Earnings Labs

DRDGOLD Limited (DRD)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 25, 2012

$26.77

-2.41%

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Transcript

Craig Barnes

Management

Thanks, Niël. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. So just on some of the group trends. Firstly, our operating margin you can see was up on the previous quarter to 32% from the 28% in the fourth quarter of 2012, although it was slightly down on the first quarter of 2012. And that was mainly as a result of increases in costs such as labor. We had approximately 8% increases in costs year-on-year. Electricity, just under 17% increases in electricity costs. And we also saw above inflation increases in reagent costs, above 10%, which obviously put pressure on those costs. EBITDA or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, you can see significantly up on the previous quarter to ZAR 114.7 million and also up on the first quarter in 2012. And it was obviously driven by the 11% increase in gold production, as well as the 6% increase in the rand gold price. Our headline earnings per share. You can see although we were up on the first quarter of 2012, up about 67% from the ZAR 0.12 to ZAR 0.20, we were down ZAR 0.02 on the previous quarter, the fourth quarter of 2012. And you'll recall, at the last quarterlies presentation that I did mention in the last quarter, the fourth quarter of 2012, we had approximately ZAR 0.16 adjustment to deferred tax, which is sitting in the ZAR 0.22. So you must have to strip that out to compare it to the current quarter. And that deferred tax adjustment, that deferred tax credit that came through in the last quarter of 2012 of ZAR 0.16, was largely due to the tax rate change in our deferred tax as well as a deferred tax credit, which came through for deferred tax assets which were previously not recognized relating…

Unknown Executive

Management

[indiscernible] about ZAR 50 million, ZAR 85 million a year. Daniël Pretorius: ZAR 85 million a year is what we spend on managing our tailings dams and dust emissions in and around the Johannesburg area. And we do that with cash flows and we still manage to deliver, I think, the returns to shareholders that we have over the last few years. This year, the combination of the buyback plus the dividend is 5%, and Craig will talk to you about return on equity. These measures -- these are the things that are becoming part of our language on an ongoing basis. But we look at it from a perspective back to dust, of how bad it could have been had we not over the last 5 years spent on average ZAR 85 million on dust suppression. You don’t do these things, you get into trouble with the NGOs, you're going to get into trouble with the regulator. Your license to access and mine the wealth of this country will be limited. It will be restricted. Those conditions will become impossible to achieve. Social capital has become the real responsibility of every South African, social capital and development in particular. If you think that you can just manage your own little group of people, then I think you are deluded because in South Africa, the job is just simply too big for government. They don't have the resources. They don't have the people. They don't have the skills to adequately cover the entire field. So unless we create these corporate little pockets of stability, little pockets of excellence, and Barry De Blocq who's here is in charge of our HR will tell you a little bit about what we're doing at EBDA and bringing maths and science not just to…

Unknown Analyst

Management

Cassius Relean [ph] from Caveat [ph]. Just want to know, DRD, is it primarily a mine dump recycling operation? Is 90% of your operations recycling of mine dumps in and around Johannesburg? Do you do any mining at such deep level? Daniël Pretorius: Everything you see here is from the recycling. We have an exploration asset outside of Boksburg, the ERPM Extension 1 and 2. And there's a synergy between that and an asset that's long been forgotten. We have been thinking of ways and means of unlocking the value associated with that ore body. I think it’s in the region of 18 million to 20 million ounces. And it does seems as though unless you bring some infrastructure into that ore body that it will remain, by and large, ignored by the investor communities. So there's some work happening at this stage to, let's say, put a bow around a parcel of assets. But everything that you’ve seen here is a 100% recycling from tailings sense.

Unknown Analyst

Management

So it is primarily a mine dump recycling operation. Daniël Pretorius: Very much, yes. It’s a mechanized mine dump recycling operation.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Yes. And secondly, the strikes and your staff and personnel, were there no hiccups in relation to the Marikana unrest and so on? Daniël Pretorius: No.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Didn’t it affect you at all? Daniël Pretorius: We haven’t had any impact yet. Obviously, it’s something that we monitor quite closely because we have basically 3 groups of unionized employees deployed in and around our operations. It’s our own employees. It is the employees of the tailings recovery, the reclamation side as well as also the -- as well as the tailings management side, which is Fraser Alexander Tailings. And then because of the size of our footprint, obviously, we have quite a large number of security personnel which is also managed by -- it’s an outsourced function. And up until now, we’ve been very fortunate in as much as it’s not having had any disruption. But it’s an ongoing process. You’ve got to monitor it literally on a day-to-day basis.

Unknown Analyst

Management

I’m sure. Craig, and then just a question to you. The ZAR 165 million that was raised, would it -- what was the terms and the tenure of it and who were the takers of it?

Craig Barnes

Management

Just want to -- or know [ph] the biggest. I think it was Sanlam. Atlantic [ph], yes, just some of the smaller funds in and around South Africa that have got appetite for, I suppose, the risk associated with the company of our size. So there were a number of smaller funds that participated in that. And the terms and the tenure, on average, the interest rates average from between JIBAR plus 4% to JIBAR plus 5% and from 1 to 3 years. So just quickly, ZAR 20 million of that is a 1 year note, approximately ZAR 70 million is a 2-year note and ZAR 75 million is in a 3-year tenure.

Colin McCulloch

Management

Colin McCulloch from Imara S.P. Reid. The one thing we'd like to know a bit more about is what is the dividend policy going to be going forward. Because obviously, with the life of these dumps that you have at present, I think we're talking about 13 years, and for the shareholders to get their capital back in that period, the dividends are going to have to step up a little bit more than the ZAR 0.10. I'm just wondering if you could just give us a little bit more of an outline plan there. Daniël Pretorius: Certainly. Mr. Arnold van Graan is here, who is with CIBC. And I said to the leader of the team that he works with, Mr. Leon Esterhuizen, the other day that within the context of DRDGOLD, growth is dividend growth. So we really want to see if we can grow that dividend quite aggressively over the next few years. And forgive me if I give you a longer answer than what you were hoping to get, but if you look at the way that the business is being put together now, the various components of the business, I think there's a case to be made out. The business is really only about 5 or 6 years old with Ergo having been acquired recently in the way that we have collapsed various other circuits into that circuit and the way that the technology was developing, capitalized over time. And I think most companies, after a period of that where you built your plant, you built your mine, you've developed your asset, you should probably just stand back for a moment and see how well that asset performs without having to carry the burden of additional CapEx. And as I said earlier in my presentation,…

Craig Barnes

Management

Yes. I think, as Niël said, with the dividend we paid last year, and if you take into account the amount that was used to buy back shares, effectively we would have paid out ZAR 19 million-odd dividend. And you can calculate what the yield would have been on that between 4% and 5%. I think there's no reason we won’t be consistent or tend to be consistent with that this year.

Unknown Attendee

Management

[indiscernible] Buybacks are actually -- the shareholders don’t really appreciate buybacks as much as straightforward dividends because with dividends, you will get a multiple on your share price as opposed to buybacks which is just -- and the shareholders don't know the buybacks are taking place. So the buybacks, I would say, are not what we're looking for, to be quite honest.

Craig Barnes

Management

But just to explain that, buyback was specifically for the employee share option scheme to avoid issuing further shares in terms of that. I mean, I think it's a priority of our board to avoid dilution of shareholders. That’s something that's happened in this company previously, and it's definitely not going to happen under this management. So it's -- I think the board took that quite seriously and wanted to buy back enough shares to effectively cover shares which would have been issued under that option scheme, and that was really the reasoning behind that. But that’s not to say we wouldn't look at buybacks into the future, especially with withholding tax being at 15%. I mean that would be a decision the board needs to make. Daniël Pretorius: So I think it's also important to note that we haven’t really received a firm mandate from shareholders with regards to other dividends or mandate -- or buybacks. And there are some of our shareholders who are very enthusiastic about buybacks too because, of course, here people are on exact opposites when it comes to how they feel about buybacks. We will definitely strike a proper balance. Anything else? Well, thank you. Anything from the -- okay, thank you very much for your attendance. We appreciate it.

Craig Barnes

Management

Thank you.