Altius Minerals Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record royalty revenue and higher earnings: Q2 royalty revenue reached CAD 30 million and adjusted EBITDA was CAD 23 million, supported by higher realized prices, copper stream timing, new lithium royalties, and stronger electricity royalty revenue. Adjusted earnings rose to CAD 0.14 per share.
  • Positive Sentiment: Expanded renewable-energy exposure: Altius increased its effective interest in Great Bay Renewables from 29% to 50% and said the electricity royalty portfolio is approaching an upward revenue inflection point, with 16 operating projects and 15 more under construction or development.
  • Positive Sentiment: Balance sheet and liquidity strengthened: A CAD 174 million share offering, an expanded $350 million revolver, and subsequent financing activity left approximately $500 million of total liquidity available for future investments, although the company also drew $100 million on the revolver.
  • Positive Sentiment: Lithium outlook improved: Management cited tight inventories, strong battery-storage growth, rising prices, and expected seasonal strength in second-half EV sales; operators are advancing expansions, new projects, and restarts, prompting Altius to raise its lithium revenue estimates for the coming years.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Broad pipeline of potential investments: Management described active deal flow across renewable energy and mining royalties, while emphasizing that future acquisitions will remain project-specific and disciplined on factors such as quality, valuation, jurisdiction, and political risk.
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Earnings Conference Call
Altius Minerals Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Altius Q2 2026 financial results conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Flora Wood, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Flora Wood
Flora Wood
VP of Investor Relations and Sustainability and Corporate Secretary at Altius Minerals

Thank you, Vincent. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q2 2026 conference call. Our press release and interim filings came out yesterday after the close and are available on our website. This event is being webcast live, and you will be able to access a replay of the call, along with the presentation slides that have been added both to the homepage and the investor section of our website at altiusminerals.com. Brian Dalton, CEO, and Stephanie Hussey, CFO, will speak on the call, and Ernie Ortiz, VP Corp Dev and Head of Lithium, is also here as a resource for us in the Q and A. The forward-looking statement on slide two applies to everything we say both in our formal remarks and during the Q and A session. With that, Stephanie is up first to take us through the numbers.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Thank you, Flora, and good morning, everybody. Yesterday, we reported Q2 net earnings of CAD 8.6 million or CAD 0.16 per share, reflecting higher revenues and higher expenses, including cost of sales, G&A, share-based comp, and amortization when compared to Q2 2025. Royalty revenue of CAD 30 million, which was a record, and adjusted EBITDA of CAD 23 million for the second quarter reflect higher realized prices, timing of copper stream deliveries, the addition of four operating lithium royalties, as well as higher electricity royalty revenue. Operating cash flow of CAD 14 million reflect higher royalty receipts and interest income, offset by higher tax payments and working capital changes. Adjusted net earnings of CAD 0.14 per share for the quarter was higher than Q2 2025, with the main adjusting items being foreign exchange, revaluation of derivatives, and non-recurring costs associated with the LRC acquisition.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Some highlights from the quarter include an investment in ARR for our contribution of the Coles Wind acquisition, a 311 MW construction stage project for $12.4 million U.S. We also acquired CAD 15 million in other investments, including TNR Gold and Blue Moon. We received CAD 42 million from the corporation's original investment in royalty capital funds controlled by Waratah Capital. These investments were made by Altius at the time of the founding and early development of LRC, and as these funds were wound up, proceeds in either cash or Altius shares were distributed to unit investment holders. Subsequent to the quarter, Altius announced three transactions. On July 21, we closed a block deal public offering of 3 million common shares at a price of CAD 60.50 per share and received net proceeds of CAD 174 million.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

On July 24, we completed an amendment to our credit facility to upsize to $350 million from $225 million. The previous term and revolving credit facility is now replaced with a single revolver with no principal payments required. The debt balance outstanding of $87 million at the time of the close was transferred to the amended credit facility, with maturity being extended from August 2028 to July 2030. The corporation completed a drawdown of $100 million on the revolver at the end of July. Finally, on July 30th, the corporation completed a share purchase agreement with Northampton and Apollo, in which Altius increased its effective interest in GBR from 29% to 50%, while Northampton increased its interest in GBR from 22% to 50%.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

The transaction structure involved the acquisition by Northampton of Apollo Funds' 50% interest in GBR for total consideration of $390 million U.S., while Altius concurrently acquired Northampton's minority interest in ARR for consideration of $167 million U.S. The purchase by Altius was funded through cash on hand and debt. Going forward, we will report our 50% ownership of GBR. Following these transactions, current total liquidity available to the corporation is approximately $500 million, and this includes cash on hand, $163 million available under the amended revolver, as well as $150 million potentially available as an accordion feature, subject to certain criteria under the terms of our expanded credit facility. During the quarter, we made scheduled debt repayments of $2 million, paid total cash dividends of $5.2 million, and issued approximately 7,000 common shares under the dividend reinvestment plan.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Yesterday, our board approved a 10% increase to our dividend, or $0.11 per share, to be paid to shareholders of record on August 28th, with a payment date of September 15th. With that, I'll turn it back to Brian.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Thank you, Stephanie. Good morning, everyone. Our second quarter efforts included the integration of the acquisition of Lithium Royalty Corporation, the acquisition of an increased effective interest in Great Bay Renewables, and an equity raise plus expansion of our credit facilities to strengthen the balance sheet and replenish liquidity for further accretive capital allocation opportunities that may emerge. We were also busy with replenishing our PG equity portfolio and growing our longer-term royalty growth portfolio. Our royalties performed well in Q2, and revenues were up materially relative to the comparable quarter last year. More importantly, we continue to gain confidence in the further growth potential of the portfolio as a number of pre-production stage royalties achieved important advancement milestones. In lithium, we continued to receive positive signals from the operators of several of our royalty projects concerning expansions, restarts, and new builds.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

These collectively have caused us to revise upwards our revenue estimates for this segment over the next several years. Lithium demand growth continues to exceed expectations, driven by both increased global electricity, grid battery storage adoption, and increasing EV sales in certain regions as a consequence of heightened oil-based fuel price volatility. The average quarterly price for most lithium-based projects increased materially versus the first quarter as strong demand growth outstripped supply growth and resulted in inventory depletion. Ernie is with us on the call today and will be available to answer any specific project or general market-based questions you may have for us during the Q and A. In base metals, we heard positive updates from Vale regarding ramp-up progress at Voisey's Bay. Chapada saw strong production levels plus the commencement of investments by Lundin to grow copper production through the integration of the new Saúva deposit discovery.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Silvercorp made steady construction progress at Curipamba, and positive PEA results were reported for the Gunnison Copper Project. Quarterly average copper and nickel prices both increased by approximately 4% over Q1 as fundamental market balance factors, while increasingly volatile, continued to develop constructively on a net basis. Within ARR and our electricity royalties business, there were significant developments during and subsequent to the quarter. A new advanced stage investment was made at Coles Wind that will add meaningful near-term revenue, and we received positive sanctioning and construction updates from several additional projects. The portfolio now includes 16 operating stage projects and 15 others at various stages of construction.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

These developments are driving an upwards inflection point for overall electricity royalty portfolio revenue, and we're certainly supportive of our decision to increase our effective interest in the underlying GBR joint venture from 29% to 50%, alongside our long-term focus partners, Northampton Capital Partners and its underlying investor, APG, the major Dutch pension fund. The opportunity to increase our interest came as our original funding partner, Apollo, exited their investment upon the approaching scheduled windup of the fund entities that it made its investments through. We take this opportunity to thank the teams we have worked with at Apollo for their contributions to the growth and development of this business and commend them on their early recognition of its potential.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Underlying macro-level demand growth expectations for new electricity generation across the U.S. continues to be strong and broad-based, and the GBR team is continuing to identify a heightened number of potentially accretive deployment opportunities, particularly with respect to near-term production stage projects. Turning to potash, we are sensing a subtle change in outlook from the operators and more particularly those analysts that cover them. The narrative seems to be shifting from the one heard over the past several years, reflecting concern around competing supply coming online, to instead a questioning of established production leaders as to how they might invest to bring on additional supply, as existing pre-built capacity is increasingly being recognized as approaching full practical utilization.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

In any event, potash demand has been very strong again thus far this year across most regions, with annual global consumption forecast ranges beginning to tighten towards the higher end of prior forecasts and causing benchmark prices to strengthen. Wonderfully boring stuff as usual. In iron ore, we look forward to results from Champion Iron and its Japanese partners, Nippon Steel and Sojitz Corporation, later this year regarding the feasibility study for Kami. We also heard Rio Tinto reaffirm its commitment to investment and long-term operational improvement at IOC. Iron ore prices were relatively flat quarter-over-quarter, and our revenues continued to be impacted by lower production and higher capital investment amounts at IOC. In project generation, the team was very busy and continued to create royalties through project sales, as well as to identify equity-level deployment opportunities that generally included royalty business development components.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

This work is serving to continue to grow our longer-term growth portfolio and builds upon strong progress last year that was highlighted by the rapid advancement of the Arthur Gold Project and our underlying royalty interest. At Arthur, AngloGold Ashanti has announced that it is advancing the project into a full feasibility study during the second half. Before I turn over to your questions, I want to publicly acknowledge and thank my fellow team members for their incredible enthusiasm and work effort over the past 12 months. This started with the partial sale of our Arthur Gold Project royalty interest late last summer, and then progressed immediately and continuously since then into the redeployment of the proceeds, and then some. Amazing job, guys. It continues to be a pleasure and a privilege to work with you. With that, I'll turn over to questions.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you may need to press star one on your telephone keypad. Again, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw a question, please press star two. We'll pause for a few moments to compile Q and A roster. First question comes from Shane Nagle for National Bank. Please go ahead.

Shane Nagle
Shane Nagle
Analyst at National Bank

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question, everyone, and congrats on all the transactions over the past quarter. Just on more of a technical question on consolidation of ARR or I guess the 50% of GBR going forward. Can you give me color on, I'm assuming you're going to proportionately consolidate your 50%. Just any color on where that balance sheet stands today after some of the transactions that have taken place, like Coles Wind and others within GBR. Thanks.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

It sounds like a Steph question to me.

Shane Nagle
Shane Nagle
Analyst at National Bank

Yeah, probably.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Hi, Shane. Thanks for the question. We haven't cracked open going forward, but we expect the equity account for GBR as a joint venture. We'll pick up our 50%, but it will be through equity accounting. We don't expect to do proportionate accounting.

Shane Nagle
Shane Nagle
Analyst at National Bank

Okay. So no change there from your side?

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

We will be picking up. Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Nagle
Shane Nagle
Analyst at National Bank

Okay, thanks. Then maybe just Brian, just quickly, you provided some color in your prepared commentary, but just within that renewable section, is that where you see the most accretive opportunity set at the present time? Or maybe just talk about the strategy and the landscape here in terms of allocating capital now going forward. Thanks.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

There certainly is a lot of deal flow coming across the desk at the renewable side of things, but I would not say it is exclusively there. I do not know what it is, but maybe somewhat more subdued market conditions over the past couple of months, I guess led by declining gold prices, seems to have shaken a little bit of other stuff out of the woodwork as well, and we are seeing some packages and some individual royalty assets on the mining side come across our desk as well. So I would say we are pretty busy really on pretty much all fronts. Again, I cannot promise what will result in transactions, but there are some quality assets that are looking to transact royalties around or existing royalties that we are seeing some groups that have other uses of capital that may be willing to transact as well.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

I am going to tell the team what I have been telling them, that take it easy for the rest of this month. It has been a big year, but I do expect a busy fall for everyone.

Shane Nagle
Shane Nagle
Analyst at National Bank

Great. That's all from me. Thanks, guys.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Thanks, Shane.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Gabriel Chiu from Bullpen Research. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Chiu
Analyst at Bullpen Research

Hey, good morning. I wanted to start off with a question on lithium. There are some reports that were coming out on the battery tech mix. I imagine you have seen some of it. Sodium ion got a bit of attention. I was just wondering, how are you guys thinking of this? I imagine this is a scenario where the pie is growing so rapidly, there is space for both lithium and sodium tech, but love to see how you guys are anticipating the space to shape up.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Your turn, Ernie.

Ernie Ortiz
Ernie Ortiz
VP of Corporate Development and Head of Lithium at Altius Minerals

Yeah. I think you brought up a good point in your question that I think that the pie is growing so much larger that there is room for other technologies. But at the same time, the main chemistry that is being massively adopted is lithium ion. For perspective, this year, global battery shipments are expected to be approximately 3 TWh. From research that we have seen, sodium within that is roughly 10 GWh. It is still just a very small fraction of the overall market. To your point, there are new developments going on in sodium ion, but we do expect lithium ion to be the vast majority of it. Every battery maker in the energy storage market has commented that they are running full out, and energy storage shipments are expected to grow by 70% year-over-year this year.

Ernie Ortiz
Ernie Ortiz
VP of Corporate Development and Head of Lithium at Altius Minerals

It is a function of the market growing so fast that we essentially need all the batteries, especially for storage, that we can get. But whether it is this year or for 2030, all the data that we see is that lithium ion will still be the main chemistry going forward. Of course, sodium does have some benefits in cold weather, and so forth, but lithium ion will still be the predominant chemistry.

Gabriel Chiu
Analyst at Bullpen Research

All right. It's like power. There's space for everyone. Rapid growth. Everything's needed. Everyone's all hands on deck. I'll just wrap it up on the energy side then. I'm just curious, I think there's a state moratoriums on data centers. Texas coming to mind right now. Has that sort of changed the level of power projects that enter the mix in any way? Or has GBR's deployment strategy, has that changed at all at the regional level in response to this?

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

I think you raise a good point around, that's certainly where the narrative is focused in terms of electricity demand growth in the U.S. The big headlines are all around data centers and AI use. But in reality, the demand growth is pretty broad-based and across a lot of sectors or different parts of the economy and different industrial applications. I don't really buy into the demand growth projections that we're seeing around data centers, and it has more to do with or less to do with difficulties that some of the proponents are having around social licensing and those efforts. But really, there isn't capacity on grids in the near term. You just can't put that much generation in place. I think some of the forecasts and whatnot are a bit wonky.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Basically, what I'm saying is I don't believe that in any kind of reasonable timeframe that supply can come close to coming through, reaching the sort of demand that's being called for. I expect a lot of that's just going to simply fall away or offshore or something like that. But I still do believe that we are in an environment where as much generation as can possibly get built is needed. That is not going to be sufficient to meet anywhere near the kinds of crazy demand forecasts we're seeing out there.

Gabriel Chiu
Analyst at Bullpen Research

If anything, cheaper up into the right then. All right. Appreciate it. That's it for me. Thank you.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mac Whale from ATB Cormark. Please go ahead.

Mac Whale
Mac Whale
Analyst at ATB Cormark

Hi, this is probably a question for Ernie. I am wondering, we have seen pricing in the lithium market pretty strong in the first half and then kind of weakened from quite a robust kind of pricing. Looking at the balance of the year, when you are, maybe you have better insight on inventories and are they reversing? Do you expect pricing maybe to dip further and come back up to this level? What is your thought on sort of the near to middle term on pricing?

Ernie Ortiz
Ernie Ortiz
VP of Corporate Development and Head of Lithium at Altius Minerals

Yeah. With lithium, it is always very volatile, so it is ultimately hard to predict. But to your point, inventories are at cyclical lows, especially considering the market continues to grow. Inventories are extremely tight. We heard one of the largest producers of lithium last week comment about essentially below one month across the chain, whether it is cathode, carbonate, or hydroxide. I think the physical, and even speaking to traders in our contacts, they do comment about a very tight physical market. The other thing I would say as far as the demand side, you did have, I guess, slower, sequentially slower EV sales in China in June and July. But now we are getting into the busier type of seasonal period, where roughly 60%, 2/3 of overall EV sales happen in the second half of the year.

Ernie Ortiz
Ernie Ortiz
VP of Corporate Development and Head of Lithium at Altius Minerals

You are seeing, I guess, positive signals where there's, that could have tailwinds for the second half of the year. But again, I think prices where they are today, still almost four times what they were a year ago. Our business is performing quite well. Our operators are moving forward with expansions and, I guess, new starts with the restarts of core by the end of the year for concentrate shipments. I think this overall price level is very healthy for our business. And of course, there's volatility for lithium pricing in the near term, but at least the physical market's very strong and we do very tight, and we do expect for seasonal strength to materialize in the second half of the year.

Mac Whale
Mac Whale
Analyst at ATB Cormark

Okay. As a follow-up then, how does the new ownership change how aggressive you might want to be or can be given, let's say, the strength continues in demand, you might want to be able to maybe expand that portfolio, even though it is a big part of Altius' outlook. Would you give a recap or really update your thinking on whether you'd be more aggressive in places, say like in Africa, where there's a lot of development and opportunity? Can you just speak a little bit to sort of the change of what we might expect on the lithium side for new royalties?

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

I can grab that one, Ernie, if you want. I don't think that's how you should think about how we look at things. Our investment criteria is always going to be very project specific. Obviously, we recognize that there is a need for more production in lithium just to keep pace with the obviously the very strong demand growth that's occurring there as it hits that S part of the adoption curve. But again, we're going to look at assets that we believe can weather full cycles. We're still going to maintain our views around political risk and either avoid or price accordingly. So again, we're not adverse to adding more exposure to lithium, but again, it's a lithium project. We'll have to compete with a copper project on project quality, price, jurisdiction and so forth. So it's not about trying to drive exposure one way or the other.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

We're technical investors.

Mac Whale
Mac Whale
Analyst at ATB Cormark

Okay, that is very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We have no further questions. I will turn the call back over to Flora.

Flora Wood
Flora Wood
VP of Investor Relations and Sustainability and Corporate Secretary at Altius Minerals

Thank you, Vincent, and thank you everybody for dialing in. Mac, very good to see you. I think I have not seen you since the ARR IPO, and look forward to speaking with everybody again on the Q3 call.

Brian Dalton
Brian Dalton
CEO at Altius Minerals

Thanks, everyone.

Stephanie Hussey
Stephanie Hussey
CFO at Altius Minerals

Thank you, everybody.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Flora Wood
      Flora Wood
      VP of Investor Relations and Sustainability and Corporate Secretary
    • Stephanie Hussey
      Stephanie Hussey
      CFO
    • Brian Dalton
      Brian Dalton
      CEO
    • Ernie Ortiz
      Ernie Ortiz
      VP of Corporate Development and Head of Lithium
Analysts
    • Shane Nagle
      Analyst at National Bank
    • Gabriel Chiu
      Analyst at Bullpen Research
    • Mac Whale
      Analyst at ATB Cormark