Earnings Labs

Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited (HMY)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 8, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the International Conference Call for Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited First Quarter Financial Year 2014 Results. [Operator Instructions] Please also note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Graham Briggs. Please go ahead, sir.

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Thank you very much, and good morning or good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, depending where you are in the world. A very warm welcome to you for our Q1 financial year '14's results. A pleasing set of results from my point of view, and I'll take you through the presentation. Certainly, hoping you've got the presentation downloaded or maybe you're just watching it on your screen. Slide #2 is about our Safe Harbor statement. And you'll notice there's a bit of a change there from previous ones because we've now got a Form 20-F out and new integrated Annual Report, which, of course, you can also download on our website. As far as the agenda goes, I'll be talking about measuring up, I'll be talking about quarterly results. Frank is here to help me with financial results and then we'll conclude. And if there are further questions of any other nature I have Jaco with me, so we'll be able to answer pretty well any questions that you care to throw at us. Slide #5, this is our asset portfolio. It consists of mines which are all acquired mines, and I'll take you through that in the next slide as well. And our intent is to really get those mines that aren't in steady-state production into a steady-state production. Those mines are typically mines we spent a fair amount of capital on, sinking shafts and the like, and getting them into steady-state production. And of course, we will be not talking so much about Wafi-Golpu. There's a little bit of a note in the quarterly. Essentially, what's been happening there is more drilling has been happening on the orebody, but also looking at infrastructure, in other words, potential shaft sites and the like. And that's really the drilling activities that…

Frank Abbott

Analyst

Thank you, Graham. If we look at Slide 21, this is extracted from our income statement in rand terms. Our revenue increased by 15%, and this was based on higher sales on the back of 12% more gold produced during the quarter. Our increase in production costs of 6% was largely due to the increase of electricity of ZAR 140 million because of the winter tariffs that we have in the September quarter. Operating profits went up by 55% to ZAR 1,037 million. Amortization and depreciation increased, and that was because of the higher production during the quarter. The exploration expenditure, you can see we've been lowering our exploration expenditure at Wafi-Golpu, and we had a net profit of ZAR 13 million compared to a loss from the previous quarter. If we look at Slide 22, we've got extracts from our income statement in dollars. You can see the revenue went up by 9%. The 13% increase in gold sold is offset by the exchange rate. Our production costs were in line with the previous quarter in dollar terms. Operating profit went up by 47% to $104 million. Amortization was pretty much the same as the previous quarter. Exploration expenditure was $14 million, a reduction from the previous quarter because of lower exploration expenditure. And you can see that we had a profit compared to the loss from the previous quarter. If we go over to the next slide. In dollar terms, our higher production equals stronger margins. We've got revenue of $403 million, which is 9% higher than the previous quarter. Cash operating costs of $299 million, giving us a cash operating profit of $104 million. And if we take off all the sustaining costs, including capital of $81 million, we had all-in sustaining margin of $23 million. Thank you. Graham?

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Thanks a lot, Frank. In conclusion, and I'm on Slide 26 here, I think our view of the long-term gold price is still very bullish. However, in the short term and short to medium term, I guess, in the next 6 to 12 months, we see a static gold price, in which case we're going to continue focusing on costs, productivity and producing more gold. And we think we are in a good place to meet these challenges, so we're certainly quite pleased with that. I think on our strategic advantages, we have an increasing grade. We've been talking about that as our new assets bring in and -- bring out the tonnage that will increase the grade. We're still the lowest cost-per-tonne producer in South Africa. A lot of our capital is spent on our South African operations, and so it's the case of bringing those into production. Free cash flow we've got. We certainly don't plan to do any hedging. That's not in our nature to hedge at all no matter what happens to the gold price. Balance sheet strength, and we're certainly geared to South African currency. You can see that in these results now, where probably 85% of our costs are really South African-based. The other -- the balance is really equity with the dollar and if you look at chemicals and maybe steel products and the like. And we've got earnings growth. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Now I'd like to open ourselves for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David Leffel of Deutsche Bank.

David Leffel

Analyst

Just going on from your last slide, strategic advantages. I mean, you've highlighted, in the last couple of periods, the -- you're being the lowest rand per tonne cost producer in South Africa. How do you take advantage of that strategic advantage in your view?

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

David, I think if you look at all our operations being acquired, I think that the trick is that you can acquire somebody's assets which they can't sweat anymore and you can actually sweat them over longer and get better life and make a profit out of them, where, possibly, a competitor couldn't. So I guess that's where the strategic advantage lies.

David Leffel

Analyst

But I mean, recently, Graham, maybe a follow-up, we've seen you more of a disposal -- disposer of assets in South Africa, in regards to Evander and some other assets. Do you think there's opportunities out there for you to become an acquirer?

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Yes. I mean, the Evander -- really, we haven't disposed of much at all, David. But we must be moving closures. Evander was disposed of for a particular purposes, and that was that it has a 10-year life at shaft. But beyond that, it requires big capital. That big capital is going to be -- was seen to be in direct competition with the potential spend on Wafi-Golpu, and therefore, we didn't want to get in that situation. Our shareholders are really giving us the message that spending more big capital in South Africa at that time was not a good thing and diversification into Golpu is probably a good thing. So we haven't been a seller of many assets. But all our assets, as I said, are acquired.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Davide Barbuscia of Debtwire.

Davide Barbuscia

Analyst

I would like to ask about your financing plans. Basically, I understand that you had a revolving credit facility with Nedbank of ZAR 850 million that is maturing in December. I'd like to know if you plan to renew it or to renegotiate it? And in addition to that, also, about your term loan with Nedbank and another RCF of $300 million, I mean, what's the plan? Are you raising additional funds soon or you're waiting until 2017?

Frank Abbott

Analyst

Thank you. If I can answer that. The term line with Nedbank, we are in the process of renegotiating that. But we haven't really drawn down on that. I think we owe about ZAR 400 million on the -- in rand. We've drawn down $270 million on the other loan, and that's repayable in 2 years' time. And we do not see that we need to renew that at this stage.

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

If I could just complete that as well. I think the intent of, certainly, this management team is to have minimal debt, but enough facilities that, if you need them, you can use them. But certainly, as far as the net debt goes, we'd like to have an absolute minimum. Now there's no reason why we should have a lot of debt because we paid most of our capital, and our capital has come out of our operating profits. So without having a real need to go out on a big borrowing, we don't have a way that we can spend money. Yes, I guess just on a sort of strategic level, we don't like to have a large amount of debt.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from James Hayter of Rossport Investments.

James Hayter

Analyst

Just quickly on Wafi. I know the focus is on the South African operations. But is there a timeline to any announcements that we can expect, or an update that we can expect on the drilling and the positioning of -- the potential positioning of the shaft? I'm just looking for some details of when we might see some news on what the plan is there.

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Yes. James, good question. The plan on the site is actually doing a small drilling, and that is including looking at infrastructure and shaft sites and so on. At the same time, we have a team working on looking at the sort of, basically, the feasibility and information to try and get an update to you on what we plan to spend there, what sort of production level it's going to be like and so on. And that is sort of on the understanding that the previous pre-feasibility study under these sort of market conditions is not going to go ahead -- big capital, long payback and so on. So the intent is this modular-staged approach, where we have much lower capital for a smaller mine, building up in later years to a bigger mine, a modular sort of expansion. My hope is that by June next year, we'll have a lot of that work done. So we'll be able to try and give you an update shortly after that.

James Hayter

Analyst

Okay. So we could expect an updated feasibility study early second half next year, so the July, August time next year, tentative?

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Yes. I think it's more likely to be an updated pre-feasibility study.

Operator

Operator

Gentlemen, there are no further questions. Would you like to make some closing comments?

Graham Paul Briggs

Analyst

Yes. Thank you very much, and thank you, everybody, for dialing in. I think between us, management here, sitting in the room, pleasing day that we've been able to report these much better results with the higher production, the lower costs, and obviously, that's gone down to the bottom line of better profits. So I think we are facing the future quite optimistically. There's still work to be done. There's always work to done. And I've given indication of which operations are going to get the highest focus in the next quarter. But we certainly illustrated, in the last 2 quarters, that we can -- well on the way to manage the situation and do better. Thank you very much for phoning in.

Operator

Operator

On behalf of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.