Altius Renewable Royalties Corp. (“ARR” or the “Corporation”), is pleased to report its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended 2023 with a conference call to follow Thursday March 7, 2024 at 9:00 am EDT.
The Corporation's 50% owned Great Bay Renewables ("GBR") joint venture recorded $10.4 million in royalty revenue for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to $7.3 million in 2022, an increase of 44%. Operating cash flows at GBR were $5.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 as compared to $2.7 million in 2022, an increase of 89%. For the quarter ended December 31, 2023, GBR recorded $2.6 million in royalty revenue compared to $1.7 million in Q4 2022. Operating cash flows at GBR were $1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 as compared to $0.4 million in Q4 2022.
ARR reported a net loss of $1.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, proportionate revenue(1) of $7.9 million, adjusted EBITDA(1) of $3.8 million and adjusted operating cash flow(1) of $3.0 million. This compares to a net loss of $0.8 million, proportionate revenue(1) of $4.4 million, adjusted EBITDA(1) of $0.8 million and adjusted operating cash flow(1) of $0.2 million for 2022. Total proportionate revenue(1) for the year was comprised of $5.2 million in royalty revenue and $2.7 million in interest income.
For the quarter ended December 31, 2023, ARR reported a net loss of $0.2 million, proportionate revenue(1) of $2.3 million, adjusted EBITDA(1) of $1.0 million and adjusted operating cash flow(1) of $1.3 million. This compares to net loss of $0.4 million, proportionate revenue(1) of $1.2 million, adjusted EBITDA(1) of $0.1 million and adjusted operating cash flow(1) of $0.6 million in Q4 2022. Total proportionate revenue(1) in Q4 2023 was comprised of $1.3 million in royalty revenue and $1.0 million in interest income.
Full year production from royalties acquired in late 2022 led to higher royalty revenues for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2023, compared to prior year periods.
The Corporation’s current quarter and year end results reflect the proportionate share of increased revenues at GBR offset by the proportionate share of increased costs including GBR’s non-cash share of loss in equity investments Bluestar Energy Capital LLC ("Bluestar") and Nova Energy LLC ("Nova") of approximately $0.3 million and $6.5 million respectively. Bluestar and Nova continue to engage in early-stage renewable energy development resulting in increased levels of expenses with minimal offsetting revenues thus far at those entities. Nova continues to make good progress in building its greenfield development pipeline as the current portfolio of projects has now grown to approximately 5GW of wind, solar and battery storage projects.
Subsequent to December 31, 2023 GBR announced that it had entered into a $30 million royalty investment with Apex Clean Energy (“Apex”) related to Apex’s 195 MWac Angelo Solar project in Tom Green County, Texas (“Angelo”) which is anticipated to achieve commercial operations in May 2024. In addition, another wind project from GBR's development pipeline has achieved commercial operations and is expected to contribute to GBR's revenue beginning in Q2 2024.
For 2024, GBR expects to realize renewable royalty revenue of $13.0 million to $16.0 million based upon the current royalty portfolio including construction stage assets that are expected to reach commercial operations in 2024, and recent merchant price assumptions. Additional potential revenue that may result from entitlements related to project sales by developers Hodson Energy and Hexagon Energy has not been included in this estimate.
At December 31, 2023 the Corporation held cash of $88.7 million and has 2024 expected commitments related to existing GBR investment agreements of approximately $22.5 million. In addition, during the fourth quarter, GBR entered into senior secured credit financing agreements in the aggregate amount of $246.5 million (of which $117.9 million has been drawn by GBR). The drawdown was used for closing costs as well as return of capital totaling $108.2 million to the joint venture partners. The facility has available liquidity of $105.6 million at the time of this release. This credit facility enables GBR to accelerate its growth trajectory while maintaining a competitive cost of capital. ARR has not pledged any security in favour of the agreements.
Commenting on the year, Frank Getman, CEO of GBR, said, "In 2023, we continued to make great progress in building our business. In addition to growing revenues by 44% and adding another top-tier developer to our portfolio with our $40 million investment commitment into Hexagon, we significantly expanded our liquidity and enhanced our cost of capital for future investments with the $246.5 million credit facility that closed in the fourth quarter last year.” Getman added, “We’ve started 2024 strong, with our recent $30 million royalty investment into Apex’s 195 MWac Angelo Solar project and a robust pipeline of new investment opportunities we are pursuing."
Brian Dalton, CEO of ARR added, "As experienced royalty company builders, we recognize and appreciate the contrarian investment windows being presented by current market conditions and sentiment. These are the periods when opportunities are greatest to build long-term value through the royalty model and the GBR team has put itself in an excellent position to continue to seize the current opportunity."
