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Jason Attew, President & CEO of OR Royalties | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

Rule Investment Media May 15, 2026

Summary

OR Royalties holds royalties rather than streams in safe jurisdictions, earning near-97% cash margins because royalty holders receive revenue without paying mine costs.

Its cornerstone royalty is a 5% NSR (net smelter return — a cut of mine revenue) on Canadian Malartic, with operator guidance of life to 2060.

CEO Jason Attew grades every acquisition on a per-share basis and walked away from 2025's $9.3 billion royalty deal wave rather than overpay for scale.

Four early-2026 royalty deals — from Gold Fields, in Ghana, and at Nevada's Spring Valley — deploy about $500 million from a debt-free balance sheet.

Attew argues OR still trades below mid-tier and senior peers on most financial metrics, with catch-up expected as commodity-price-adjusted per-share growth delivers.

Key points on Agnico Eagle Mines

  • The guest calls Agnico Eagle 'arguably the best gold miner on earth' and the operator of Canadian Malartic, OR Royalties' cornerstone asset held under a 5% NSR royalty.
  • He expects massive, highly accretive step changes in OR's deliveries as Agnico transitions Malartic from a large open pit to the Odyssey underground mine, which he calls arguably the best discovery in Canada for decades.
  • He cites Agnico Eagle conference-call comments the week before the interview that Malartic's mine life — officially stated to 2042 on current reserves — should extend to at least 2060 given the success of the underground deposit.
  • Rick Rule adds that Agnico Eagle has sponsored his conference on and off for 30 years and that its official position mirrors the guest's: a very long-lived, absolutely tier-one asset.

Key points on Alamos Gold

  • Attew counts Alamos Gold's Island Gold among OR Royalties' top-five assets, where the company holds a royalty.
  • Rick Rule adds that Island Gold, like the other Canadian assets described, likely represents more than 5 million ounces of ultimate mineable resource.

Key points on Gold Fields

  • In early 2026, OR Royalties acquired a portfolio of eight royalties from Gold Fields for $115 million, anchored by a 1.5% royalty on the San Gabriel asset in Peru that the guest says will pay OR immediately.
  • The guest frames the Gold Fields purchase as one of four royalty deals totaling close to half a billion dollars executed in the six weeks before the interview, with sell-side analysts rating the 2026 deals as above-average returns well above OR's cost of capital.

Key points on Harmony Gold Mining

  • OR Royalties' third most important asset is the CSA mine in Australia, which the guest describes as the highest-grade underground copper mine in the country.
  • Attew notes Harmony Gold bought CSA, formerly a Glencore mine, in 2025.

Key points on Franco-Nevada Corp

  • Rick Rule recalls his early years at Franco Nevada — a lean outfit where 'my gross was my net' — as the analogue to OR Royalties' current low-headcount model.

Key points on OR Royalties Ltd

  • The guest argues OR Royalties still trades at attractive multiples versus mid-tier and large-cap royalty peers after only two years as a pure play, and expects the gap to close as it delivers its business plan.
  • He says the portfolio is modeled to deliver 120,000-135,000 gold equivalent ounces by 2030 — roughly 50% top-line growth on the 2025 base — with that growth already bought and paid for.
  • OR sat out 2025's record royalty-sector M&A, closing just $25 million of roughly $9.3 billion in deals, then deployed close to half a billion dollars across four royalty acquisitions in the six weeks before the interview.
  • The company went debt-free in September 2025 and announced an 18% dividend increase with results days before the interview, after an 18% raise the prior year and 8% in Attew's first year.
  • Everything is judged on a per-share basis: management's long-term compensation is tied to commodity-price-normalized cash flow and NAV per share, and the company has been buying back shares.

Key points on Triple Flag Precious Metals Corp

  • Attew notes Triple Flag was among peers continuing to consolidate mid-tier assets across geographies during 2025's high-volume transaction environment.

Key points on Wheaton Precious Metals

  • Attew points to Wheaton's $4.3 billion streaming arrangement with BHP as a headline example of peers deploying billions in pursuit of scale during 2025.

Rick Rule's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule argues that very large tier-one assets are almost always undervalued because they are brought into production before being fully drilled off and NAV math effectively ignores cash flow beyond year 10 or 11 of multi-decade mine lives.
  • He stresses that OR Royalties' Malartic interest is one where 'gross is effectively net': the company gets no bill for the underground transition's enormous upfront capital expense or for cost inflation — it just gets a check.
  • He vouches for portfolio quality, saying the Canadian assets discussed (Lamac, Island Gold) likely hold more than 5 million ounces of ultimate mineable resource each and that Mantos Blancos is clearly a tier-one asset.
  • A long-time OR shareholder including predecessor companies, he likens the company's lean headcount to the early Franco Nevada years and calls its asset base extraordinarily high quality relative to what is on offer in the market.
  • He notes Agnico Eagle, Malartic's operator, has sponsored his conference on and off for 30 years and officially shares the view of Malartic as a very long-lived, absolutely tier-one asset.

Sean Boyd's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rule mentions he posed the same 'what does accretive mean to you' question to Sean Boyd five years ago.
  • Attew responds that he is a huge admirer of how Agnico Eagle ran its business and brought many of those practices into OR Royalties.