Next, we have Vizsla Royalties Corp. It trades on the OTCQB under the ticker VROYF. It's a precious metals-focused royalty company. Their principal asset is a net smelter return royalty on Vizsla Silver Corp.'s flagship Panuco project located in Mexico. Happy to welcome President and CEO, Mike Pettingell. Welcome to the conference today, Mike.
Thank you, and thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.
All right, the floor is yours.
Excellent, thank you. Look, I appreciate everyone being and joining this webinar portion. We're excited to talk about Vizsla Royalties, what we have as a single asset royalty on arguably the best silver primary undeveloped asset in the planet. It's the Panuco asset. It's held by Vizsla Silver, and it is their flagship asset. I will be making some forward-looking statements today. Really, this is a pretty simple story, a pretty simple investment thesis that we believe is really twofold. This is a tier-one silver-gold royalty on a tier-one development asset. This Panuco project, it does represent, as I mentioned, one of the largest, highest-grade undeveloped silver primary resources in the world, which, you know, we've published a PEA in 2024 and now marching towards feasibility study in the second half of this year.
It really does point us in the direction of achieving first silver in the back end of 2027. There has also been a resource that was published earlier on in January here that should stand to bolster the mine plan that is upcoming in the feasibility study. Beyond the development potential, we have got tremendous exploration upside in the district. Right now, mapped and sampled, about 93 km of cumulative veins. Where the project sits, PEA, and of course, that will inform the FS, it is about 8% of that. To say that we are just scratching the surface is really just an understatement. There are about 160 drill-ready targets. However, Vizsla Silver is laser-focused on getting to cash flow, right?
They've ring-fenced quite a bit of mineralization, almost 365 million ounces, and it behooves the company to get into cash flow, and then they can start exploring the rest of this underexplored district in a less diluted fashion. Of course, the timing, right? There's a scarcity of these tier-one silver primary assets. Not only does the scarcity premium exist, but we are in this rising commodity environment. Gold now, you know, over CAD 3,200, CAD 3,300 per ounce, where silver, although trading well at, you know, around CAD 31, CAD 32 an ounce, has yet to really run. That common ratio where gold and silver sit at around, call it CAD 60 to CAD 80, is now North of CAD 100.
There should be a re-rate on the silver commodity, which will translate into a direct re-rate of not only the production profile for silver, but the underlying royalty that Vizsla Royalties holds here. Furthermore, there are precedent transactions that we can really point to in this space that support a higher overall valuation multiple in terms of an M&A takeout. Again, to recap those two things, there is development and exploration upside that could see an appreciation to the royalty valuation as it gets closer to cash flow. In addition, you have that takeout premium, especially looking at some of these precedent transactions as of the last few months that I will discuss here momentarily.
For those of you to benefit that are not terribly familiar with the royalty model, this is just a safer, less risky way to play the commodities as well as the underlying quality assets. You know, you can see on the right side of this chart, you are really insulated from the operating costs, some of those jurisdictional risks. Of course, if the event that Vizsla Silver were acquired and was not the developer, and you own the royalty, you will have that royalty in perpetuity. If another producer comes along and wants to produce, you will still be able to benefit and have exposure to this tier-one asset through the royalty. The principal assets, again, we are a single asset royalty company. We were spun out from Vizsla Silver. I am also a Senior Vice President at Vizsla Silver.
There's an incredible amount of alignment between both management on both sides, the communities, and our stakeholders, which is really, really important. Again, last summer, this was spun out. For every three shares of silver that you held at the time, if you held it, you received one share in Vizsla Royalties. The real driver behind this spin-out was to provide shareholders of silver with that long-term exposure to the upside potential that could exist if another operator were to come along. It also pushed forward value that might not have been realized until silver was in production in late 2027, early 2028. Pushing forward that value, giving shareholders exposure is the real driver behind this spin-out. What happened here is when Vizsla Silver came in to acquire this district back in 2019, they acquired it through earning agreements.
Those earning agreements were basically split in half. You had the dark green concessions that had no royalties associated and the light green concessions that had an underlying 3% NSR royalty attached. Vizsla Silver, once the option agreements were exercised, created a 2% NSR on the dark green, and created a 0.5% NSR on the light green. In addition to that underlying 3% NSR in the light green, Vizsla Silver had a buyback right for CAD 2 million to acquire 50% of that underlying royalty, right? So, 1.5%. If you combine the 0.5% that Vizsla Silver created plus the buyback right for 1.5% and the 2% on the dark green, that effectively creates a blanket of 2% NSR across this contiguous district you see. Vizsla Silver has been very active in terms of its corporate development and property acquisitions.
Two notable acquisitions that effectively tripled the land package beyond what you see here was an asset to the South called San Enrique, and then another asset that is about 32 km to the North called Legara. These are both past-producing assets with no royalties. In addition to the 2% NSR, Vizsla Royalties also holds a right of first refusal on any new property acquisition for a royalty to be created that's made by Vizsla Silver within the next 24 months and within an area that's roughly 2 km. I mentioned the alignment between the two management groups. These types of limits on area of interest and timing can certainly be negotiated. For those that aren't terribly familiar with the Panuco project, it's a district-scale project that is 100% owned by Vizsla Silver.
It's located in, frankly, a well-established mining-friendly jurisdiction that has seen many, many years of production. Frankly, this asset alone was discovered by the conquistadors almost 500 years ago. It's seen intermittent small-scale production ever since, but it's never been consolidated and explored on a systematic basis in history. That's exactly what's led to the discovery of the Coppola structure and the Napoleon structure that Vizsla Silver has made. There are some tremendous assets that are held by First Majestic to the North. In fact, their flagship asset, San Dimas, is located 80 km to the North. This is a billion-ounce district, this San Dimas district. It's been in production for 150 years commercially. It's produced over 900 million ounces on top of 12 million ounces of gold. This is the exact analog from a geologic perspective to what we see at Panuco. Time will tell.
As we continue to grow the resource base and, of course, make new discoveries, we have all the hallmarks of becoming a billion-ounce district at Panuco. They are rapidly advancing this to production, right? I have mentioned that we have published the PEA, marching towards feasibility. They have submitted their permits as of February, should receive those permits in about 12 months' time, and they are navigating the project financing package right now. It is a year of de-risking for Vizsla Silver on the Panuco asset, which, when you de-risk and you achieve these milestones, that is where that re-rate potential could exist. I have got a slide that I will discuss in a moment on that. I have mentioned the exploration upside. There is, it is frankly unbridled. That is the way we look at this. There is so much ground. The 11 structures that make up the resource that we have at Panuco, they are open in every direction.
They're open along strike laterally, and they're open at depth. We have not closed off anything. That just stands to feed into an updated mine plan beyond the FS that we're hoping to publish in the back end of this year. Vizsla Silver, again, is well-funded to accomplish this and push this project forward into production. They've got just shy of $100 million U.S currently in the bank and no debt. Just to update yet again, you know, Vizsla Silver published an updated resource here in January of this year. This resource is going to be the resource that feeds into the FS. This is beyond what was published in the PEA, which frankly has industry-leading economics. What we realized was a 43% increase into your M&I classification. That's your measured and indicated.
Previous to this resource, we did not have a measured component. And measured is your most highest confidence category beyond getting into reserve. And so, for those of you on the call here that aren't aware, in a PEA, you can incorporate inferred mineralization. That's your least confident mineralization. But as you move into feasibility and state reserves, you can only include measured and indicated. And so, for us, the PEA mine plan only assumed 156 million ounces. But as you move forward into the FS, you can see that now you've got a potential minable inventory of almost 223 million ounces at almost a 5% higher grade. You know, this has the ability to translate, directly translate into an increased mine plan and increased cash flows for royalties.
Just to touch on the PEA and the project itself, I mentioned that the resource base yet again was from 2022 or 2023, excuse me. It's all conventional mining, conventional processing. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. This is bulk tonnage, long hole underground mining. The milling process is a straightforward whole ore leach to produce doré. We're not producing a concentrate here. We're just producing a doré, so gold and silver bars. It's a large throughput at 3,300 tons per day. It's about a million tons per year. The capital outlay is very tolerable here at $224 million U.S. The initial mine life that the PEA outlined was just shy of 11 years. You know, we could show a much larger mine life by reducing this throughput capacity at the mill.
As you all know, when you get out past 14 years, the present value of those future cash flows gets eroded very, very quickly. You know, if you speak to the Chief Operating Officer of Vizsla Silver, he'll tell you likely to be mining Coppola for 15 years, given its size, grade, and open-ended resources. The production profile that was outlined in the PEA highlights an average annual production for the first two years of over 20 million silver equivalent ounces. Again, that's just gold and silver. You can see here those first few years, that's translating into almost CAD 250 million in after-tax free cash flow per year. I mentioned that the capital outlay was CAD 224 million. You're paying off this project in right around nine months' time.
The PEA highlighted a base case metal price assumptions of CAD 26 silver, CAD 1,975 gold, a post-tax NPV5 of CAD 1.1 billion, and a post-tax IRR of right around 86%. Again, I'll stress these metal prices, they were CIBC's long-term consensus prices at the time. We all know that gold now is trading at CAD 3,200, CAD 3,300, and silver is, you know, CAD 32. When we look at those numbers, now you're talking about almost a CAD 1.5 billion after-tax NPV5, and you're into triple-digit IRR territory. This mine plan is a snapshot in time that is frankly only going to get better. However, based on that PEA, if silver was in production today, it would be in a top three silver primary producer with bottom quartile all-in sustaining cost. You can see here that the assets that are in front, these are 2024 annual production numbers.
You can see the top two, Fresnillo, Fresnillo, and then again, Fresnillo. This was the MAG Silver Fresnillo joint venture at Juanic ipio. And these are our life of mine numbers. You know, we stand to believe that based on that new resource update, we could see an improved mine plan that could propel us even further up this chart to the left. Of course, when you look at the all-in sustaining cost at CAD 19.80 for the average of all of these top-tier producers, and here we are coming at sub- CAD 10, this is just highlighting that this project could withstand any commodity price environment. It's great and all to look at spot prices and what that would affect on your economics. But in my personal account, I like to look at, well, what happens if we divide the commodity prices by two?
This project is still economic at, you know, CAD 17 silver. This is just a closer look at the production, or excuse me, the site layout. You can see everything's contained within a really nice tight footprint. What we've done here is we've overlaid the royalties that are associated with each one of those particular operating centers. On the exploration upside, again, I've said that it's just a postage stamp. It's a small amount of the overall mineralization we've identified to date. The way that we look over at silver at the exploration potential, it's much like the layers of an onion, right? The heart of the onion is this dashed polygon that you see here. This is the PEA mine and feasibility mine area. I mentioned that all the 11 structures are open.
We can still find and tap into those extensions just by stepping out from that main area. There is lots of potential still just to step out from the main mine area. This orange ellipse represents our proximal targets where we know that if we make a discovery, you are within haulage distance to the proposed mill site. It could have a direct effect on the economics of the mine plan if you are to make a discovery within that orange ellipse. As you go more outboard of that, now we are starting to get into these district-scale targets where, you know, if you make a discovery, it might warrant its own standalone facility, which could potentially justify economics similar to that which we see down here in the Southwest corner. This is just the contiguous package number one.
We've acquired significant land to the North and to the South that have excellent potential for new discoveries. In fact, Vizsla Silver is hunting for project number two now. We just made a discovery and announced it last month at the Animas vein. This was one of the sub-intervals that was announced. The combined interval was about 14 ms grading 900 gms per ton silver equivalent. This is a world-class intercept. We will follow up on that in due course. There is one drill rig spinning right now at the Panuco project in terms of exploration. Vizsla Silver is laser-focused on getting to cash flow, right? Once you're in the cash flow, everything can become non-dilutive. You can spend CAD 30 million+ a year in turning the rest of this district into Swiss cheese.
Again, to recap, everything we've talked about is really just talking about this development potential. We talked briefly on the exploration, but Vizsla Silver has the ability to run this dual-track path given A, its cash position, B, its deep bench strength in terms of its management. Of course, the asset itself and the underexplored nature. Particularly when you look at the historic mining that's been undertaken, we can use those historic centers as vectoring tools to find new mineralization. That's exactly what we did at Animas there. That's exactly what led us to our initial discovery at the Napoleon structure. Quickly to glance on the timeline just to get a sense of those milestones that could directly affect not only silver with a re-rate, but translate directly into a royalty re-rate.
It's the permitting, it's the feasibility study, and of course, getting into first silver. Naturally, with a royalty, the farther out you are from production, the less valuable it will be. As you get closer to production and realize these milestones of getting your project financing secured, getting your permits approved, and of course, reaching that first silver, you will naturally appreciate to closer to one times NAV or net asset value. Quickly on the management side, Michael Konnert, he's the president and CEO of Vizsla Silver. He's executive chairman over here at Royalties. I am also senior vice president at Vizsla Silver. And Simon Cmrlec, he's also a director of Vizsla Royalties. He's the chief operating officer of Vizsla Silver. He's also a partner with Mike at Inventa Capital, the private parent umbrella to Vizsla Silver and Vizsla Royalties.
On the company snapshot, there's about 35 million shares outstanding currently. We've got a market capitalization of around CAD 60 million to CAD 70 million. We do trade on the OTC and the Toronto Venture Exchange. It's not a terribly liquid name, but frankly, we've never marketed the file. This is the first time that we're ever getting out and starting to market. We've just achieved our U.S. listing. We felt that it was an excellent time to start introducing investors to this less risky way to play the asset and the commodity. Vizsla Silver retained a 34% ownership. It's been diluted down now to about 30% ownership of Vizsla Royalties. It's always viewed this as an optionality play for future exploration or ongoing development or even to support the project financing on the equity component. We have excellent shareholders.
All of our shareholders are Vizsla Silver shareholders, including Vizsla Silver. Management insiders, directors, we hold about 5% of the outstanding shares of the company. We have about CAD 7.5 million currently in the bank. Again, we have a very low burn because there is not a whole lot to do when you know you have got a natural appreciation. Now, we do have a growth strategy. We want to stick to our knitting and focus on in and around our district where we have a competitive advantage. We cannot really go out and compete with that capital level at some of these other larger multi-asset royalty companies. Frankly, we do not need to because this is a standout marquee royalty that anyone in any number of the larger royalty companies would really much want in their portfolio.
When we look at the PNAV multiples in the market cap of these royalty companies, it's pretty clear that royalty companies trade at higher multiples than basically all the other operators, developers, producers of the commodities. Again, that's because they have direct exposure to the commodity at production at no risk to the operation, right? It's a fantastic business model. Where we're trading today at around CAD 60 million-CAD 70 million market cap, we're at about a 0.75 times price to net asset value ratio. You can see where the big boys trade at. They can still purchase us for 2x what we're trading at today and still have it be accretive to their overall portfolio. You know, you can look at the average of these. It's closer to 1.2 times.
Another way to look at what the re-rate potential could be as Vizsla Silver de-risks Panuco and it gets closer to cash flow is the recent transactions in the space. Just two weeks ago, Origen Royalties, which had a single asset royalty on the Silicon project, just a 1% NSR, was acquired by Triple Flag Precious Metals for CAD 343 million. That represented a 1.8 times on that PNAV multiple that I just highlighted. Another excellent precedent transaction, this one dates back a little bit to 2022, Great Bear Royalties was acquired by Royal Gold for a 1.4 times NAV. If we were just to do the average of those NAV multiples, you are talking around CAD 1.65 million, CAD 1.7 million. Go back to this, you can see how that market cap would translate into a significant improvement beyond where it is trading today.
Just to recap, this is a standout project with a standout royalty. It is rapidly advancing towards production. It is a low CapEx hurdle project in a rising commodity price environment targeting first silver in the back end of 2027. Again, excellent upside potential on the exploration front. We already know that the updated MRE should translate into an increased production profile in the pending FS. That is just scratching the surface in terms of what remains to be discovered in this district. Lastly, the timing, not only on the precedent transactions, but the scarcity of these silver primary assets alone. I think another transaction is MAG Silver just being announced its acquisition by Pan American Silver. This just takes one more single asset silver primary asset in Mexico right off the table.
Now the spotlight certainly gets pointed right at Vizsla Silver in the Panuco project, which again stands to directly benefit what we are doing over here at Royalties. With that, I will open it up to questions.
Great job, Mike. Thank you. Fantastic. We just have a few minutes left. I want to talk a little bit about some of your shareholders. Who are your top shareholders?
Yeah, that is great. Top shareholders are, as I mentioned, really those that own Vizsla Silver. Again, you were distributed based on a fractional basis of your ownership. The top owners here are Franklin Templeton, the Sprott Group. Craig Parry, our Chairman, owns quite a bit of this file as well. It is basically all of the silver shareholders.
What about a U.S. listing? Do you have one? Is that in the works?
Yes, exactly.
I think that's something that's very timely given this call. Of course, with our growth strategy, you know, we've seen tremendous success by listing Vizsla Silver on the NYSE American. The bulk of the volume that it trades, almost 2.5 million shares daily on that exchange, was a real indicator that there's an appetite not only for silver, the commodity, but overall this passive way and a bit more less risky way to play the space.
Talking some financials, how many outstanding shares do you have?
Right now, we've got abot CAD 35 million shares outstanding, fully diluted with the options that stand. You're right around CAD 37 million shares. Very good way in terms of our outstanding shares.
What about cash?
Cash, we've got just under, well, just over CAD 7.5 million currently in the bank.
What's your burn? No debt. Okay.
Burn right now, burn right now is quite low. Annually, we spent about CAD 500,000. Now, again, this company has only been around for just under a year. The bulk of that was really tied towards the listing. This is a very low burn file because we do not need to spend money. The royalties do not need to spend money. Where royalty companies spend money is on project evaluation and acquiring new royalties to grow their portfolio.
Do you have any analyst coverage?
Yes, we do. We have two analysts covering us, Canaccord Genuity and Raymond James. Canaccord's got a CAD 3.50 target and Raymond James has a CAD 2.25 target, trading at around CAD 2 today.
Perfect. Talk a little bit about your flagship project, the Panuco project. Why does it stand out so much?
Yeah, and I hope I was able to answer that throughout this presentation. It's a low capital hurdle, high margin project in a tier one jurisdiction, right? It's going to do cash flow to pay the project back at an NPV to CapEx ratio of over five times. I'm challenged to find any other project that has that type of return on the capital invested.
When it comes to your growth, talk a little bit about your strategy over the next 12 to 24 months.
Yeah, so we're not focused on going out and trying to find, you know, assets in other foreign jurisdictions in other commodities, right? We're really focused on sticking to our knitting. You know, there's a tremendous amount of potential still within this frontier belt that we have.
As I mentioned earlier, Silver has acquired a few past producing assets that have no royalties associated with them. It is really our focus at Royalties to use the competitive advantage in our network that we have to grow the asset portfolio in an incremental and meaningful way to be as less dilutive, at least dilutive to shareholders as we possibly can.
With all that said, last question, you can close with this. Why should investors buy into Vizsla?
Look, I always say, you know, if you have CAD 100 to invest in the Vizsla space, I would put CAD 75 in Vizsla Silver to have direct exposure to the re-rate as they de-risk it. I would put CAD 25 into Vizsla Royalties as that less risky way to be insulated from those operating costs and really have that production profile translating directly into discounting cash flow.
Perfect.
Mike, this has been a fantastic presentation, very thorough. Thank you so much. We look forward to having you back on the conference with some updates in the near future. Thanks for joining us.