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Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (WPM)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 19, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Silver Wheaton’s 2014 Year-End Financial Results 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. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Thursday, March 19 at 11 AM Eastern Time. I will now turn the conference over to Patrick Drouin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Patrick Drouin

Analyst

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for participating in today’s call. I am joined today by Randy Smallwood, Silver Wheaton’s President and Chief Executive Officer and Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I’d like to bring to your attention that some of the commentary in today’s call may contain forward-looking statements. There can be no assurances that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. In addition to our financial results, cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements, please refer to the section entitled Risk Factors in Silver Wheaton’s final prospectus dated March 9, 2015 which is available on SEDAR and on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The prospectus sets out the material risk factors that could cause actual results to differ, including among others the absence of control of our mining operations from which Silver Wheaton purchases silver or gold, risk related to such mining operations and the risk of a decline in commodity prices. Lastly, it should be noted that all figures referred to on today’s call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Now, I’d like to turn the call over to Randy Smallwood, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Thank you, Patrick, and good morning ladies and gentlemen. In 2014, Silver Wheaton was proud to celebrate both its 10 year anniversary and the 10 year anniversary of precious metals streaming. Since the company’s inception, our streaming business model has shown a propensity to perform in all phases of the commodity price cycle including the low points like we saw in 2014. Despite the challenging markets that we all saw in 2014, the year was another solid one for Silver Wheaton in terms of cash operating margins, production and sales. And even with the substantial drop in precious metal prices this past year, we continued to generate cash operating margins of over 70% while maintaining one of the highest production levels in the silver industry. As a result, operating cash flows were $431.9 million down from 2013, but still reasonable, given that the silver equivalent price drops 20% during 2014. And while Silver Wheaton’s attributable production in 2014 was also down slightly to 35.3 million silver equivalent ounces, 2014 was still a very important year for our future growth as we saw key milestones achieved at Constancia and Salobo, both of which I will discuss in a bit more detail shortly. We did achieve record sales of 32.9 million ounces in 2014, a 10% increase from the previous year. And of course, 2015 has started out strong, as we announced several weeks ago the acquisition of another 25% of the Salobo gold production from Vale. This adds to the 25% of production we acquired in 2013 given its entitlement to 50% of all the gold produced at Salobo. As a reminder, Salobo is the largest copper gold deposit ever found in Brazil and even ignoring its excellent, excellent exploration potential ranks in the top 15 copper gold deposits worldwide. It…

Gary Brown

Analyst

Thank you, Randy, and good morning ladies and gentlemen. Prior to reviewing Silver Wheaton’s unaudited financial results for the three months ended December 31, 2014 and the audited results for the year ended December 31, 2014, I would like to remind everyone that all monetary figures discussed are denominated in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. The Company’s precious metal interests generated attributable silver equivalent production of 9 million ounces in the fourth quarter of 2014, 8% lower than production from the comparable period of the prior year, due primarily to lower production from the Peñasquito and Minto mines, combined with the cessation in Q3 2014 of the supplemental silver deliveries by Goldcorp relating to San Dimas. Approximately 71% of this production related to silver with the remainder relating to gold. Silver equivalent sales volumes amounted to 8.5 million ounces in Q4 of 2014, representing a 7% increase from Q4 2013 due primarily to increased gold deliveries from both the Sudbury and Salobo mines. Payable silver equivalent ounces produced but not yet delivered by our partners amounted to approximately 4.8 million ounces as at December 31, 2014, representing a decrease of about 300,000 ounces during the quarter. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 amounted to $140 million, representing a 16% decrease from the comparable period of the prior year, with a 7% increase in sales volumes being more than offset by a 22% decrease in the average realized silver equivalent selling price, which was $16.43 per ounce for Q4 2014. Earnings from operations for the fourth quarter of 2014 amounted to $61 million, representing a 33% decrease relative to the fourth quarter of 2013, with operating margins decreasing by 11% to 43% in the fourth quarter of 2014 with the decrease in margin being attributable to lower commodity prices. Cash-based…

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Thank you Gary. Operator, we’d like to open up the call for questions please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Andrew Quail from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

Good morning Randy, Gary and Patrick. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on a solid quarter and some good events after the year end.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

Just a couple of questions. One small stuff on Sandspring, can we just get a quick update on that and can you maybe Randy, give us some color about, if you guys are looking at further opportunities in this environment to do the early stage developments?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Well, the environment definitely needs support like that. One of the challenges of course is commodity prices have hit as we’ve seen some pretty low marks in the overall spectrum. And so, with Sandspring we are working with them. They are very close to getting the feasibility completed, but we are working with them to advance and set up a structure that works well in terms of keeping that project. We are still a strong believer in the asset. We think it’s not as well recognized in the market as it should be. And so we working with Sandspring to do that. That type of structure is one that – is well suited for this environment and we do have other options or other opportunities on that early deposit structure, but, we’ll see where they go.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

Is there a timeline on the feasibility study on that?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

They’ve – in the current environment, they’ve parked themselves, put into neutral essentially right now and waiting to come to the stronger market before they put further investment into it. And so, that’s what we are working, and there is no timeline in terms of the feasibility.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

And do you see, with Peñasquito, obviously this is always going to be proved into the second half of the year, do you see those levels obviously been maintained through sort of 2016 and even 2017 given the improvement in the water situation?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Definitely, I mean, Peñasquito would set up – some of the best grades in that deposit come in over the next three, four, five years. And so, I really think that Peñasquito is going to be hitting full stride over the next few years and with the efforts that Goldcorp and the whole team down there is putting into that asset. It’s exciting to see it finally getting close to its full potentials and so, there is obviously still work to be done there. But, the work that is being done looks very promising and then, in terms of grade scheduling it does look, it also looks pretty exciting over the next few years. So that’s going to really come into its stride.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

And, at 777, do you guys see that, it had a little bit of weaker quarter, do you guys see that bouncing back over the next few quarters?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Yes, they had some problems with ground support. Of course, safety is always number one and so, they’ve had to sort of back away and let some of the pillars stabilize and so they are shifting to lower grade regions. Now as that has been stabilizing as they’ve got in the additional back-fill to provide that additional support, they should be able to move back into those higher grade zones. So, we think it’s really just a scheduling issue.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

And last one, obviously, big gold deal post year-end looks pretty good to me, do you guys – sort of obviously, the percentage of gold is moving up with silver, is that something we expect over the next few years to eventuate even more?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Well, we are still silver focused. We think the streaming model works slightly better in the silver space mainly because most silver is produced as the byproduct and therefore more capacity. But, I’ll be honest, when I look at our corp dev portfolio, the stuff that we are looking at right now, it does have a bit of a gold bias to it. The gold sector is hurting a bit more than the base metal space and that’s one of the reasons why that we are seeing a bit more. But that’s definitely it seems to be a gold flavor to the corp dev portfolio that we are looking at right now.

Andrew Quail

Analyst

Sounds good to me. Thanks very much guys.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

No problem, Andrew. Thank you for calling in.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Dan Rollins from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Dan Rollins

Analyst

Yes, thanks very much. Only a couple of questions and more just sort of housekeeping. With the addition of additional Salobo acquisition 25% stream there and then also the start up of Constancia, is it still prudent to assume a 90% payable level for your production going forward or should we see that slightly improve?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

I mean, I would say it’s prudent to just maintain that 90%. And one of the things that we always run into as, sort of as these things ramp up, is always building up that pipeline. And so, any improvements that we see as these assets deliver more – these higher quality assets come into play that will be gradual. So I think it would be prudent to stay at the 90%.

Dan Rollins

Analyst

And then just on Sudbury, you had that streaming for almost two years now. It had a pretty big kick up in production restated in Q3, I guess it’s now just under – just over 12,000 ounces up from just under 6000 ounces at the end of what you reported in Q3 reporting? Is that a more typical run rate now going forward for Sudbury with Totten started or what’s going on there to drive that?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Well Totten is still not even at full capacity yet. They are still ramping up their production and won’t be at full capacity until towards the end of this year. Quite literally, I can remember some conference calls we were trying to explain the fact that the pipeline takes a long time to fill at Sudbury. It’s – in terms of us, when we receive payments for the gold that is sold, it’s quite a few months afterwards. And so, we saw that potential in this asset to outperform and based on our results to-date in the last two years that we’ve now had this – we had the Sudbury stream in place we are seeing it deliver substantively more gold than what Vale has forecast. And it’s something that we have seen and Vale tend to take a pretty conservative approach to their production estimates. It’s refreshing in this industry.

Dan Rollins

Analyst

Eventually, you see further restatement going forward if – as the stuff starts to flow through the system and get that fully integrated smelters, refineries at that complex, correct?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Exactly, it’s about a four to five months pipeline between production and sales and so it takes a while for that to actually roll into the results. But, yes, Sudbury is definitely delivering for us.

Dan Rollins

Analyst

Okay, and then just with Constancia starting up, is it safe to assume about two to three months lag between production and sales delivered to your account?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

That’s right, because, again, it’s copper off to the smelter, typical or copper concentrate off to the smelter all precious metals are contained in that copper concentrate, it should be two to three months in the pipeline. So we are not going to see a lot of sales out of Constancia in the first quarter, the first half of this year, but, we will be – we should be up to full stream by the end of this year in terms of getting full credit for sales.

Dan Rollins

Analyst

Okay, that’s great guys. I really appreciate the color and congrats on a solid 2014 and best of luck over the next 10 years.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Thanks for calling in Dan.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Marc Heilweil from the Spectrum Advisory Services. Please go ahead.

Marc Heilweil

Analyst

Yes, can you give the – I know this is a more general question, but, mines close or disasters happen or what, do you – when you book a stream do you set up any reserve for contingencies like that or how does the accounting works for?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

The best defense is to make sure that you invest into assets that are in the lowest half of the respective cost curve, which means they are the most profitable mines. Because, then we know that our partners and the industry as a whole will be very motivated to keep these mines going. They will always survive through the challenges that you see out there. And so, we don’t set aside a reserve, I mean, what we do really focus on in Silver Wheaton is making sure that the assets that we invest into have healthy operating margins. We recognize that if our partners aren’t healthy and happy, then we are not healthy and happy. And so that’s the best defense, Marc.

Gary Brown

Analyst

And just to add to that, we are not liable for any of the mine closure costs.

Marc Heilweil

Analyst

Right, yes. Well, that’s good. So – but, in your history, has it happened at - your stream has fallen short because of some incident or some problem with the mine closure?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

No, we’ve had a couple of mines that having got that all mines eventually do close, but we’ve always returned a good rate of return on the investment into those mines. So, we’ve never fallen short.

Marc Heilweil

Analyst

That’s terrific. Thanks for explaining that to me.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

No problem Marc. Thanks for calling in.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Cosmos Chiu from CIBC. Your line is now open.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Good morning, Randy, Gary, Patrick and team and thanks for hosting the call. I have a few questions here. Maybe first off on the balance sheet, maybe for Gary, would you be able to tell us a bit more detail in terms of how it stands today in terms of cash and debt? A lot has happened since December 2014. So I just want to – you know what hopefully what the cash level is, versus what the debt level is?

Gary Brown

Analyst

Yes, Cosmos, that would be telegraphing what’s happened during the quarter and I prefer not to provide that insight until this quarter’s release.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

I guess, I can work it on myself, Gary, but, you’ve given us an interim update on the debt level, $685 million, has that changed? Or I guess, can you really tell us?

Gary Brown

Analyst

Yes, I mean, we use the combination of cash on hand, the net proceeds from the equity offering and drawings under the revised amended revolving credit facility to pay or we will be using that to pay for the $900 million upfront payment. So, that’s going to be the most significant change, net of operating cash flows that we’ve generated in Q1 today.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Okay, I’ll make my own assumptions then. Thanks, Gary. Maybe, moving on, in terms of, I know this is a smaller stream for you guys, at least right now, but in terms of the Barrick streams, I guess, you’ve given us guidance of 2.2 million ounces in 2015 and that’s a pretty substantial increase year-over-year. Can you maybe walk us through how that’s – what’s driving that increase, because my understanding is that, certainly at Lagunas Norte could be up slightly in 2015, however, that should be offset by lower Veladero and of course Pierina is now done. So, I am just wondering, how 2015, the increase in 2015 was driving it?

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

It’s generally grade-related in terms of the scheduling. And so, this is their own forecast that we’ve gone back, had a look at and reviewed. We’ve been on the site and had a look at and we are comfortable with and so, but it’s generally grade-related. I know, Veladero had substantial lower grades through the course of 2014 than what they are used to being with. So I think that’s where lot of that increase comes from.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Yes, we won’t have a lot of visibility on the gold grades, and maybe as you said, the silver grades are little bit different.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Yes, there is multiple deposits at Veladero and some of which have better silver grades than the other and so that’s I think one of the reasons we are scheduling into a different pit where you – they of course are driven and scheduled on their gold grades. Silver is a pretty small portion of the overall value there. But we do definitely see differences from one pit to the other and I know the deposit they are remaining through 2014 in Veladero was a very low silver grade deposit.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Great, that’s all I have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Q&A Portion of today’s conference call.

Randy Smallwood

Analyst

Thanks Operator. 2015 will be an exciting year for Silver Wheaton as we begin to bear the fruit of some of our recent investments. We are looking forward to seeing expansions at Salobo, San Dimas and Constancia and are also quite excited about the opportunities we are seeing from further acquisitions. So pleased stay tuned and thank you for dialing in everyone.

Operator

Operator

This concludes this conference call for today. Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your lines.