Earnings Labs

Gold Fields Limited (GFI)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 20, 2014

$43.17

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Gold Fields' third quarter results. All participants are now in listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after today's presentation [Operator Instructions]. Please also note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Nick Holland. Please go ahead, sir.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Thank you very much Dillon and good morning or good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, wherever you are in the world today. Thank you for joining us to discuss Gold Fields' results for the third quarter ended September 2014. On the call with me today, I’ve got Paul Schmidt, our Chief Financial Officer; I’ve also got Ernesto Balarezo, who is our Executive Vice President and Head of our Operations in South America; and I’ve also got Willie Jacobsz, our Head of Investor Relations and Taryn Harmse, our Group Executive Counsel for the company. So I’m pleased to report that despite the recent volatility in the gold price during this past quarter, Gold Fields delivered results in line with guidance for 2014. Now that has enabled us to continue to generate cash very importantly. That’s one of the key objectives of the company and at the same time we’ve been able to further strengthen our balance sheet, which we’ve done every quarter this year and I’ll talk a little bit more about the details a little later. Key features for the quarter, included a strong performance from the international mines, all seven of which were cash generative, as well as the completion of the production critical safety related ground support at South Deep that we talked about for the first time in May this year, which has really impacted production quite heavily of around about four months to the end of September. Thankfully that’s largely behind us now. In quarter three we generated $63 million of cash. This brings total cash flow from operating activities for the year-to-date after taking account of capital expenditure, environmental payments, debt service costs and non-recurring items, to a figure of $182 million for the year. In essence, the business as a whole after all the bills…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Patrick Mann of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Patrick Mann

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon guys. Just a question on South Deep. If the ground support hadn’t been necessary, do you feel that you would have been on track with the revised guidance that you gave us earlier in the year or have you encountered anything else that might have put that at risk regardless of the ground support conditions? Thanks.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Look, what I would say Patrick is up to Easter we’d really built up good momentum at South Deep and we were starting to see a really good build up and unfortunately with mines like this when you pull back their momentum and their rhythm, it takes a while to reestablish it. So I think up until Easter it was really looking good and so the decision that I had to make with the team to pull back the mining and fix the ground support was obviously a heart wrenching decision, particularly when you were seeing momentum getting up there. And yes, of course we’ve lost the balance of the year really compared to where we were going to be. Impossible to say Patrick, but what we’ve got to try and do now is reestablish the momentum we had, that we saw around about March to April before we pulled back in May, and that’s going to be one of the key objectives going into this quarter and into next quarter.

Patrick Mann

Analyst

Okay, thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from Mike Jalonen of Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Mike, you’re live in the conference. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from Howard Flinker of Flinker & Co. Please go ahead.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Thank you. Hello everybody.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Hello Howard.

Paul Schmidt

Analyst

Hello Howard.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

I just want to comment. It is very rare for a company to deliver lower revenues and higher profits. Even if you exclude the lower stock payments and exclude the foreign exchange benefit, you still had slightly higher profits. That is highly commendable and is a pretty encouraging sign. I just wanted to pass that on. I see that rarely – in any industry, I see that extremely rarely, less than one out of 100 times.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Howard, we really appreciate that and one of the reasons the revenue was lower is that we couldn’t sell all of the concentrate at Corona, but Ernesto is with me today and he might want to comment on what he expects to do on that concentrate that wasn’t sold in this quarter.

Ernesto Balarezo

Analyst

I think that’s already been solved and we had some problems with the port [ph], we sometimes have those, but the problem has been solved and we are aiming to get everything out by the end of the year, everything we produce.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

But one thing about gold is that it’s not oranges or eggs, it doesn’t decay next week, so you can sell it tomorrow; that’s why people save it. Adjusted for your dispositions and your acquisitions, in either ounces or metric tonnes, how much did actual production decline year against year, third quarter against third quarter, just roughly.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Howard if you look at the same quarter last year, I think we are up almost 20% on our production, because of the acquisition of the Yilgarn South assets, and also…

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Yes, I know.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Yes, if you look at our all in costs, I think we’ve managed to keep them pretty much in line overall. So we’ve been able to increase the production and we’ve been able to absorb inflation and improve the cash generating ability to spike the lower gold prices, but all of this I think you’ve analyzed.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Yes, I understand Yilgarn. You and I discussed it one time at lunch. That was a great purchase, it was really cheap. But if you take out Yilgarn or the Aussie assets and measure what you had before against what continued, can you remember what production was year-against-year. Excluding acquisitions and dispositions, what would it be?

Nick Holland

Analyst

I think we were reasonably flat, Howard. I think if you do the reconciliation, I think most of the increase was from the Yilgarn, but we have to remember that we also shut down the heap leach at Tarkwa. So Tarkwa was also – I think if you re-base Tarkwa for the heap leach and take that out, we would have been flat; we were slightly off there. Damang, I think we were similar. South Deep is off, but I think you will find South Deep and Tarkwa is probably offsetting each other and then St Ives and Agnew, between them I think are fairly similar. So all in all I think the portfolio ex the Yilgarn South assets was reasonably flat.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

I forget, did Iamgold buy the rest of Tarkwa? Was it Iamgold?

Nick Holland

Analyst

Yes, we bought it back from them. So the government owns 10%. We own 90% of Tarkwa in the bank. So the government’s got a free carry of 10% in Ghana.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

I thought you said you closed or sold Tarkwa.

Paul Schmidt

Analyst

It was in a heap leach.

Nick Holland

Analyst

We closed…

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Oh! The heap leach.

Nick Holland

Analyst

The heap leach operation we closed. We said that we would be closing that at the end of December last year. We did so, so that knocked out around about 120,000 ounces a year and the reason we shut that is because recovery had declined. We were getting deeper into the ore body. It didn’t make sense to leach them. It made more sense to process them from CIL plant.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

So that was 120,000 ounces a year. So from the point of view of industry wide demand and supply, that shutdown reduced production by about 4 metric tons.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Yes. I think the other thing Howard is we moved away also from thinking about ounces to cash and I think if you look at the Group this year, we are making a lot more cash than we were last.

Paul Schmidt

Analyst

Yes, Howard for the quarter last year we made $3.1 million as opposed to the $62.5 million with a lower gold price, we’ve done well.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

$62.5 million was after payment of principal on debt, correct?

Paul Schmidt

Analyst

Yes, I’m just comparing debt service cost, not debt repayment. So it was $3.1 million from operations as opposed to $62.5 this quarter, almost a $60 million increase with a lower gold price.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

That I saw. I thought the $62.5 million came after the quarterly payment of principal. Am I correct?

Paul Schmidt

Analyst

It’s including debt service, but before principal.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Yes, it does include the principal.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Oh! I see, interest but not principal, okay I misunderstood. Okay, nice job guys. Thanks.

Nick Holland

Analyst

Thanks very much Howie.

Operator

Operator

We have a further question from Patrick Mann from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Patrick you are live in the conference call. Please go ahead.

Patrick Mann

Analyst

Hi. Sorry, I was on mute there. Sorry about that. And I just had a follow-up question quickly. The South African gold industry has to renegotiate wages this year or next year rather. How are you guys feeling about that? I know that you are NUM majority and obviously being a mechanized mine you’ve got sort of more skilled better paid employees. But do you foresee any difficulties at your operation. Is AMCU making any headway or trying to, and can you just remind us of the situation there please. Thanks.

Nick Holland

Analyst

God, NUM represents around about 70%, early 70% of the workforce. UASA represents around about 10% and the rest of our employees are not affiliated at this stage. So we don’t have AMCU on the mine at this stage, but it’s obviously no secret that they are aggressively trying to recruit members across the industry, including at South Deep. So we can’t discount the possibility that there will be a union that is recognized at South Deep, but right now they are not. In terms of the wages, its far too early to conclude on the way the wages are going to come out, except to say that we expect this year to be as challenging as all of the prior years. I think that always are a challenging situation. Now one of the benefits of gold in this country Patrick is that we negotiate as a collective as opposed to Platinum, which negotiates independently. But that said, words of strength, I think we are all expecting difficult times on the wage negotiations. I think though you had to get a steer from some of the settlements that have been made in this country by the public sector and also private sector. That would give you an indication as to what is likely. But we certainly as an industry don’t have the capacity to pay significant wage increases that maybe asked for and sustain the operations. So I think it’s going to be tough, but usually we end up with a solution. Whether or not we are going to need a strike to get to a solution remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t discount that as a possibility.

Patrick Mann

Analyst

Great, thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Nick, we have no further questions. Do you have any closing comments?

A - Nick Holland

Analyst

Well, thanks very much for joining us today. I think that you’ve seen our results for the quarter. Importantly, they are in line with guidance and we are certainly aiming to finish the year off on a high note and make sure that Gold Fields can achieve its guidance for the full year, which would be the second year in a row that we’ve achieved or over achieved on our guidance. So that’s our commitment that we want to achieve and we want to do it safely and healthily for all of our employees. So thanks once again for your participation today and we look forward to catching up with you soon. Thank you and bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Nick. On behalf of Gold Fields, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.