross revenue royalty on the Gunnison copper project in Arizona for $23 million. James will walk you through the details, this is an asset that fits precisely within our strategy of highly accretive transactions for projects in mining-friendly jurisdictions, in this case, the United States. For our existing portfolio, our assets are performing ahead of our expectations.
Hope Bay's construction decision is expected later this month with a production profile of at least 400,000 ounces per year. The mill at Beta Hunt has been approved for expansion to 2.6 million tons per annum, with a further potential growth to 4 million tons per annum. Koné's oxide circuit remains on track for production later this year. Fosterville is planning a 65% throughput increase that will boost production over the next three years. Last, Arthur's feasibility work, permitting submission and drilling is underway on what AngloGold sees as a world-class deposit that will continue to grow for decades to come.
Our first quarter performance, as well as the underlying achievements made by the assets within our portfolio, have us on track to deliver our 2026 guidance and our 2030 outlook of 140,000-150,000 GEOs. I will now turn it over to Eban to discuss our financial results for Q1 2026.
Thank you, Sheldon. As Sheldon highlighted, Q1 was a record quarter on every line item on this chart, with adjusted earnings up 125%, adjusted EBITDA up 82%, Most importantly, cash flow per share up 57% year-over-year. Operating cash flow per share is the metric that most directly compounds shareholder value over time. This strong cash flow generation continues to support all of our capital allocation priorities given our high margin business, including shareholder returns and external growth opportunities. We aim to pay a progressively growing dividend that's sustainable across all metal prices, We have increased our dividend every year since our IPO by about 5% mid-year. We will continue to assess the right pace of further increases against the broader growth through capital deployment opportunity set.
In addition to our dividend, we have an active NCIB, and as always, we'll buy back shares in the open market on an opportunistic basis. We have a pristine balance sheet and exited the quarter with $144 million worth of cash, no debt, and over $1 billion of liquidity available. This gives us meaningful flexibility to continue executing on accretive growth opportunities while funding our progressive dividend and to buy back shares when warranted. With that, I will turn it over to James to walk you through Hope Bay, Gunnison, and our growth expectations beyond 2030.
Thanks, Eban. We hold a 1% NSR royalty on Hope Bay, which is one of the most exciting development assets in our portfolio. We expect a meaningful development in the next several weeks. The asset is an 80 km greenstone belt in Nunavut with over 90 regional exploration targets identified across the property. Our royalty covers well over 1,000 sq km. Agnico's unparalleled Arctic operating capabilities are essential in ensuring the successful development and operation for projects of this scale and remoteness.
A technical evaluation update and a construction decision that's expected by [Agnico] in May, which will highlight a 6,000 ton per day operation with the potential to be a 400,000 to 425,000 ounce per year gold producer. Hope Bay's exploration potential is also significant in areas such as Patch 7 of Madrid, but also has the geological potential to support a multi-decade district across the broader 80 km belt. As Sheldon mentioned, in late March, we completed the acquisition of a third-party 3% gross revenue royalty on the Gunnison Copper project in Arizona for $23 million, which is strongly accretive on a per share basis. There are a few things we particularly like about this transaction. First, it is an existing royalty on a large-scale U.S. copper project that is designed to be mined and processed using conventional methods.
The updated PEA, released in February this year, supports approximately 125 million pounds of annual copper cathode production, totaling roughly 3.2 billion pounds over a 21-year life of mine. Second, the location is genuinely top-tier. The project sits on a combination of private and state land in Arizona, which we expect to help streamline the permitting with on-site power, rail, and water infrastructure already in place. Domestic U.S. copper production is a strategic priority in the current environment, and Gunnison is positioned to deliver into this need. Finally, I want to discuss the growth that our portfolio is expected to deliver beyond 2030 outside of our formal outlook. Arthur, Kemess, Hope Bay, and Northparkes represent world-class long-life assets located in the most established mining jurisdictions. They provide substantial growth potential beyond our 2030 outlook.
At Arthur, a pre-feasibility study was released in February to drive the commencement and permitting in 2027. The current mine plan has been described by Anglo as the top of the iceberg, and they further noted that Arthur is a marquee asset that will anchor the portfolio into the 2050s. We're very excited about the development trajectory and potential of this tier one gold asset. At Kemess, Triple Flag holds a 100% silver stream. The January 2026 PEA supports a large-scale copper-gold-silver operation, reaching production by 2031, leveraging existing brownfield infrastructure and permits from previous mining operations. Notably, the PEA mine plan only represents 47% of the total indicated and inferred resource tons, providing further upside potential for subsequent economic studies. Hope Bay I've already covered, but its place in this slide is worth noting.
A potential 400,000-425,000 ounce per year producer with district scale exploration upside along the 80-kilometer belt and a construction decision expected this month. Finally, Northparkes is Triple Flag's largest asset. Numerous growth projects have been recently approved, which will unlock value from a world-class copper gold endowment, including the E-22 block cave, the E-44 gold open pit with minimum guaranteed deliveries, and most importantly, a potential mill expansion to at least 10 million tons, which is currently being studied over the next year. We believe that the mill expansion is the optimal path forward to unlock value from not only the 575 million tons of current measured indicator resource inventory, but other prospective and underexplored targets that could potentially and materially add to the potential production profile associated with the improved scale and processing optionality at Northparkes.
Taken together, these four assets are diversified across long-life district-scale systems in Nevada, British Columbia, Nunavut, and Australia. They're all operated by high-quality counterparties and represent the foundation for further organic growth beyond 2030. On that, pass back to Sheldon for closing remarks.
Thank you, James. We had a record start to the year, and we are positioned to achieve our 2026 guidance. We saw record growth in operating cash flow per share and delivered transactions that will benefit our shareholders for decades to come. Beyond 2030, Triple Flag shareholders can expect significant additional GEOs growth from long-life district-scale assets, including at Northparkes, Arthur, Kemess, and Hope Bay. Overall, Triple Flag is exceptionally well-positioned to deliver long-term organic value to our shareholders from a diverse portfolio of producing and developing assets. Our balance sheet remains pristine. We are debt-free with over $140 million in cash and over $1 billion in available credit, providing us with substantial financial flexibility to continue pursuing accretive growth opportunities for the benefit of our shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the floor to questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at this time, simply press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Sam Overwater with Scotiabank. Sam, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on another great quarter. Could you please walk us through an M&A and transaction outlook update, specifically the size of transactions that Triple Flag commonly engages, the mine life stage, the commodity, and any more information? Thank you.
Yeah, certainly, Sam. I'll take that. This is Sheldon. First of all, like, I'm just really pleased that we deployed $100 million+ in Q1 on very good terms. There continue to be many opportunities, and I'm confident we'll manage to do more in 2026. With regards to what we're looking at, like, it's mostly precious, mostly good jurisdictions, a range of sizes, certainly in that $100 million to sub $500 million range. Again, generally good jurisdictions that would be attractive for our shareholders.
Great. Thank you. Just one more tag on, what's the transactional look in Australia? Has Triple Flag been engaging any opportunities there?
We really like Australia, of course. It's our single highest country concentration. We are active in Australia. We're also active in many other jurisdictions around the world.
Great. Thank you. That's all for me.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Brian, please go ahead.
Good morning. My question relates to the buyback options on the Gunnison agreement, and there's two parts of it. The royalty part I think is clear to me. Can you just go through I thought there was a $65 million stream expansion payment. Now you're talking about a termination for $35 million. Can you just update me exactly what's left and how the stream's working these days, please?
Yeah, certainly, Brian. This is Sheldon. I'll take that. The royalty buy down option is pretty straightforward. Really what we wanted to do, to set the context is, we wanted to provide a pathway for a potential on a change of control to have a lower royalty burden on the property, which we think could unlock value for all parties. It's at an attractive price for Triple Flag. With respect to the stream, we have an option to fund an additional $65 million, effectively, it's almost double the stream rate.
What this would do is instead of us funding $65 million to double the stream rate, they would pay $35 million to us in order to cancel that option on our part. I don't think anyone values our expansion option right now, so I think $35 million would be a pretty nice win for Triple Flag.
Right. You'd just get 35 for that option, but the, you know, the 3.5, the %, the 16.5%, that all stays in place. There's no change in step downs or adjustments or anything.
Exactly.
It's a pure payout of the option. Okay, great.
Exactly. It's not a reduction in our current stream at all.
Thanks very much, Sheldon. That's very clear.
Thanks, Brian.
Your next question comes from the line of Adam Morski with Bank of America. Adam, please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question on the buyback program, which has been underutilized to date. Perhaps you could comment on why there's been little activity there relative to other companies with buyback programs and what the outlook is going forward.
Yeah. Thanks, Adam. We've always been opportunistic with respect to the NCIB and we've been, you know, we've shown a willingness to deploy on that from time to time. All I would say is we do view our shares as being undervalued, and maybe I'll stop there, but, you know, noted.
Thank you very much.
There's no further question at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Sheldon Vanderkooy for closing remarks. Sheldon?
Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate your attendance. It's been a fantastic start to the year, and I think it's gonna be a, you know, a fantastic finish to the year as well. Appreciate all your time.
This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect. We are all clear, everyone. Great call. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Take care.