Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the NOVAGOLD corporate update to discuss the NOVAGOLD and Paulson announcement. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mélanie Hennessey, Vice President, Corporate Communications. Please go ahead. Thank you, Gaylene. Good morning everybody. We are pleased that you have joined us today for NOVAGOLD and Paulson Advisors announcement on the new partnership to advance Donlin Gold. On today's call, I have the pleasure of introducing John Paulson who is the Chairman of Paulson Advisors. We also have Dr. Thomas Kaplan, who's the Chairman of NOVAGOLD, and Gregory Lang, who's the President and CEO of NOVAGOLD. Before we get started, I would like to remind our listeners that some of our comments and information included in this presentation may contain forward-looking information which is disclosed in our various EDGAR and SEDAR filings. Without further ado, I would like to introduce Gregory Lang, our President and CEO. Thank you. Thank you, Mélanie. And good morning everyone. This is an exciting day for NOVAGOLD. I'm sure you've seen the details of the transaction in our press release. Very simply, we have joined forces with Paulson Advisors to acquire 50% of the Donlin Gold project from Barrick for a consideration of $1 billion. When the transaction is concluded, NOVAGOLD will own 60% of Donlin and Paulson Advisors 40%. Paulson will pay $800 million. NOVAGOLD will pay $200 million. NOVAGOLD will finance their share of this transaction with warrants that were backstopped by three of our major shareholders and $30 million from our treasury. You know, throughout the evaluations of this transaction, we considered numerous financing opportunities and concluded that Paulson, who's been a long term shareholder, would be our ideal partner. Also included in this transaction is an arrangement with Barrick by which NOVAGOLD will retire their debt. We would do this for $90 million if it occurs prior to the closing. We have an 18 month option to pay down the debt for $100 million. This transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and, of course, regulatory approvals. We expect to close this early in Q3 or late Q2. Thank you. I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Thomas Kaplan, our Chairman. Thank you, Greg. It's hard for me to overstate the significance of this transaction. Many of you, certainly our existing shareholders, have known me for a very long time. I've been in the natural resources business for over 30 years and I can remember the most important days in my career. The day when Dr. Larry Buchanan discovered the San Cristobal mine in Bolivia, that made my first fortune and enabled me to continue investing in a very, very difficult space, which is to say exploration. The second was when I went into platinum in Africa, in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The third was when we made a discovery in East Texas of the Amoruso field, which became one of the largest gas fields in the United States, located in Texas, and ultimately led to an exit of almost $3 billion. Those assets were all extraordinary. They were exceptional. They were by any measure tier one. And indeed each one of them provided over 100x returns. One thing that I have said about Donlin from the very, very beginning, and I nearly named our third child Donlin, is that as much as those assets were great assets, they were not unique. One question that I have asked people when I have met them over the years is can you tell me another mining project, gold mining project, which has the combination of factors that Donlin has? The truth is I do not believe that there is one. Certainly, if there is, by all means let me know. What do I mean by a unique combination of assets? First of all, the production profile. Donlin will be one of the biggest gold mines in the world, at a cash cost half of the industry's average. Its grade allows us to be able to have enormous scale. We start with 39 million ounces in the measured and indicated categories at 2.25 grams, which is now over twice the industry average. The exploration upside is superb. As those of you who have followed our drilling understand, we have ended in mineralization to depth and laterally. I would also mention this. The 39 million ounces come from three kms of an eight km mineralized belt. We strongly believe that we're going to be able to add tens of millions of more ounces to our resources. I would add that even that eight kms represents only 5% of our land package, a land package that has never been properly explored. Because of the relationship between NOVAGOLD and Barrick over the years. It's entirely possible and God knows this is a forward looking statement. But I've made my career out of backing great geologists that the next Donlin could be at Donlin. Now let's talk about Alaska. We think that Donlin has the potential to be the new Nevada, which is the largest gold producing state in the safest jurisdiction in the world. Alaska's already number two. It has an excellent tradition of responsible mining and we are welcomed there not just by the Governor but also by all the state officials, including in the Senate and elsewhere. Our partnerships could not be better. We enjoy excellent social license with our native corporation partners, TKC and Calista. The project is located on private land designated by law for mining. It really doesn't get any better than that and our Native corporation partners are our biggest supporters and we view being able to assist them in their development to be, if anything, maybe even the most important thing which we do for our stakeholders, including our shareholders. If we do good, we will all do well. Our federal permits are in hand. They were given to us by an unprecedented combination of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Land Management. Our outstanding state permitting is well on track. In terms of our commitment to ESG, our ecological stewardship, the well-being of the people who work with us and our communities, and good governance are first class. Our team, the management team, has been there and done that. Greg Lang, our CEO and President, was President of Barrick North America for eight years before he joined us, saying that he wanted to be on our side of the table as we built the greatest gold mine in the world. He brought on board Richard Williams, who is our Project Manager and Vice President, who built the Pueblo Viejo mine for Barrick, and it is now one of their biggest operations and in fact being developed into what Barrick calls a megamine. In other words, in terms of being able to build projects in the Americas, particularly North America, we have as strong a team as any company in the space. Finally, we have incredible shareholders now being bolstered by the Paulson & Co. team led by John Paulson and Marcelo Kim. We have their expertise, their access to relationships, their access to capital to make this project come true. They represent really the spirit of our shareholder base which we also see from Kopernik which has joined in the backstop. These are dedicated long term institutional investors who like me, if anything, are not suffering from deal fatigue but are more excited than ever that we will be able to retell our story and to resume our place as one of the great go to stocks in gold development. Just to highlight this, by aligning our partner priorities, we really do see us as being able to reassume the position that we held until about five years ago of being probably, but certainly one of the greatest institutional quality gold development stories. Our attitude is that our story has only gotten better since then and that that cleavage, that gap that you see between us and the GDXJ is not only going to be closed, but that we're going to do everything within our power to be able to get us back to where we were five years ago and beyond, essentially. We all know that there have been some headwinds with regard to the project moving forward. It's a matter of public record that we and Barrick did not see eye to eye on a couple of things moving forward with the feasibility study at the time that we wanted to drilling to be able to expand our resources. Most importantly, the reality is that Barrick has made it very clear that at the moment at the forefront of their ambition is being able to increase their profile in copper. As Mark says, gold is precious, copper is strategic. We do not disagree. All it came down to was how does this affect us? The truth is that we went from a $4 billion market cap as we treaded water to a billion dollars today. Now, let me make something very, very clear. Mark Bristow and I are old friends and I certainly look forward to celebrating this transaction with him over a bottle or two or three of very, very fine Bordeaux when we next see each other. We have done very good business together. He was a director of a company called African Platinum in which we had a 10x return as the lead investors. Even, as Mark says today, the only two people who really believed in Kibali in Congo, which was owned by Moto Gold Mines, of which I was the largest shareholder, and really worked to ensure that Mark got this for Barrick. He will say it was Tom and me. I can also say this. 80% of Barrick's future growth, according to them, is going to come from copper. I'd like to say something about Reko Diq. Not many people know this, but I was once the largest holder of mineral rights, apparently in Pakistan. The reason I went there is because the mineralization that extends from Aynak in Afghanistan through the Tethyan Mineral belt and is really one of the greatest geological occurrences in the world. Mark's a geologist. He loves the geology. What I want to say is this. The geology really, really is great. We wish Barrick the best of success in the projects that they're building in Pakistan and at Lumwana in Zambia, as shown by the fact that they're changing their name to Barrick Mining. They're clearly going to emerge as one of the great gold copper stories in the world. We part this marriage as friends. The transaction is completely catalytic. All of the things that have held us back, that we've wanted to pursue for a number of years are being turned on their head. We have a partner with whom we are completely aligned. First of all, John Paulson is one of the foremost advocates of gold and the bull market in gold. I'll let him speak to that in greater detail. I can say that when gold was at $600, $700, $800, he and I were talking about how gold could go to $3,000, $4,000, $5,000. People thought we were perhaps a little bit overambitious. No longer. The gold story is every day getting better and better for many, many reasons. The catalysts themselves are extremely important because in as much as we really did not have very much news to report over the last several years, that is about to change. What our investors, existing and new, can look forward to is a very dynamic and sustained narrative of progress with the following action items expected. Number one, both partners are aligned in wanting to move immediately to update the feasibility study. This would include assembling a specially dedicated team to advance the efforts. That of course is the key move to be able to arrive at a construction decision which, considering our outlook on gold, we feel very, very strongly is in the right interests of all stakeholders. The drill program, which we and Barrick had differences on, is going to be immediately converted to a program that will seek expansion of reserves and resources as well as some infill drilling to take the low hanging fruit of millions of ounces adjacent to the pit into the measured and indicated category. We will of course work with our native corporation partners to enhance the social license and community outreach initiatives that we do with them jointly while we are advancing technical work and engineering designs. We will finish with the state permits and of course we will be working to maintain the existing federal and state permits in good standing. There's no question, and we're just using this as an example, but I think not an unrealistic one at all, that strategically aligned partners can enhance value. When the market understands that you've reached a pivotal moment, a tipping point where everything that was passed is passed and now you can return to the trajectory that you're meant to be on. You can get a tremendous uplift, not just in adding value, which all of the catalysts that we're going to be undertaking from day one is going to do. Also adding valuation, which is really extremely important to us. Let me repeat, I've had 100x returns in silver, platinum, hydrocarbons. We are going to aim to do everything that we can to be able to see NOVAGOLD over time go back to all time highs and well beyond. Now let me talk to you about our new partner. It's not really a new partner because he's been one of our most loyal shareholders for almost 15 years. Paulson & Co. was founded by John Paulson. It's a private global investment advisory firm headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida. John has a proven talent, and we've all seen this going back to the global financial crisis in the 2000s. If there's anyone who has the ability to see the big trade macro, it's John Paulson. More than that, he and his team have shown an incredible expertise in identifying the right vehicles by which to leverage those convictions. We all know what happened with subprime. John identified the big trade and found exactly what the way to play it. He's one of our largest shareholders because he's always taken that view with regard to Donlin. The fact that John Paulson sees Donlin, and hence also NOVAGOLD, as being the right way to play the bull market in gold that he has so correctly identified and profited from is a huge statement, not just about Donlin and NOVAGOLD, but also about gold itself. The other aspect is that unlike very, very few institutions in the world today, Paulson Advisors have an expertise in unlocking the value of their investments in gold. They are active, they are not passive. For all of those institutional investors who are looking for a great way to play the gold space, an asset that allows you to be able to have true leverage with a great management team, now supported by Paulson Advisors and John Paulson and Marcelo Kim, give John a call. Give Marcelo a call. Ask them the very simple question. You guys just put $800 million, potentially more, into a gold play. I think that what you'll hear is that, a, they're quite bullish on gold, but they also want to be able to have maximum exposure to it in a place that will allow them to keep the fruits of that leverage. They have an incredible track record, which I will discuss in greater detail in a moment. Those who followed them into Detour Gold, which I will discuss, and now own Agnico Eagle, have multiplied their money many fold. Another example that I would focus on is Perpetua Resources. Perpetua Resources is going to be the largest producer of antimony in the United States. Antimony is one of the most important critical minerals which has been circumscribed from export by China. What John Paulson and Marcelo Kim as chairman are doing is being able to restore America's ability and to literally make missiles and bullets fly straight. In addition to being a large gold producer, the antimony is on the critical path and in fact was just named two days ago as being one of the 10 projects that the Trump administration would like to see fast tracked. Let me talk however for a moment about Detour Gold. When Paulson really made its big bet on Detour in 2018, what happened was what became an immensely successful turnaround campaign of Detour Gold. Will past be prologue on NOVAGOLD? We certainly hope so. NOVAGOLD had only one big issue holding it back and that's now been resolved in a win win transaction for NOVAGOLD and Barrick. Paulson invested over $500 million in Detour. This involved also nominating five directors which were approved. After the changes that were made, the company successfully optimized the mine plan, improving recoveries and reduced the AISC by $250 in less than one year. In 2019, one year after the company changes, Kirkland Lake, the owner of the project or became the owner of the project by buying Detour Gold for $3.7 billion. Those who invested alongside Paulson made over 130% in one year. If they held their stock in the ultimate successor company, Agnico Eagle, they made 450% over six years and have had the ability to enjoy the fruits of what is now Canada's largest gold mine. With that, please let me hand the baton over to John Paulson. Thank you. Hey, thank you Tom. Hello everybody. I'm glad to be here. To me, this is a great opportunity to increase my exposure to gold in perhaps the greatest development gold mine in the world with immensely large resources, very high grade and in the best jurisdiction anyone could hope for, the United States, when not only a constructive state that supports mining, but now a federal government that's 100% behind mine development in the U.S. so it's really a perfect timing. I think what held the company back in the past was Barrick, through no fault of their own, but they had many projects around the world and Donlin was somewhat of an orphan asset and rather than commence, you know, facilitate the feasibility study, they every year would want to do more drilling even though we had, you know, pretty detailed drilling already. Ultimately, Barrick decided, as Tom mentioned, to focus more on copper and some other projects around the world. That created an opportunity for us to scoop in and buy this asset. We're very, very excited about this asset and the potential. As Tom mentioned, we have a lot of experience in mine development. We were the largest and biggest investor in Detour, but even more recently is Perpetua, my partner Marcelo Kim is involved with that. It was important for us to have a controlled position like Donlin. We have 40% and this perpetually on just under 40%. It was a similar mine development as we have here, only Donlin is much larger. We went through the permitting process, we went through the feasibility, and over the last 14 months, the stock is up almost five times as we progressed it and now completed the feasibility, have almost all permitting and are now at the stage of financing. Moving the project forward from pre feasibility to final feasibility is where perhaps the greatest value creation can be made. We want to repeat the success we've had with Perpetua, with Donlin. Let me go to the slide 11. It's about the gold price from a macro perspective. I think what's happening with gold today is really related to the—let me just back up to the war in Ukraine and Russia. When Russia attacked Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe froze all of Russia's reserves that were denominated in dollar and euros, over $300 billion. Russia lost all these reserves. All the central banks in the world woke up and said, are we safe with reserves in foreign paper currency? The Russian reserves and gold Russia kept, they had the physical gold in reserves. That caused other countries around the world, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, and particularly in China, to start diversifying and moving their reserves from paper currency to gold. The problem is, even with China being the largest central bank buyer in gold, they've only increased their percentage of reserves in gold to 6%. The U.S. by contrast, is like 75%. In order to protect the reserves against political interruptions, there is an enormous demand from central banks to add gold. That is the primary driver of the increase in price. I do not think that is going to change with the political uncertainties that exist in the world. Closely following now the central banks or other individuals who are concerned about keeping their wealth in paper currency, concerned about potential investment or currency controls, and concerned about inflation. That is driving investors, private investors and central banks into gold. I believe that trend will continue and the gold price will remain strong. On the next slide is the potential that Donlin has and how we can leverage the gold price into a jurisdiction where we can keep the fruits of that leverage. Let me say 100% of our investments are either in gold investments or even the U.S. or Canada. As the gold price goes up, the political risk of confiscation of U.S. assets in foreign jurisdictions increases. I do not have to give you examples because there are too many to go through. It is clear to us that investments in either U.S. For Canada, we are protected against government confiscation. Therefore, as gold rises, we will be able to keep the fruits of our gains. This chart shows what the NAV is at either 5% or 10% at various gold prices. Even at $2,500, almost $1,000 less than the gold price today, we have enormous potential for value creation. 0% NAV, which is where many gold companies are validated, with $31.6 billion of potential value. Again, that is $1,000 less than where the gold price trades today. The market value of NOVAGOLD today before this transaction was only about $1 billion. There is enormous upside. We are very excited to be partners with Tom and Greg in NOVAGOLD. They do have great expertise and our goal is to immediately advance this project towards production. We will immediately commence updating the feasibility and start to plan for developing this asset. With those remarks. Tom, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you, John. Where are we today? We're getting ready to update the feasibility study for a mining project. The scale of Donlin. It would take them approximately 20 years to get to where we are today. Looking forward, the feasibility study will take about two years. We have the engineering construction phase. Donlin will be a big mine when it's built, a million ounces a year for 30 years and about one and a half million ounces a year the first five years. The grade at Donlin is really what sets it apart from other development schedules projects. Many new mines have been built in the industry with grades of about a gram or less. Donlin has two and a quarter grams, double the industry average. Tom touched on it in his remarks. This slide shows the Acme and Lewis deposits in their relationship to the Trend in these two areas. We have over 40 million ounces of reserves and resources. We have got gold bearing intercepts all up and down trend. When the time is right we will resume exploring the full potential of the project. Alaska is a great place to be doing business. As many of you might have noticed, there have been several executive orders come out of Washington recently that reinforce the potential up in Alaska. One of the key projects under consideration is a pipeline bringing gas from the North Slope into the Cook Inlet. This could potentially provide Donlin with a very meaningful cheap source of gas from which to generate power. Alaska is a great place to do business. Second largest gold producing state in the U.S. Donlin is on private land owned by two Native corporations. Calista owns the mineral rights and TKC owns the surface rights. As you might have noticed in our press release, both of these corporations are fully committed to seeing the Donlin project go forward and they welcome Paulson Advisors, a new partner. Throughout the process of advancing this project, we have always maintained a steadfast commitment to protect the environment and engage with the communities where our mine will operate. The Donlin project has a strong safety record and safety culture and we look forward to continuing that as we move the project into its next phase. Permitting is substantially completed. Our federal permits are in hand and the only remaining state permit to be obtained is for the dam safety permits. We have already submitted the preliminary design packages to the state agencies and we look forward to working with them to receive this final permit. We certainly anticipate getting this permit in advance of completion of the feasibility study. I've been very fortunate to have a strong management team at NOVAGOLD. Mélanie Hennessey, our long serving Corporate Communications Vice President, Ben Machlis, who joined us over a year ago. He was a former partner at Dorsey & Whitney and he certainly understands mining, environmental permits and everything associated with them. Our Chief Financial Officer, Peter Adamek, joined us from Hudbay. Finally, Richard Williams, our Chief Operating Officer. Throughout his career he was a long serving Barrick employee. Richard's completed dozens of feasibility studies and he was responsible for the development of the Pueblo Viejo project. He is the ideal person to help assemble the team and move forward with the new feasibility study. We've got a great board at NOVAGOLD. We've always appreciated their support and guidance from all these industry veterans. Finally, my last slide is to recognize and acknowledge the appreciation we have for our long term shareholders. Over 70% of the shares of the company are with the top 10 shareholders and we're grateful for their long standing support. That concludes our presentation. We will now take questions. Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one. On your telephone keypad you'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Webcast viewers may submit questions through the text box in the lower right corner of the webcast frame. Our first question is from Rabi Nizami with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning and thank you for taking my question. Just thinking about the big picture with 100% of ownership of Donlin between NOVAGOLD and Paulson, how are you thinking about future capital requirements when it comes to the studies and beyond that, towards the capital requirements of the project? Are you open to bringing in a new partner? At this point, we don't see the need for a new partner. Obviously we are keeping an open mind. It would not surprise us if we are approached by sovereign wealth funds who have already expressed an interest in participating in financing once we are through feasibility. That's just one example. We really don't believe that we're going to have difficulty in being able to take into production one of the largest gold mines in the world and located in the United States. There's plenty of capital for great projects in safe jurisdictions. There just aren't the projects and we b elieve that we have the very best. Yeah, Tom, if I may comment on that, I think our goal is between Paulson and NOVAGOLD to finance the feasibility study over the next 18 months, two years, to get this project to the point where it's ready for construction. As I mentioned, that to us is the greatest point of value creation. We did the same thing with Perpetua. And the stock is up over that period. As we got all the permits and a full feasibility study, it's up close to five times now. We are financing Perpetually primarily with export impact, fixed rate, low cost, 30 year financing. And we believe that the U.S. government now is very, very supportive of mining. They want to develop U.S. resources. We don't want to rely on foreign jurisdictions for a mineral. Gold has been identified as a critical mineral for the U.S. As we progress the project through feasibility, we think the stock should rise to reflect what our NPV is. We think we will have, you know, attractive financing available from government entities. The equity portion we think will be ready to raise, you know, once we're closer to construction at attractive valuations. Let me say one thing. Perpetua faces many of the development issues as we do at Donlin. It is in a remote location. We have to build a road or upgrade the road. In Perpetua's case, it is over a much longer distance than we have to do with Donlin. We have to bring power into the site and then we have to build a mining camp to house the people. It's almost very, very similar to the type of development we have to do at Donlin, which we're about two years advanced with Perpetua. Of course, Donlin is a much larger project than Perpetua. Many of the same issues. We are very optimistic that we will get this done. That is, our goal is to bring this mine into production in as short a timeframe as possible. Thank you for that. Just to follow on from that, or rather backing up from that a bit, looking more near term, as you mentioned, the feasibility is the opportunity that you're looking at in terms of getting that uplift similar to Perpetua. Could you give us a bit more color on how you're looking at proceeding with the feasibility study, what the next year or two years will look like in terms of the work that you will pursue and what sort of a cost uplift are you currently baking into your current models and any other color you can give us on how you proceed with studies? I think I noted a few questions in that. I'll try and speak to all of them. You know, the first step as we get closer to closing this transaction will be to assemble a team of experts to embark on the feasibility study. As I said earlier, Richard Williams, our Chief Operating Officer, is well versed in this activity and good projects attract good people. I think we'll be putting the team together in the coming months. The feasibility study, of course, will kick off after the transaction closes and it will take about two years, cost in the neighborhood of $80 million. We will update our shareholders as we reach milestones along the way. It's about a two year undertaking.