Barrick Gold Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD) reported first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Barrick Gold reported Q1 2027 revenues of $3.265 billion, a decrease of 11% year-over-year, but excluding forward sales, revenues increased by 51% due to higher selling prices and increased gold and silver sales.

Net income for the quarter was $1.6 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, compared to a loss in the same period last year. Gross profit rose 23% to $89.6 million.

The company is expanding its minting and refining segment, which now includes Silvertowne Mint and Sunshine Mint, aiming for increased control over product availability and pricing stability.

Barrick Gold continues to focus on strategic acquisitions, with recent additions like Monax and Sunshine Mint boosting their customer base and operational capacity.

The company’s liquidity remains strong with a cash balance of $126.8 million and no borrowings on its $250 million credit facility, and it paid a regular and special dividend totaling $35.1 million.

Management is optimistic about strategic M&A opportunities in a slow market and is focused on integrating recent acquisitions to realize cost savings and synergies.

The direct-to-consumer segment saw a 38% increase in new customers and a 21% increase in ticket volume, driven by acquisitions and increased activity at JM Bullion.

The CEO expressed confidence in the company’s position to deliver consistent profitability through market cycles, despite current market challenges.

The company is seeing stability and slight increases in premiums for its products, which is encouraging given the current market environment.

Full Transcript

Tom (Operator)

Good afternoon and welcome to Barrick Gold’s conference call for the fiscal first quarter ended September 30, 2026. My name is Tom and I will be your operator this afternoon. Before this call, Barrick Gold issued its results for the fiscal first quarter 2027 in a press release which is available in the Investor Relations section of the company’s website. You can find the link to the Investor Relations section at the top of the homepage. Joining us for today’s call are Barrick Gold’s CEO Greg Roberts and CFO Jill Vann. Following their remarks, we will open the call to your questions. Then, before we conclude the call, I will provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during the call. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link on the Investor Relations section of Barrick Gold’s website.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Barrick Gold’s CEO, Mr. Greg Roberts. Sir, please proceed.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you and good afternoon to everyone. I appreciate you joining our call today. Our fiscal 2027 first quarter results reflect the resilience of our fully integrated platform in a slower market environment following the exceptional levels of activity we experienced during the second half of fiscal 2026. Activity moderated from Q4 but was higher than a year ago and profitability improved materially. Conditions across the precious metals market were subdued during Q1, reflecting a tough macro backdrop that included rising interest rates, uncertainty ahead of the US Midterm elections, geopolitical conflicts and inflationary concerns stemming from high energy prices.

And activity cooled from the exceptional pace we saw in the first quarter of calendar 26. Even so, we sold more gold and silver and added more customers than we did a year ago. Revenues were 3.3 billion and excluding forward sales we used to hedge, they were up more than 50% from a year ago. Gross profit rose 23% and we reported net income of 1.6 million or 5 cents per diluted share compared with a loss in the year ago quarter. The improvement reflects the scale and breadth of the platform we have built wholesale trading, direct to consumer lending, storage and now minting and refining work together giving us more ways to drive earnings under most conditions. We have seen this market behavior before. A year ago, activity moderated in much the same way and we reported a small loss within a couple of quarters. Precious metals were heading toward historically high levels and we delivered exceptional results.

This year, a similar type of environment produced a profit and a meaningful increase in adjusted earnings. We cannot predict the next move in the market, but we are positioned to deliver in any environment and our goal is smoother, more consistent, sustainable profitability through the cycle. In our direct to consumer segment, gross profit growth was driven by a larger customer base, including the addition of Monax and higher average order values at JM Bullion. In wholesale, gross profit increased on stronger premium spreads and higher ounces sold, reflecting our work with major retailers and institutional customers even as transaction volumes were lower. We are continuing to expand at LPM in Hong Kong and Singapore and through Sunshine Mint’s joint venture in Shanghai.

We are seeing continued progress from our partnership with Tether across storage, trading and metal leasing. Secured lending delivered higher interest income on larger average balances and improved profitability alongside storage lending deepens customer relationships across a platform that spans the precious metals value chain. Acquisitions remain central to our strategy. This quarter we began reporting Minting Refining as its own segment, combining the Silvertowne Mint with Sunshine Mint, which we acquired in April, enabling greater control over product availability, pricing stability across our supply chain. Together they give us added capacity, a stronger position with Sovereign Mint programs such as the US Mint, and modern facilities for developing our own products for our customers and brands.

Operations across these businesses are running well and automation is accelerating, including full automation for several major customers. Integration is moving forward as these operations come together over the coming quarters, we see meaningful synergies ahead. We remain focused on driving synergies across our business units and maximizing efficiencies at every level. We are operating from a position of strength, continuing to allocate capital efficiently to build and invest in our platform, open new channels for growth. We remain confident in our direction, the long-term fundamentals of our industry and creating lasting value for shareholders.

With that, I will turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jill Vann, who will provide an overview of our financial performance. I will then return with some closing remarks and take your questions. Jill

Jill Vann (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon everyone. Our revenues for fiscal Q1 2027 decreased 11% to 3.265 billion from 3.681 billion in Q1 of last year; excluding a decrease of 1.38 billion of forward sales, our revenues increased 952.9 million, or 51%, which was due to higher average selling prices of gold and silver as well as an increase in gold and silver ounces sold. Revenues also increased due to acquisitions of Mannex in January 2026 and the Sunshine Minting in April 2026, whose results were not included in the same year-ago period.

Gross profit for fiscal Q1 2027 increased 23% to $89.6 million, or 2.74% of revenue, from $72.9 million, or 1.98% of revenue, in Q1 of last year. The increase was due to an increase in gross profits earned by both the wholesale and ancillary services segment and the direct to consumer segment, including the acquisitions of Manx and Sunshine Minting whose results were not included in the same year-ago period. SG&A expenses for fiscal Q1 2027 increased 19% to $71.2 million from $59.8 million in Q1 of last year. The change was primarily due to an increase in compensation expense of $6.7 million, higher advertising costs of $2.4 million, increased insurance cost of $0.7 million and an increase in facilities expense of $0.6 million. SG&A expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2026 included $5.2 million of expenses from Monx and the Sunshine Minting, whose results were not included or were not fully included in the same year-ago period.

Excluding the increase from these newly acquired subsidiaries, SG&A increased $6.2 million year over year. Depreciation and amortization expense for fiscal Q1 2027 increased 20% to $9.1 million from $7.6 million in the same year-ago quarter. The change was primarily due to a $0.8 million increase in depreciation expense resulting from higher capital expenditures and a $0.7 million increase in amortization expense. Interest income for fiscal Q1 2027 increased 13% to $6.3 million from $5.6 million in the same year-ago quarter. The increase was primarily due to an increase in interest income earned by our direct to consumer segment of $0.7 million.

Interest expense for fiscal Q1 2027 decreased 1% to $12.5 million from $12.6 million in Q1 last year. The decrease was primarily due to a decrease of $5.8 million associated with our trading credit facility due to reduced borrowings and lower interest and fees of $0.5 million related to product financing arrangements, partially offset by an increase of $6.2 million related to precious metals leases driven by higher overall borrowings. Earnings from equity method investments in Q1 2027 increased $1.4 million to earnings of $0.5 million from a loss of $0.9 million in the same year-ago quarter due to increased earnings of our equity method investees. Other income and expense, net, for fiscal Q1 was an expense of $0.7 million compared to income of $2.2 million in Q1 of last year. The change was primarily due to a $4.3 million increase in expenses related to contingent consideration fair value adjustments, partially offset by a $0.7 million unrecognized gain on our holdings of XAUT.

Net income attributable to the company for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 totaled $1.6 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $0.9 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, in the same year-ago quarter. Adjusted net income before provision for income taxes, a non-GAAP financial measure which excludes depreciation, amortization, acquisition costs and contingent consideration fair value adjustments, for Q1 fiscal 2027 totaled $13.2 million, an increase of $8.4 million, or 172%, compared to $4.9 million in the same year-ago quarter. EBITDA, a non-GAAP liquidity measure, for Q1 fiscal 2027 totaled $17.4 million, an increase of $3.1 million, or 22%, compared to $14.3 million in the same year-ago quarter.

Turning to our balance sheet now, we continue to maintain a strong liquidity position supported by our product financing arrangements, precious metals lease facilities and our $250 million uncommitted trading credit facility, which had no outstanding borrowings at quarter end. At quarter end we had $126.8 million of cash compared to $578 million at the end of fiscal 2026. The decrease in cash was primarily due to a $700.5 million reduction in deferred revenue and other advances, including precious metal leases, partially offset by $225.7 million of net product financing and a $105 million increase in accounts payable and other payables.

We also paid $35.1 million in dividends during the quarter. Our non-restricted inventory totaled $1.348 billion as of September 30, 2026, compared to $1.562 billion as of the end of fiscal 2026. During the quarter we paid our regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share along with a non-recurring special dividend of $1 per share, totaling $35.1 million. Barrick Gold’s board of directors has also declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share, maintaining the company’s current dividend program. The dividend is payable on December 2, 2026 to stockholders of record as of November 19, 2026. This completes my financial summary. I will now turn the call over to Greg, who is presenting for SOAR today.

He will provide an update on our key operating metrics. Greg

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Jill. As Jill said, Thor is traveling this week and he will return to cover this section next quarter. But I will take over from here and go over a few of the key operating metrics for our fiscal first quarter 2027. In the quarter we sold 463,000 ounces of gold, which was up 5% from Q1 of last year but down 11% from the prior quarter. We sold 14 million ounces of silver in Q1 of ’27, which was up 35% from Q1 of last year, but down 9% from the prior quarter. In our minting and refining segment, which we began reporting separately this fiscal year, we minted approximately 9 million ounces of silver and 26,000 ounces of gold during the quarter and our refining capacity utilization was approximately 65%.

The number of new customers in our DTC segment, which is defined as those who registered, set up a new account, or made a purchase for the first time during the period, was 96,100. This was up 38% from Q1 of last year and up 42% from the prior quarter. This year-over-year change in new customers was primarily due to the acquisition of Monex in January 2026 as well as increased JMB activity. Total DTC ticket volume was approximately 273,000 in Q1 of ’27, up 21% from Q1 of last year, primarily due to increases from Silver Gold Bull, partially offset by decreases at JMB and AMS.

The DTC average order value was $3,482, down 10% from Q1 of last year, while JM Bullion’s average order value increased 16% to $2,943. The number of total customers in the DTC segment at the end of the first quarter was approximately 4.8 million, which was a 13% increase from the prior year. These changes in customer base metrics were primarily due to the acquisition of Monex in January 2026 as well as activity at JM Bullion. Finally, the number of secured loans at the end of September totaled 372, a decrease of 12% from 9-30-25 and up 1% from the end of June 2026. The dollar value of our loan portfolio as of September 30, 2026 totaled $107 million, up 4% from September 30, 2025 and a decrease of 7% from 6-30-26.

Now for my closing remarks. This quarter demonstrated the resilience of our fully integrated platform in a slow market environment. We grew gross profit and ounces sold year over year, expanded our customer base and began reporting our minting and refining segment which further strengthens our vertically integrated model. Our strategic focus remains on integrating and realizing cost savings and the synergies from our recent acquisitions, expanding both our domestic and geographic reach as well as further diversifying our customer base.

With an expanded portfolio of category-leading brands and improved operational leverage, I believe Barrick Gold is positioned to capture growth across multiple markets and could continue to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. This concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

Tom (Operator)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you wish to join the queue to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We do ask if listening on speakerphone this afternoon that you pick up your handset while asking your question to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, please press star one on your keypad at this time if you wish to join the queue to ask a question. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions.

And our first question today is coming from Thomas Forte from Maxim Group. Thomas, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

Great. So first off, Jill, welcome to the call. Greg, I have two questions and I apologize. The first one is not perfectly worded, but hopefully you’ll understand what I’m asking.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Hopefully the answer will be better worded than you asking the question.

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

Well, that I know. Okay, but

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

you go right ahead, Tom. All

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

right, thank you. So at a high level, should we think of your ability to generate a profit in a slow operating environment versus prior periods due to not experiencing backwardation and that ex-backwardation, you should have a GAAP profit in every quarter.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I mean, my goal is to have a GAAP profit in every quarter. Of course, you know, I think the business is growing very quickly. We’re very pleased with the acquisitions that we’ve made. As I said before, we’re integrating, we’re getting synergies. You know, the last three months have been probably about as slow as I’ve seen. And I’ve been doing this a very long time. I thought, you know, this Q1 of last fiscal year, I commented then that I thought it was very slow, but this seemed slower to me.

So the performance that we had was, I thought we achieved and got what we could out of it. I think that going forward, I believe we’re building a company that has more diversified income streams and I believe we’re growing the business and taking market share. But to be quite honest, in this last quarter, the market share of the overall business shrunk considerably. And so there was less volume overall. And our segments, although we likely maintained market share, there was just less margin to get.

And some of the sales that we did, we needed to cut margin to get the sales. So. But to answer your question, the answer is yes.

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

Excellent. All right. And then historically, in slow periods, you’ve taken advantage of opportunities on the strategic M&A side. So I’d appreciate, I know you’ve talked about, you just said that you’re pleased with the deals you’ve done and integrating them, but I’d appreciate an update on your thoughts on strategic M&A.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

I mean, I’ve been saying this for 10 years. You know, when the market slows down, you know, it gives us, it gives us opportunity. And you know, deals that we may have felt were too pricey in the past during a more active market, those tend to become either cheaper or they become easier to negotiate terms and sellers become, you know, lose a little bit of their leverage. So I don’t think that’s a surprise. I think that’s pretty common in all businesses that when they slow down, change happens and opportunity is there.

We have what I believe is a very good pipeline right now for M&A and deals that we’re looking at. So I’m optimistic that we’re going to continue the trend that we did last fiscal year. And I’m excited about the prospects of the businesses we own and I’m excited about the prospects of adding new businesses that lift the entire ship, which is my goal.

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

May I add a quick question then? So on the strategic M&A front, you’ve broadened your aperture a little to the extent you’ve gone into wine on a collection basis or numismatics on a collection basis. So when you talk high level, by your strategic M&A, are you talking about the broader aperture or just the historical precious metals focus?

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

I would say that the broader Barrick Gold business, I mean on the collectible side at the moment, as I look forward maybe the next couple quarters, I don’t think there’s a material acquisition out there for us. I think that we are progressing very positively on some organic growth items that we’ve been able to take our platform and create some new income streams that I think are very promising and have good potential. But, but at the moment, and as I look out the next couple quarters, I would say the M&A activity would likely be more focused on the macro Barrick Gold business.

Thomas Forte (Analyst)

Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Joe.

Tom (Operator)

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Craig Irwin from Roth Capital. Craig, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Andrew (Analyst)

Hey guys, it’s Andrew. I’m for Craig. Thank you for taking the questions. First one for me, I know a lot of this might be answered when the Q comes out, but as you begin to report the minting business separately, are there any, you know, operating metrics or anything we should focus on to gauge its performance and then just kind of like kind of over the next couple months, is there any milestones we should kind of, you know, look out for to see if you’re capturing the benefits of the integration?

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

I mean, we added a metric I believe this quarter that talks about our capacity and the percentage of capacity that we’re operating at. So I think that’s a metric you should watch. I think premiums, again, like all of our shareholders, are focused on premiums and when premiums are higher for sovereign mint products, it’s going to raise premiums for private mint products. So I think, you know, the premiums are key to a number of parts of our business.

And then as always, are the premiums higher because there’s demand that is increasing which is increasing those premiums, or is demand flat and the premiums are just holding because there’s a bit of an equilibrium. But I think the minting is important and I think we’re very enthusiastic as we’ve been able to combine both Sunshine Mint and the Silvertowne Mint under common management. We’re excited about the prospects of Sunshine Mint, the Sunshine Mint that we have in Shanghai. And that mint is picking up some important customers, likely due to some management changes and as well as just the Barrick Gold backing of the business seems to be opening some doors for us in Shanghai.

And that is, you know, that is trickling and coming over to our LPM business in Hong Kong. So I think the minting business has a lot of momentum at the moment. You know, it is a volume-based business and the profitability of the minting business has a lot to do with what level, the percentage of your capacity you’re operating at because you can’t just flip a switch and turn the mints on and off. You have to maintain a level of activity, even if you’re not producing at a high percentage of your capacity.

You know, we do our best in the minting business when they’re running 24/7 and if we get to an environment again where we’re running 24/7 at all three or four of our mints, that profitability is going to be material. The other new item that was mentioned earlier: through our controlling acquisition of Sunshine Mint, we’ve picked up a small refining business in Idaho which is giving us some flexibility, particularly on some of the buybacks that we experienced heavy volume in last fiscal year. You know, having a little bit of extra refining capacity is going to help us in that segment as we buy back product from the marketplace that needs to be melted, refined and then turned into some other type of more desirable product.

Andrew (Analyst)

Understood. Really appreciate the color and good segue into my next question. Just was curious, just two parts kind of on customer behavior recently. As you said, you guys were experiencing a bunch of buybacks last fiscal year. We’re just curious how that trended in the quarter. And then I was also just curious if you had any comments. You know, we’re past the election. Any color on what you’ve seen in the market would be great.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah. So, you know, over the last 60 days, you know, we’ve experienced a, you know, a reasonably orderly decline in silver and gold spot prices. So you’ve seen gold come off of, you know, its highs in January, February. We settled at around 4,400 on gold, around $75 on silver, $70 on silver. In the last two weeks, you know, as we’ve approached the election and as interest rates have continued to be volatile, but mostly to the upside, we saw a fairly significant drop down to the 3,900 level on gold and down to $49, $50 on silver.

Those were yearly lows likely or at least nine- to ten-month lows. So that, you know, that has affected the buybacks. When you get dropping prices, we’re going to buy back less from the public as opposed to when you have record spot prices and the record spot prices are in the news every day. So I would say that in this quarter you are—your question related to this quarter is that our buybacks as a percentage of our new sales has dropped significantly.

And then back to the election. I mean, the election question, it’s a little early to tell. I think we did see towards the end of October and, you know, the first few days of November leading up to the election, we have seen, you know, a noticeable increase in activity and volumes. It’s a very small sample size. You know, we’re talking maybe a week or 10 days. But I do think that if you look back historically, the type of results that we saw last night in this election has historically led to more activity in our customer base.

You know, obviously past performance is no indication of what’s going to happen in the future. But I can say just from a historical perspective, you know, whether it was the war or the interest rates or the other headwinds that we talked about last quarter, you know, there is going to be—there’s going to be change. I don’t know what that change will be. I don’t know how it will motivate or not motivate our customer base. I can just say historically, you know, what I see setting up in Congress and what I see setting up, you know, in the White House has historically been, you know, probably a bit more positive than what we saw the last three to six months.

Tom (Operator)

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you wish to join the queue to ask a question at this time, please press Star one on your keypad. Once again, you may press Star one on your telephone keypad at this time if you wish to join the queue to ask a question. Your next question today is coming from Mike Baker from DA Davidson. Mike, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Mike Baker (Analyst)

Okay, thanks—a couple. First, can I just follow up, Greg, on what you just said about what you’re seeing? You know, not to make this too much about the election, but I’m just curious, what is it specifically that you’re seeing? Is it flipping— you know, is it when the Senate or the House flips, that historically is positive? Is it when you have gridlock—in other words, you know, the Congress and the President from different parties—or is it just, is it Democrats taking over?

I’m just curious with your benefit of history, you know, what specifically makes you encouraged about what we saw last night?

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

I mean, that’s not an easy question to answer, but I’ll give it my best shot. I mean, our older precious metals customers, whether they’re our customers or somebody else’s customers, they tend—the older ones tend to lean a bit more to the right, a bit more conservative and a bit more Trump-friendly. You know, that’s not to say that, you know, that carries on to our younger customers, you know, at this point, but that’s kind of what it’s been historically.

I think that, you know, like a lot of investments and like a lot of decisions that are made in life, many of them are fear-based. And I would say that historically when this type of big change happens, it’s likely to lead to, as you mentioned, gridlock and it’s likely to put—the unknown going forward of this environment is likely to put some fear in our customers. You know, we tended—you know, we tended to do better when Trump was out of office, you know, than we probably, you know, we did when he was in office in his first term. And so I, you know, I just think it’s a little bit of a fear-based decision tree and, you know, there’s a lot of unknowns out there right now. You know, I try not to be too political. I think the business is set up for any environment. But I see change happening and I feel like there’s a good possibility it’ll be positive for us.

Mike Baker (Analyst)

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, let’s not get political. Let me ask you about premiums. So volumes were down, but the gross margin did widen nicely on a year-over-year basis. And last quarter I think it was actually down. So what are you seeing in premiums?

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

In the last 60 days, premiums have edged up a bit and/or held. We don’t see the panic buying yet. We don’t see the rush to buy product. But I am positive in that the premiums at the moment are trending towards higher and stability even when volumes are down a little bit. That’s a key element. When volumes are racing and volumes are very high, it’s a supply and demand thing—there’s more demand than supply—and you see an increase in premiums. The fact that we’re seeing some relative stability in premiums, if not rising a little bit right now, while we’re in a little bit more tepid demand environment, I think is positive as we look to start the next quarter or as we’ve started the next quarter.

Mike Baker (Analyst)

Yup. Agreed. Okay, let me ask you one more. If I could, talk a little bit about what’s going on with your leasing, the economic impact of some of the leasing agreement you have with Tether. Are you borrowing more? This was a topic that came up into quarter and just wondering if you guys had any comments on that.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

I mean, if you look into the release and when you see the Q, you’re going to see our leases have dropped significantly. So we had a little bit of a timing situation at the end of last quarter. It has been called out, both in a news article as well as in our filings, that we had, you know, a very high level of leases with Tether. And we have adjusted those. And we’ve adjusted them and they’ve come down. And I think they’re currently, you know, at the end of September—I think the number that I looked at on the balance sheet is they’re probably down in the 800 million range.

So we have adjusted that. And as I discussed on the last call, you know, there’s a little bit of a Goldilocks moment with getting it just right. When we have too many leases and we don’t have enough inventory to use the leases to hedge, we have a lot of cash and we have what in essence is an unused-line fee on the leases because the leases aren’t being used as a pure hedge, which is where leases are most optimal. So I think we’re pretty well positioned right now.

Our liquidity is good. Our leases are where we want them, both with Tether and with the four or five other counterparties we use for leases. So I think for right now, it looks like where we’re at at the end of September in this filing, you know, is where we’re going to stabilize a bit. So I’m happy with where we’re at on the leases. And the company has plenty of liquidity and plenty of access to liquidity to continue our capital deployment, you know, in our four or five pillars of how we deploy—whether it be stock buybacks, whether it be buying inventory, whether it be paying down our dollar line, or whether, you know, we look to dividends or whether it’s M&A. Very, very happy with our liquidity position right now.

Also, having the spot prices down, you know, it costs us a lot more capital to finance gold at 5,000 than it does at 4,000 or silver at 100 bucks. So we naturally create more liquidity and more excess capital as spot prices come down.

Mike Baker (Analyst)

Right. Makes sense. Thank you.

Tom (Operator)

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brian McNamara from Canaccord. Brian, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to get an update on the Tether partnership. It looks like they increased their— and I know in September on the call you had mentioned the gold lease line was, quote unquote, multiples of kind of the initial 100 million plus agreement. And then obviously 10-K comes out and that’s a big number, I think 1.5 billion. Just curious where that stands relationship-wise, gold lease line potential and all that good stuff.

If you can give us an update there. Thank you.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I mean, the Tether relationship has been great. We’re working on a number of initiatives with them that I am very excited about. I look forward to continuing our collaboration with them. The relationship with Tether has certainly opened up opportunities for us at gold.com and being able to bounce—you know, just being able to bounce potential transactions that, you know, that are good for us off of them. I think they bring a really great insight into the marketplace that, you know, I’m able to converse with them and take advantage of.

So I think that that relationship continues to be positive, as I just said. Yeah. I mean, I think our leases with them are, as you just pointed out—and the exact numbers will come out in our filing—but I believe we’re down about 700 million on leases. That’s, you know, at a good size right now for us. I think we would have, you know—as I said, we don’t want overcapacity or we don’t want to be borrowing or taking funds that we can’t put to use. So I like where we’re at right now. And yes, I mean, it was multiples of the initial 100, 150 million. Obviously when I said it last call, you know, even at 700 or 800 million, it’s still multiples of the original. So it’s just less multiples. But it’s good for us. And, you know, I think we’re in a good spot right now.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

So that downdraft in 700 million is just more of a function of you going from kind of 10 billion to 5 billion to 3 billion plus in revenue the last few quarters, rather than anything detrimental to the relationship.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, no, I mean, as I have said, there is a sweet spot and we are in a marketplace that is quite volatile right now. There’s a lot of unknowns. There’s a lot going on. As I’ve said before, there’s all kinds of different factors playing into interest rates, oil, gold equities, everything. I think that we’re comfortable with where their leases are right now and I think we have a great dialogue with them that, you know, they understand that we’re able to, you know, put that money to use.

But right now, as I’ve said, for a number of reasons, we just—we don’t need to pay for excess capital right now. We have a number of liquidity levers that we’re able to pull. You know, we’re very comfortable with our special dividend last quarter. We’re comfortable with our dividend now. I think we’re positioned well for, as I said before, our four or five different pillars of where we want to deploy capital, where we think we get the best return.

So I have nothing but positive as it relates to Tether. And yes, I mean, we understand that—as everybody can see—they’re in the open market and they have bought stock, and I don’t have any insight into that. I think—but I can say that they’re very positive shareholders and, if they believe they see the share price at a price that they believe from their analysis is advantageous, I would expect them to buy stock.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

Very helpful. I appreciate the color. I’ll pass.

Tom (Operator)

Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I’d now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Roberts for his closing remarks.

Greg Roberts (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you very much. As always, thanking our many shareholders for joining our call today, your continued interest and support. I appreciate also our employees, our new employees, our old employees, and their dedication and commitment to Barrick Gold’s success. Thank you to all, and we look forward to keeping you updated on our continued progress throughout this Q2. Thank you. Thank you.

Tom (Operator)

Before we conclude today’s call, I would like to provide Barrick Gold’s safe harbor statement, which includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. Statements made during this call that relate to Barrick Gold’s future plans, objectives, expectations, events, and the like are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

These include statements regarding expectations with respect to growth, increasing market share, and the delivery of long-term value. Future events, risks, and uncertainties, individually or in the aggregate, could cause actual results or circumstances to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include the failure to execute the company’s growth strategy, including the inability to identify suitable or available acquisition or investment opportunities; greater-than-anticipated costs incurred to execute this strategy; our inability to execute on our cost containment and expense reduction programs; government regulations that might impede growth, particularly in Asia, including with respect to tariff policy; the inability to successfully integrate our recently acquired businesses; the inability of the company successfully to expand its business to include cryptocurrency; the inability of the company to work with its strategic partners to combine traditional precious metal assets and a blockchain-based infrastructure; changes in the current international political climate, which historically has favorably contributed to demand and volatility in the precious metals market but also has posed certain risks and uncertainties for the company; increased competition for the company’s higher-margin services, which could depress pricing; the failure of the company’s business model to respond to changes in the market environment as anticipated; changes in consumer demand and preferences for precious metal products generally; potential negative effects that inflationary pressure may have on our business; the failure of our investee companies to maintain or address the preferences of their customer bases; general risks of doing business in the commodity markets; and the strategic, business, economic, financial, political, and governmental risks and other risk factors described in the company’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today’s call will be available for replay via a link in the Investor Relations section of the company’s website. Thank you for joining us today for Barrick Gold’s earnings call. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.