FNV

Franco-Nevada Corporation

A Toronto-based company that pioneered the gold royalty business: rather than digging for gold itself, Franco-Nevada buys the right to a share of revenue from other miners' production, funding mine construction in exchange. Founded in 1983 by two money managers, Pierre Lassonde and Seymour Schulich, its name blends Lassonde's French-Canadian roots ("Franco") with the Nevada mine that made its name. The company's first big royalty was a tiny stake in a small Nevada heap-leach mine that turned out to be the massive Goldstrike deposit.