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Alamos Gold Inc. (AGI)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 19, 2026

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. I'll now turn the call over to Scott Parsons, Alamos' Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Scott Parsons

Management

Thank you, operator, and thanks to everybody for attending Alamos' Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. In addition to myself, we have on the line today John McCluskey, President and Chief Executive Officer; Greg Fisher, Chief Financial Officer; Luc Guimond, Chief Operating Officer; and Scott Parsons, Vice President of Exploration. We will be referring to a presentation during the conference call that is available through the webcast and on our website. I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. As we will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release and MD&A as well as the risk factors set out in our annual information form. Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Chris Boswick, our Senior VP of Technical Services and a qualified person. Also, please bear in mind that all of the dollar amounts mentioned in this conference call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Now John will provide you with an overview.

John McCluskey

Management

Thank you, Scott. So I'm going to start with Slide 3. Production for 2025 was 545,000 ounces, below our guidance as a result of severe weather in late December and other challenges at the Canadian operations. Our costs were above annual guidance, reflecting the same factors. Despite the setbacks, we delivered a number of financial records, including revenue of $1.8 billion and record free cash flow of over $350 million, while funding our high-return growth projects. Supported by strong free cash flow generation, we doubled our shareholder returns, further strengthened our balance sheet by reducing our debt and eliminated more of the hedges inherited from the Argonaut Gold transaction, giving us increased exposure to higher gold price. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect a meaningful improvement in operational performance to drive a 12% increase in production. This will be driven by ramp-up of mining rates at Island Gold as part of the Phase 3+ Expansion as well as higher mining rates at Young-Davidson. We expect further growth in production at lower costs in the coming years as we deliver on the larger Island Gold District expansion by 2028 and bring Lynn Lake into production by 2029. Our longer-term outlook remains firmly on track to nearly double our annual production of approximately over 1 million ounces a year at lower costs. Now turning to Slide 4. Over the past month, we outlined the key drivers of our strong outlook. As detailed in our updated 3-year guidance, we expect to deliver a 46% increase in production at approximately 20% lower all-in sustaining costs by 2028. We also provided exploration updates on our mines and exploration projects, highlighting significant upside potential across our portfolio. Our successful exploration program in 2025 contributed to a 32% increase in year-end mineral reserves to 16 million ounces,…

Greg Fisher

Management

Thank you, John. Moving to Slide 7. We sold 142,000 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter at an average realized price of $3,998 per ounce for record quarterly revenues of $575 million. For the full year, we sold 531,000 ounces at a realized price of $3,372 per ounce for record annual revenues of $1.8 billion, up 34% from 2024. Our full year total cash cost of $1,077 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,524 per ounce were above annual guidance, driven by higher costs in the fourth quarter and the temporary challenges at our Canadian operations. Operating cash flow before changes in noncash working capital was $285 million in the fourth quarter or $0.68 per share. This was reduced by $63 million or $0.15 per share, reflecting the cash utilized to eliminate the legacy Argonaut Gold hedges prior to maturity. For the full year, operating cash flow before changes in noncash working capital increased 27% to a record $924 million or $2.20 per share. Our reported net earnings were $435 million in the fourth quarter or $1.03 per share. This included $227 million after-tax gain on the sale of noncore assets, loss on commodity hedge derivatives of $35 million and other adjustments of $16 million. Excluding these items, our adjusted net earnings were $228 million or $0.54 per share. Our full year adjusted net earnings were $587 million or $1.40 per share. Capital spending in the quarter totaled $158 million and include $50 million of sustaining capital, $97 million of growth capital and $11 million of capitalized exploration. For the full year, total capital expenditures were $507 million, including growth capital of $318 million. We continue to fund our high-return growth internally while generating strong free cash flow. This included a record $157 million of free cash flow…

Luc Guimond

Management

Thank you, Greg. Over to Slide 8. Fourth quarter production from the Island Gold District totaled 60,000 ounces, a 10% decline over the previous quarter due to lower underground mining rates as well as reduced mill throughput. For the full year, production totaled 250,400 ounces, a 33% increase over the previous year, but slightly below the low end of revised annual guidance. During the fourth quarter, underground mining rates of 1,160 tonnes per day were impacted by additional rehabilitation work related to the seismic event that took place in October as well as downtime in late December due to severe winter weather. This prevented the delivery of supplies and access to site by personnel and emergency services, thus requiring a 3-day standdown of underground operations. The Island Gold mill averaged 1,180 tonnes per day in the fourth quarter, consistent with underground mining rates. The underground rehabilitation work required to ramp up mining rates as part of the Phase 3+ shaft expansion is substantially complete. Mining rates are on track to increase to an average of 1,400 tonnes per day in the first quarter of 2026 and gradually increase to 2,000 tonnes per day in the fourth quarter, driving growing production through the year. The open pit portion of the operation continues to perform well with mining rates averaging 16,600 tonnes per day of ore in the fourth quarter and 15,000 tonnes per day for the full year, in line with guidance. Magino milling rates averaged 8,625 tonnes per day in the fourth quarter, a modest improvement over the third quarter, but below expectations, in part reflecting weather-related disruptions late in the quarter. With a number of initiatives being implemented through the first quarter of 2026, milling rates are expected to improve substantially in the second half of the year. Total…

Scott R. Parsons

Management

Thank you, Luc. Over to Slide 15. We continued our track record of growth with a 32% increase in mineral reserves to 16 million ounces at the end of 2025. This marked the seventh consecutive year of growth over which reserves have increased 64% with grades also increasing 24% as our reserve base continues to grow in both size and quality. This year's growth was mainly driven by the Island Gold District, which added nearly 4 million ounces to reserves in 2025. Measured and indicated resources increased 6% with growth at Young-Davidson, the Mulatos District and Lynn Lake more than offsetting resource conversion at Magino. Inferred resources decreased 63%, reflecting the successful conversion of Island Gold District resources to reserves. We recently announced exploration updates for all of our mines and projects, highlighting the significant upside potential across our asset base. This led to an increase in our 2026 exploration budget to nearly $100 million, 37% higher than in 2025. Over to Slide 16. The big driver of the year-over-year increase in reserves was the impressive growth at the Island Gold District. Underground reserves more than doubled, increasing 125% to 5.1 million ounces, while open pit reserves increased 56% to 3.1 million ounces. The increase was driven by a successful delineation drilling program at both deposits, which resulted in the conversion of a large portion of mineral resources into mineral reserves. Despite the focus on delineation drilling, we are successful in increasing our overall mineral inventory at Island Gold for the 10th consecutive year with mineral reserves and resources increasing to 6.8 million ounces. Over to Slide 17. Drilling continues to extend high-grade mineralization across the Main Island Gold structure as well as within several hanging wall and footwall structures. This includes in the Lower Island East area, where reserves…

John McCluskey

Management

Thank you, Scott. And I'll turn the call over to the operator who will open up for your questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Maybe my first question is on exploration here. Good to see that you're targeting some of the higher-grade mineralization at Young-Davidson and some of the newly defined hanging wall zones. I guess my question is, some of these new targets, are they still associated with the historic kind of cyanide intrusive rock? Or are you actually finding stuff in some of the sediments and ultramafic stratigraphy? And if it is still associated with cyanide, what makes it so that this is potentially higher grade?

Scott R. Parsons

Management

Thanks for the question, Cosmos, this is Scott. So to start, I guess, what got us really excited initially about the hanging wall mineralization that we're intersecting at YD in 2024 initially was that it was a different style of mineralization. So it was in the hanging wall in a different lithologies. So we're seeing this in conglomerates, volcanics and the cyanides out there as well, but the higher grades we were seeing were associated with the conglomerate units. And that's what we've been focusing on drilling with our hanging wall drift and do see potential for higher grade mineralization in that conglomerate. The second hanging wall target that we had highlighted in our press release on exploration for 2025 was something called the South cyanide. So it's a similar lithology to what hosts the main reserves at Young-Davidson, but this is offset 300 meters south. So it's a different cyanide body, we think, at this time. And we are seeing locally higher grades within that and we are working as we speak on drilling that to understand what's controlling the higher grade in that south cyanide body.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

That's good to hear. And then I guess, another sort of deposit we don't talk enough about the PDA. And I know you talked about that a little bit -- quite a bit actually at the Investor Day. But can you remind me, as you mentioned, initial production is targeted for mid-2027. What kind of key deliverables are there in 2026? What are some of the kind of critical path items that you need to target in 2026 in order to get to your mid-2027 initial production?

Luc Guimond

Management

Cosmos, it's Luc here. I'll take that question. So I mean, there's 2 key components there. Obviously, one is on the mining side, establishing the port entrances, which is what we're currently working on right now. So there'll be 2 port entrances into the PDA underground workings. And then obviously, over the next -- over the life of the mine, but certainly over the next 12 months as we're looking to prepare for -- sorry, for the next 18 months to be able to prepare for commissioning of the mill complex to bring that online will be development work and still preparation as far as being able to maintain and sustain our mining rates at 2,000 tonnes per day. So that's the key aspect is really get the portals commissioned this year, established and start on the development work over the next 18 months and the rest of that life of the mine of that operation. The other key component is related to the processing plant. So we've already -- we're well advanced on that as well. Most of the earthworks have been completed for the crushing station locations as well as the -- where the -- sorry, where the ball mill is going to be located for the mill complex. And we've already procured the long lead items that we need with regards to that construction schedule. And everything is well advanced to be able to have most of the work will get completed through the 2026 period. And then by mid-2027, we'll be wrapping up some of the construction-related activities related to the processing plant itself. But everything is tracking online, on schedule and certainly on budget for mid-2027.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst

Great. And then maybe one last question, bigger picture here. And it was certainly good to see that you've increased your dividend by 60%. But I guess my question is, do you feel like you're getting fully rewarded for this dividend by the market? Or do you think you need to target a higher yield before you can get fully rewarded by the market for this dividend? And maybe broader, John, if you can talk about kind of your capital return strategy.

John McCluskey

Management

We've done -- historically, we've paid this dividend going back to 2010. We've always done a combination of dividends and share buybacks. Last year, we almost returned as much by way of share buybacks as we did through the dividend. And we're always going to keep that in balance. We're very opportunistic with respect with the share buyback. But the dividend itself, I think there's further room for growth, but this is a good indicator of our intentions. And despite the fact that we're going through a heavy capital spend schedule over the next couple of years as we effectively double our production between now and the end of the decade, the gold prices are strong. We're generating phenomenal free cash flow. There is -- there was room to increase the dividend, and we did so. But I think investors should expect more dividends to come.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. This concludes this morning's call. If you have any further questions that have not been answered, please feel free to contact Mr. Scott Parsons at 416-368-9932, extension 5439.