Sep 27, 2024 / 08:00AM GMT
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Good morning, and welcome to Gemfields 2024 interim results shareholder and investor webcast. Today, Sean Gilbertson, CEO; and David Lovett, CFO, will present Gemfields' financial results for the first six months of the year to June 30, 2024. At the end of the presentation, we will go into Q&A. (Event Instructions)
Before we start, please take note the important information on our disclaimer on slide 2. And with that, I will pass it on to Sean to start on slide 3.
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
Thank you, Ian. Good morning, and welcome, everybody. On slide 3, this is a slide that many of you would have seen before, setting out our mission, strategic objective, and our key priorities. I won't dwell on this because our approach hasn't changed.
And while safety remains our top priority, we are in the midst, very clearly, of the third strategic objective shown at the bottom of the slide, namely investing for growth. And I'd like to take a moment to commend our teams at both our Kagem emerald mine in Zambia and our Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique for having no LTIs or lost time injuries, thus far, in 2024.
Turning on to slide 4. It's fair to say that Gemfields' year, thus far, has been quite mixed. Our auctions held in the first half of the year saw healthy pricing, generating $121 million despite some negative sentiment and giving rise to a total of $128 million of revenue for the period.
However, production of gemstones in our premium category at both of our mines was below our expectations, and MRM continues to struggle. Kagem, where we have now completed the processing plant upgrade, has rebounded in August and also in September, with August seeing our strongest premium production in the course of the last two years.
That said, our commercial-quality emerald auction earlier this month saw weaker-than-expected results. And we sold only 61% of the number of lots we had in that auction. That result was not helped by our principal competitor in the color gemstone space, selling through their material in an auction that they'd scheduled to finish just 10 days before ours and then at prices which clients described as being very low.
By contrast, at Gemfields, we seek to hold back our auction lots if we don't believe that a fair market price has been achieved, as that is clearly very important to avoid damaging the market. Although that auction result raises the general uncertainty level for us, we think it is unlikely that below par results of a similar scope will arise at our auctions in November and December because higher-quality gems, as we've seen many times in the past, tend to be more resilient in trickier market conditions.
As is evident from our balance sheet, we continue our program of hefty investment into our business, especially at Montepuez Ruby Mining, with our $70 million second processing plant, which is going to triple our ore processing capacity. That project is materially on budget and on schedule for completion by the end of the first-half 2025.
And I'd like to take another moment to commend both the team at MRM and also our EPC contractor, Consulmet, for the genuinely remarkable job that they're doing despite the sorted challenges, which include rain of biblical proportions.
For the remainder of this year, we will obviously carefully monitor our cash and our capital allocation, and should circumstances go against us, be prepared to take appropriate action should any further material challenges arise. And with that brief overview, I'll hand you over to David for a look at our financial performance for the first half.
David Lovett - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everybody. If we can start on slide 6, we will cover Gemfields' key financial metrics in the first half of 2024. To confirm, the comparative figures you see at the top of the screen relate to H1 2023.
Starting with revenue, we generated $128 million in the first half, which primarily came from two emerald auctions totaling $52 million and a ruby auction of $68.7 million. While this is lower than the strong performance we saw in H1 2023, it is up on H2 2023.
In the middle, we have our operating expenses which are marginally down from H1 2023. But you can see a more significant decrease when compared to H2 2023. As Sean said, cost control and cash management remains a key challenge and a focus for all of our teams across the Gemfields Group. We generated $50 million of EBITDA, resulting in a group EBITDA margin of 38.8%.
If we move on to slide 7, which focuses on cash. Free cash flow is one of our key financial performance metrics. And in this period, we only generated $3.3 million. This reflects the considerable investments we are making in the business, particularly MRM's second processing plant.
We'll come back to the CapEx side of the business in a few slides' time. As at June 30, 2024, we were in a net debt position of $44.4 million before auction receivables of $65.5 million, which brings us to a combined position of net cash, $21.1 million.
Now if we move on to our results in more detail, we can move to slide 8. Starting at revenue, this graph shows the trajectory of the Gemfields Group since 2009 when we first started to run Kagem emerald auctions.
We've come a long way since then. But we can clearly see here that the super revenues we saw post COVID have fallen, partly due to softer market conditions and partly due to the quality and quantity of our emeralds and rubies, which have been offered via auction.
To touch quickly on Fabergé, we generated $6.6 million in the first half of 2024. But it's worth noting that Fabergé has not required any funding from the group since late 2022.
And moving on to operating expenses on slide 9, when considering our total costs at Kagem and MRM, as shown in the top part of this slide, it's always worth flagging that this includes mineral royalties and production taxes, which are calculated at 6% and 10% of emerald and ruby auction revenues, respectively. And it also includes fees paid to Gemfields, which were also based on revenue.
Therefore, changes in revenue in the period have a direct impact on these figures. What we do manage is our mining and production costs at the mines and SG&A expenses at the corporate level. Fuel and labor remain our two biggest operating costs at the mines, and both have increased in this period.
Some of this is due to cost increases, but it's also due to increased mining activity, particularly at Kagem. As mentioned previously, we are actively reviewing costs across the group in an effort to contain expenses without adversely affecting production at either mine.
Now if we move on to CapEx, as we've mentioned, we continue to invest heavily in the business for growth. So far this year, we have upgraded the plant at Kagem, increasing its capacity by approximately 50%. While this took a little longer than expected, we are now operating at the new increased level. We'll see later in the presentation, this has had a direct impact on recent production.
At MRM, the majority of our CapEx relates to payments for our second processing plant or PP2, as we refer to it. The three spikes on the graph on the right are all direct milestone payments to Consulmet, our construction partner.
Having a little look at the PP2 in a bit more detail on the next slide, as Sean said, progress is going well. And we're on target to have the plant up and running by the end of H1 2025. As of today, we have paid 60% of the CapEx amounting to just over $40 million. As a reminder, the contract with consumer is approximately $70 million, leaving us approximately $30 million to complete.
Now if we have a look on how we're paying for that second plant, on this slide, we've set out our current debt facilities. We have overdraft facilities at MRM and Kagem, amounting to just over $71 million. These balances move up and down across the year based on the timing of our auctions. Towards the bottom are the two specific facilities we have agreed to fund PP2.
These amounts are $55 million of the $70 million total spend with Consulmet. The ABSA facility is due to be signed shortly. And the BCI loan facility is in place and has already started to be utilized. It's important to note that we do expect our net debt position to exceed $100 million at points during the next year.
Now if we have a look at the net debt position, this is the graph we have used in a few of our presentations in the past. We are now in a net debt position for the first time since December 2020. But the reasons that we're in a net debt position are quite different to those last time we were in that position.
As we've said a few times, we are investing heavily for growth, particularly MRM, and expect to see tangible improvements in production when PP2 is up and running. It's also worth noting that when we include the $65.5 million of auction receivables at the end of June, which have now all been collected, we would be in a net cash position of $21.2 million.
While we're conscious the graph is going in the wrong direction, the position will likely deepen as we utilize the PP2 debt facilities and until we start to benefit from the large-scale investment after completion in H1 2025.
Finally from me, we'll have a quick look at the discount against net asset value and the enterprise value at the end of June. Clearly, we continue to see a considerable discount to our NAV. It is noticeable that our enterprise value, which is market cap minus net cash or debt, is now at a five-year high, but still far below our net asset value.
As a reminder, we've returned $90 million to our shareholders since May 2022. And we're excited to see the investments, particularly in Mozambique, being able to move the group forward over the next couple of years. Now back to Sean on Gemfields' overall performance against our strategy.
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
Thank you very much, David. Our strategy set out on this slide is unchanged. We always start with health and safety as the bedrock of our approach to responsible mining.
And for those with prior mining experience, you'll be aware that there is a long-standing connection between mines with a strong health and safety record and those that perform well for stakeholders in the medium and long term. Our approach to ESG and transparency also positions us as the leading supplier of responsibly sourced color gems, something which the big brands are spending a lot of time and increasingly money on.
On slide 17, we set out our most important revenue indicator, namely the production of emeralds and rubies in our premium category. Kagem on the left has been performing reasonably through the year. And as David mentioned, we've completed the upgrade to Kagem's processing plant -- that occurred in July -- and increased the capacity from around 30 tonnes per hour to 50 tonnes per hour.
Since August, we've seen a very welcome pickup in our premium emerald production, and this has continued through September. But on the right-hand side, the premium ruby picture at Montepuez Ruby Mining is significantly more challenging. We continue to struggle to recover the same number of premium rubies as we have done in recent years.
We have, this year, faced assorted challenges in accessing preferred mining areas due to the water table that remains in those areas after heavy and protracted rains earlier this year. And we have thus ended up feeding more stockpiled ore, which is not as rich, into our existing processing plant.
Color gemstone deposits, by their very nature, exhibit significant volatility in both the ore grade measured in carats per tonne and also in the quality and size of the gemstones that we recover. This, if you like, double whammy effect certainly adds, if you pardon the pun, some color to operating our mines.
This characteristic also means that there is an element of luck involved in color gemstone deposits. Even when we continue doing all the right things, our production success ebbs and flows due to natural processes that we can't yet predict.
The same tale of two mines can be seen on slide 18. And this shows our next quality category which we get as lower-quality gemstones. But obviously, we get these in higher quantities.
Production in the emerald as opposed to the premium emerald category has been respectable and has seen a respectable pickup in recent months, while the tumble category of ruby continues to lag significantly behind previous years as is evidenced in the graph. The processing plant at MRM is, therefore, a really vital part of being able to process more ore from a wider number of mineralized areas on our license, which remains seriously underexplored.
On slide 19, we show our recent auction results and our schedule for the remaining two auctions of the year shown in orange on the right-hand side. As we announced to the market on September 16, we ran a commercial-quality emerald auction in Jaipur. And that auction saw weaker-than-expected results, with 18 of the 46 lots going unsold after failing to meet our reserve prices.
As I mentioned, we are committed to only selling our gemstones when fair market prices are achieved. And as we've pointed out in today's interim results, which were issued this morning, we do consider it unlikely that our upcoming auctions will see below par results to a similar scope, given that higher-quality gems have demonstrated historically time and again to be more resilient in trickier markets.
On slide 20, Ethiopia remains off limits for us due to the ongoing tricky operating environment. Madagascar, by contrast, remains of great interest. And our colleagues have made a number of visits in recent months with the aim of progressing identified areas of interest. And therefore, we are assessing specific targets.
In Mozambique, we've made the decision to pause for the foreseeable future our principal operations at Megaruma Mining or MML, given that we've struggled to find rubies there and wish to prioritize our other ruby projects at Montepuez Ruby Mining and also Eastern Ruby Mining or ERM, which, as the name implies, lies just to the east of Montepuez Ruby Mining.
We will also be moving MML's processing plant to Eastern Ruby Mining and upgrading that so that ERM comes into production in 2025. Nairoto, our gold project to the north of Montepuez Ruby Mining, has achieved its first inferred resources statement for one of our target areas, which is called TL5.
The signs are promising, and we've received encouraging feedback from gold industry veterans given the significant grades encountered in a number of the intersections. But as before -- and we've stressed this on a number of calls -- gold remains noncore to Gemfields. And we certainly do not wish to build a gold mine. But there is clearly something very interesting at this deposit, and we will consider the most suitable route ahead.
Finally, we have now today written down our 6.54% equity stake in the platinum group metals company Sedibelo to zero. Sedibelo is not presently operating their mine or indeed their processing facilities. And our view is that the medium-term prospects for Sedibelo look dim.
On slide 21, Fabergé continues to bring considerable marketing leverage for our color gems and attract really high-value partners for collaborative promotions. These collaborations have generated remarkable amounts of press coverage for our gems, readily seen if you search up either Fabergé's collaboration with, for example, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice shown on the bottom right or the Fabergé's collaboration with Gemfields in making the Malaika Egg, featuring Mozambique rubies from MRM and which was sold last month for a little shy of USD1 million.
Following Fabergé's exit from Harrods, they are in the process of fitting out a new salon in the Piccadilly Arcade. And that's due to open in mid-November of this year. And we're also looking forward to the second half of 2025 when Fabergé opens a new mono-brand boutique in the Saadiyat Grove Mall, which is currently under construction in Abu Dhabi's museum district.
And finally, we've made significant improvements to the Fabergé website, and that is now running on the Shopify platform as we seek to drive online sales revenue. And lastly, on slide 22, Gemfields has clearly had a mixed operational year while making hefty investments for growth, with those expected to come on stream in the second half of 2025.
We do continue to have strong confidence in the fundamentals of our mines and also our business model. And we'll navigate the next 12 months by carefully monitoring our cash and also our capital allocation.
And while the overall conditions are certainly trickier than they were six months ago, there really is genuine excitement amongst our management team and our team members about the position that we're working hard to be in in 12 months' time and the increased revenues arising after the completion of our ongoing investments and the second processing plant in Mozambique. Back to you, Ian.
Questions and Answers:
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor RelationsThank you, Sean. So we will now go into Q&A. (Event Instructions) So to go into the questions we have received so far, the first relates to the pricing for our rubies and emeralds, and how we're able to look into the market for that.
Does this mean that Gemfields still believes that premium ruby and emerald sales in November will not see price impact? If not, what sort of fall in prices is predicted? And the questioner very helpfully added that this is not hoped for. But they will wait and see.
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
Thank you very much, Ian. Thank you also for the question. I'm happy to take that one. It is extremely difficult in our business to predict forward prices. We do obviously speak with our auction customers.
The very important Hong Kong-German jewelry show has recently concluded. And obviously, we also send representatives to those to speak with customers and to make a general assessment of what the market conditions look like. And the feedback that we've received is that the prices for the very fine gemstones, particularly on the ruby front, remain very robust.
Looking at the general economic picture, we obviously also run a matrix of key economic indicators. We look at things like the key stock exchange indices, not only in Hong Kong but in China, the S&P 500; Thailand, where, obviously, many of our ruby customers are based; GDP growth in key economies; the luxury share prices for both other gemstone producers, luxury goods companies, and the like.
And I think we should expect to see a decline in some of the prices that we expect towards the year-end, except perhaps for the very top-end gemstones. But at the moment, as we see the market, we don't expect to see material drops.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you, Sean. The next is talking about Kagem emerald mine. Has the Kagem plant, which has obviously been recently upgraded, being able to improve premium emerald production yields from the stockpiled ore?
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
Thank you. Very happy to take that one, Ian. So the increase in capacity there is from 30 tonnes per hour to 50 tonnes per hour. And obviously, we have installed a number of new items of equipment, including the primary crusher. We also have a new triple-deck screen. But it is important to note that the fundamental technology being deployed there remains unchanged.
In other words, it's basic mining equipment. And once the material has been through the triple-deck screen, it ends up on different conveyor belts. And at those conveyor belts, we are still using human beings to pick the emeralds off those belts and put them into secure containers.
So whilst I would say there are small increases in the recovery, it will require a more dramatic shift to changes in technology before we see really significant improvements in the recovery. And we do have a project underway at the moment in order to test new technology to automatically identify the emeralds as they come down those picking belts and then to recover them via other means.
That's effectively a laser-based solution that fires two lasers at the gemstones coming down the picking belt and hopefully, improves recovery rates.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Sean. Sticking with Kagem, the August boost in premium emerald, has that continued into September?
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
I'm very happy to report the answer to that is yes. Long may it continue.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you, Sean. The next is talking about the financing for the second processing plant. And I believe the social -- the solar plant that is also in track there. Currently, that project hasn't actually been finalized. So is there any impact on the production time for the PP2 schedule?
David Lovett - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
I'll take that one. So that is correct. The solar plant is not going to be up and running in the same schedule as the new PP2. That was always going to be the case. So we always had a plan to run PP2 on generators when it was first commissioned.
The solar plant will, hopefully, be up and running towards the end of 2026. But that will be updated as we have a proper schedule for that. But there will be no impact in terms of production from PP2. Costs may be slightly higher than we would have expected if the solar plant had been up and running.
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
And we're hoping that we'll achieve financial close on the solar plant, probably, towards the end of Q1 2025.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Perfect. All right. Thank you, David. Thank you, Sean. The next question is about Sedibelo and our 6.54% stake there.
Could Sedibelo become a source of ongoing earnings volatility through streams of revaluations, i.e., would a modest PGM price increase catalyze the revaluation or something more significant?
Sean Gilbertson - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
Thank you, Ian. Very interesting question. In calls of this nature, they say, never say never. However, I would consider it extremely unlikely.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you, Sean. The next question is around CapEx. Can you please provide us with a clear summary of CapEx in 2024 for the full year for the group per operations and including capitalized development expenditures?
David Lovett - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
So I'll take that one in. So as you can see in the interim report released this morning, our CapEx in H1 was just under $4 million at Kagem and around $22 million at MRM. In terms of genuine CapEx development projects, that was around $1.6 million. And on top of that, you had $6.5 million of capitalized expenditure on those projects.
In terms of H2, what we can say for sure is that the payments towards PP2 will continue. That should be in the region of $20 million to $30 million, depending on how quickly the contractors move. Kagem, I would expect to be lower, if not the same as H1. So we don't expect a big pickup there.
And the same with development projects, I would say we don't expect any significant CapEx spend at any of our smaller projects in the second half. In terms of 2025, it's very hard for us to give accurate forecast in terms of CapEx at this point. The reality is, it does depend largely on how the auctions go in the next few months. And we will come back to the market when we have more information on that.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you, David. To further that question, could you please do the same but for 2025 full year?
David Lovett - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
Sorry, I covered that one already. In terms of 2025, like I said, I don't expect to be able to give an accurate forecast at this point. PP2 costs will remain.
So to remind you, that total project is $70 million. And therefore, whatever isn't paid in the second half of this year will roll into 2025. Other than that, there are no significant projects on the books. But depending on how the auctions go, that may change.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you, David. On to another couple of questions. (Event Instructions) The next is around the clarification of the timing for the BCI and the absolute term loans for the payment of the second processing plant.
David Lovett - Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
I'll take that one in. So as we mentioned briefly in the presentation, the BCI term loan has been signed. It has been utilized already. The balance is currently around $20 million. And so the next payment towards PP2 is likely to come out of that facility.
The ABSA facility is in the final stages of review. I would hope to have that signed in the next few weeks, certainly before the end of the year. And we will start drawing on that alongside the final payments for PP2.
Ian Hughes - Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you. The remaining question that we had was asking around the timing for MRM and the solar part. But I believe we've already covered that earlier. At the moment, we don't have any further questions. So with that, I will happily start to close the call.
If you would like to ask any more questions or you'd like to speak to myself on a one-to-one basis, please feel free to reach out at [email protected]. Otherwise, please enjoy the rest of your day, and thank you for joining us.
Call participants:
Corporate ParticipantsIan Hughes, Gemfields Group Ltd - Head of Investor Relations
Sean Gilbertson, Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director
David Lovett, Gemfields Group Ltd - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director
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PresentationRefinitiv StreetEvents Transcript
Half Year 2024 Gemfields Group Ltd Earnings Call
Sep 27, 2024 / 08:00AM GMT
