Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Gold Fields Q2 2013 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please also note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Nick Holland. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Dylan, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone, depending on where you are in the world today. Thanks for joining us on the call to discuss the Gold Fields results for Quarter 2 2013. On the line with me, I've got Paul Schmidt, our CFO; Mike Fleischer, General Counsel; and of course, Willie Jacobsz, Head of Investor Relations. In the format that many of you will be familiar with, I'll talk first through the significant points of our results, and then I'd like to do a brief overview of the new acquisition we announced in Australia in Johannesburg this morning. We'll have a little bit of time for questions because we need to finish in 45 minutes. So I will try and give you the highlights and leave as much time as I can for questions. As you all see from the title of the presentation that I did in Johannesburg this morning, the main theme in Gold Fields today is to restructure and position this company to survive at a $1,300 gold price. And that is to a large degree what this quarter has been about. But before I return to some specific actions that we've taken or continue to take, let me give you some of the highlights of the results. Despite being in line with guidance for the year, the results for the quarter ended June 13 were indicative of the challenging environment faced by the global mining industry, which has affected all of the operations in Gold Fields around the world. And the big issue, of course, is the decline in the gold price. The main feature of our results for this quarter was, of course, the fact that we posted a net loss of $129 million compared with net earnings of $27…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Nashay Yazton [ph] of Bluebay Color[ph].

That should be [indiscernible] but anyhow. Just a little question about -- if you please give us an update about [indiscernible] and then how often do you... [Technical Difficulty]

Sorry, Nasha [ph], you are disappearing. We can't hear your question. Could you try again?

Could you please give us an update about your bank line and how often the covenants are tested? And are there any ideas about renegotiating them?

Thanks. It's Paul Schmidt speaking. I mean, our covenants are at a 2.5x net debt to EBITDA, as we stand at the moment. If you annualize the 6 months result earnings, we are sitting at 1.05 net debt to EBITDA. So we are quite comfortable in our bank covenants. And though we have no intention to try and renegotiate our covenants like some of our peers have had to do, we're not in any -- we're not close to breaching any of them. We've got huge headroom at the moment.

And the latest acquisition you have made is $300 million. Is this -- I think there's an option for you pay 50%...

Yes, it is an option to do it at 50% in shares and, if you do it like at that, it will actually be accretive our net debt to EBITDA matrix. There is a report that came out today from [indiscernible], which has said that [indiscernible] transaction neutral, but they are quite comfortable with our debt position, et cetera. So you can -- it came out this morning on the wires. You can read that as well.

Can you give us a bit more color in terms of the rationale for this deal?

The rationale for the deal is first of all, it's very competitively priced. If you look at deals like this, where you're buying in-production ounces for $100 an ounce, you can't discover in those mines anywhere near for that. And here, you've got ready-made infrastructure, plants, facilities on site with developed ore bodies available to mine today, not sometime in the future. Secondly, the significant synergies with Agnew in terms of the Lawlers operation that we think add significant value as well. Thirdly, on Granny Smith, the potential for a significant life extension at Wallaby North, the underground operation, as we're seeing the same style of mineralization extend further a depth, and in fact it creates a depth at both Lawlers and Wallaby North, part of Granny Smith looks as though they're higher, and it looks like the mineralization loads are bigger and wider. So that's bodes well, I think, for the future. So we see good potential for these assets way beyond what we've paid for.

Can you just give us an idea about your [indiscernible] costs and your cash cost?

Sorry, Nasha [ph] . Your line is breaking up. That's a very bad line.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Leon Esterhuizen of CIBC.

Nice deal you've done in Australia. Very, very cheap, as you say. But can I just touch on South Deep? It's disappointing, I guess, that we're sitting here again with another downgrade on South Deep, and it's just not getting to where it's supposed to be getting. But I'd like to know why exactly this is the case? Well, since we've had a mine visit there, what, 2 months ago and the guidance was reconfirmed at that point. The new shift structure was brought in especially and particularly to get to these targets that were set before. And we're a couple months after that, and we're just, again, taking a step back. I wasn't on the call this morning, I'm sorry. But if you could just give us a little bit more color on what's happening at South Deep. Why is it not getting to where it's supposed to be?

I would respectfully disagree with you. I don't think we're making any steps back. I think we're making steps forward. If you look at the reef tonnes that are going up, if you look at the results this quarter. If you look at the destress, again, we've had a 40% increase in destress. The new operating model is settling down. It's taking longer to realign people to the new working structures. We'd hoped that it would bed down within 3 or 4 months. We're now sitting obviously at the end of June, and it's taking a bit longer. But there's nothing to suggest that the ore body is going to give us a different answer. There's also nothing to suggest that this mine can't build up to a production level that's at or very close to what we've indicated at this stage. The key issue here is it looks like it's just going to take longer. And some of the issues that are plaguing us are things like equipment availabilities that are not quite at the levels we need to have them at. And that's hindered us in terms of moving underground material that we've broken, moving it to the ore passes and getting it out of the mine. We found that some of the ore passes have been insufficient for us to get the ore out. In some cases, we've had ore passes that have hung up [ph]. We've had some seismic events that have affected certain of the ramps in the mine that has also affected the logistics. So we're getting more ore passes, Leon. We're going from 6 ore passes to 9. That plan is coming in, in stages between now and March next year. That's going to help to alleviate the backlog underground. Equipment availabilities are improving steadily and staff are becoming more accustomed to the new operating model. Unfortunately, these things are just taking longer, and I want to flag now that I think it's, again, going to feed through to a profile that will build up over a longer period of time. But the fundamentals of the buildup planned, we believe, are still intact. I just want to make that point so in case there's any misunderstanding.

If I can just push a little bit more on this. When you started the presentation, you said that you're going to have to cut back at South Deep, that the cost structure there currently is too high. Now everything you just said sort of indicates that it's just a little bit behind, that you would get there and that you just need to sort out these intermediate problems. You also, I think, before guiding for an all-in cost in the order $900 per ounce, if I'm not mistaken. So if we're still aiming for that and if you're still going to get there but just a little bit later, why are you then now looking at cutting back costs to the labor force at South Deep?

Because I think we staffed up for volumes and gold that we're not quite at yet. So what we're now doing is we're looking to rightsize the operation to where we are. And in the future, if we need to bring back people and contractors, et cetera, we can do that. My immediate priority is to get the operation to cash breakeven as soon as we can. And once we have achieved that, then we could look to bring people and costs back into the system. But I think we put costs into the system, investment into the system and we haven't actually yielded the outputs yet that we've got because of the issues I've mentioned. I think Paul wants to add to that.

I think, Leon, it's also -- I mean, you understand we're in the $1,300 per ounce environment as well. And it's crucial that all operations in the group make cash. And this decision was made to ensure that South Deep returns to basically cash neutral and goes cash positive. We've geared up for a higher production level. It's not there yet. So we said, well you've got to change the cost base to meet the current production level.

I'm sure there's still a hell of a lot more detail there. But I just -- I speak for everybody else, I guess, just hoping that South Deep gets there eventually.

Yes. Absolutely. We're fully committed, Leon, to make sure that we deliver this mine.

Gentlemen, we have no further questions. Do you have any closing comments?

I don't think so, Dylan. I just want to thank everybody who did join us on the call today. And we look forward to talking to you again in the future, either face-to-face or on the telephone and if any of you would like to correspond more with us and get more information, please feel free to e-mail Willie Jacobsz. He's here to get your mails and to filter them through to either me or any of the other management members. We really would like to hear more about your questions. And in particular, for those weren't able to ask all the questions they wanted to today, please take up this opportunity. And I'll also endeavor to speak to you individually if there's any specific questions beyond what we've heard today. I'd be very happy to do that to try and clarify the issues. But with that, we want to thank you for your time, and have a great day. Talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Gold Fields, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.