Orion Resource Partners sells further minority stake in Sweetwater Royalties
Summary
Orion will retain a 67% majority ownership share in the asset, having sold a 25% stake to Ontario Teachers Pension Plan in March last year for approximately $220 million.Sweetwater was established by Funds managed by Orion in 2020 to manage the long-term, stable cashflow generated from its mineral estate in Wyoming containing 10.5 billion tons of trona resources, the worlds largest trona deposit. Since establishment, Sweetwater has received over $280 million in royalty payments, with the potential for substantial further growth given the new mines under development by WE Soda Ltd. and Sisecam Chemicals, the global dominance of the trona deposit, the scalability of capacity from existing operations, as well as long-term optionality from its large land and mineral estate holdings.Under Orions ownership, the management team at Sweetwater has implemented several value creation initiatives, including setting up joint ventures with companies to pursue renewable energy initiatives such as large-scale wind and solar projects and identifying two new world-class soda ash projects. The sheer scale of the asset, which allows Sweetwater effective control of 90% of the worlds supply of trona resources, provides us significant advantages and has the potential to deliver exceptional, realizable growth over the long-term. Sweetwater Royalties provides our partners with opportunities to develop natural resources as well as access to grazing and the renewable energy sector along the Land Grant. The Land Grant asset package dates to the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 and provides value to Sweetwater through a diverse array of natural resources, primarily trona.