OR Royalties: Sitting Out 2025's $9.3 Billion Deal Wave, Then Half a Billion in Six Weeks

Rick Rule opened the interview with a disclosure: he has owned OR Royalties and its predecessor companies for years. What followed was part company pitch, part capital-allocation lesson — and it put concrete numbers behind the story: a company with just over 20 employees that sat out 2025's deal wave, went debt-free, and then committed close to half a billion dollars in six weeks.

## From project generator to pure-play capital provider

CEO Jason Attew, a 30-year mining veteran who moved from exploration geochemistry through investment banking into corporate leadership, described the shift he led after joining about two and a half years ago. The former management ran what he called an incubator or generator model — buying development assets, advancing them through the development cycle, and retaining a royalty or stream. Attew argued that model demands more manpower than a company of just over 20 people can carry. The team simplified. OR Royalties is now a pure-play precious metals capital provider: it supplies capital to operators and developers in exchange for royalties and the occasional stream.

Attew framed the story around four pillars: capital allocation discipline, a peer-leading organic growth profile, the cornerstone Canadian Malartic royalty, and peer-leading cash margins in safe jurisdictions. On valuation, he acknowledged that OR Royalties still trades below both mid-tier and large-cap royalty peers, and argued the gap closes as the company delivers on the plan.

## Canadian Malartic: gross is net

The centerpiece is a 5% net smelter return (NSR — a royalty paid out of the mine's metal revenue, before the operator's costs) on Canadian Malartic in Quebec, which Attew called the crown jewel and, citing peer acknowledgement, the best precious metal royalty in the sector. Its origin is unusual: the royalty was created as part of the defense against the 2014 hostile takeover attempt on the Osisko mining group, which is why Attew argued an asset of this quality could not be acquired at auction today.

The mine, operated by Agnico Eagle, ranks among the world's largest operating gold mines. It is transitioning from a large open pit to the underground Odyssey deposit, which Attew called arguably the best discovery in Canada in decades. Published reserves support a mine life to 2042; Attew pointed to recent comments from Agnico Eagle leadership suggesting at least 2060.

Rule added the structural point that matters to royalty holders: the underground transition requires enormous upfront capital, none of which reaches OR Royalties, and rising operating costs do not touch it either. The company's gross is effectively its net.

## A royalty-heavy book in quiet jurisdictions

By Attew's account, more than 75% of net asset value (NAV — what the underlying assets are worth, net of liabilities) sits in Canada, the US, and Australia — about 90% if Chile is included. Because the book leans toward royalties rather than streams (a stream is an agreement to buy future metal production, typically at a preset price), he said the company runs cash margins near 97%: royalties carry no operating-cost exposure, while streams do through transfer pricing.

He ranked Mantos Blancos, a Capstone-operated copper mine in Chile, as the number two asset, and the CSA copper mine in Australia — by his description the highest-grade underground copper mine in the country, bought by Harmony Gold last year — as number three. He also cited a royalty on Alamos' Island Gold, exposure in Quebec's James Bay region and to the Lamac assets, and a silver stream on the Taseko-operated Gibraltar mine in British Columbia.

## Per-share discipline, tested in 2025

Attew was most specific when Rule asked what *accretive* means. Every decision, he said, is judged on a per-share basis, and long-term management compensation is tied to growing cash flow per share and NAV per share — the latter normalized for commodity prices, so management cannot simply ride a gold rally. He added that the company has been buying back shares.

2025 tested that discipline. Attew put sector transaction volume above $9.3 billion, with Royal Gold acquiring Sandstorm and Horizon, Wheaton entering a $4.3 billion streaming arrangement with BHP, and Triple Flag consolidating mid-tier assets. OR Royalties did $25 million of it. He said the company walked away from deals that crossed structural red lines — unsecured instruments, riskier jurisdictions, returns below its cost of capital — and instead went debt-free in September 2025 and kept raising the dividend: 8% in his first year, then 18%, then another 18% announced with the June quarter results.

## Where the money went

The restraint ended in early 2026. Attew said the company signed four deals worth close to $500 million in roughly six weeks — all royalties, no streams. He detailed three:

- A portfolio of eight royalties from Gold Fields for $115 million, anchored by a 1.5% royalty on the San Gabriel asset in Peru, paying immediately. - A doubling down in Ghana, adding to an existing 1% royalty on a mine already in operation and ramping up. - $168 million for a royalty package at Spring Valley, a fully permitted gold project in Pershing County, Nevada, with reserves of close to 5 million ounces, where OR Royalties holds a 6% royalty across most of the asset.

He said sell-side coverage characterized the returns as above average and significantly above the company's cost of capital.

## The takeaway

Attew's growth case rests on what the company already owns: the portfolio is modeled to deliver 120,000 to 135,000 gold equivalent ounces (GEOs — output from all metals expressed in gold terms) by 2030, roughly 50% growth on the 2025 base, with no further capital required from OR Royalties. That, he argued, is what frees a mid-tier company to stay selective while peers chase scale.

The caveats matter. This is a CEO presenting his own company on a friendly platform, and the host discloses he owns the stock. The valuation gap, the deal returns, and the 2060 mine life are management assertions worth checking against filings. But the structural story — a royalty-heavy portfolio, a tier-one NSR with no attached bills, and pay tied to per-share growth — is specific, internally consistent, and testable.