Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc

So by way of introduction, I'm Mark Liamont, Caledonia's chief executive, proud of that as a CFO, as you may well know. I'd also like to take some time to introduce Victor Gapare, who's an executive director, joined the group in January following the acquisition of Bilbo. So I'd just like to give Victor an opportunity to introduce himself, please, Victor.

Thank you, Mark. My name is Victor Gapare. I worked for Anglo-American Corporation Zimbabwe for 16 years. And my last job in Anglo was director for the gold and pyrite mining division. I left Anglo-American at the beginning of 2003, after I had completed the management buyout of the gold and pyrite businesses, which I was managing at that time. From 1 January 2003, I became the chief executive officer of Bilbo's. So I have been chief executive of Bilbos until we completed the transaction with Caledonia in January 2023. Between 2009 and 2011, I was also president of the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe. Basically, the Chamber of Mines is the organization which represents organized mining in Zimbabwe. And it includes suppliers and service providers to the mining industry, as well as professionals in the mining industry. During the time, over the last few years, really from 2010, I led the Billboss team, which raised the first $6 million from Baker Steel Resources Trust, which is listed on the land and stock exchange. So we used that money to carry out exploration, to begin exploration at the Billboss properties. In 2013, we raised the further $10 million which helped us progress the feasibility study. Also in 2013, we also raised another $7 million debt from the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, which enabled us to restart our operations after we had closed them during the hyperinflation period. So basically that's a little bit about me. Thank you, Mark.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Victor. And then Also, Chester Goodburn, who replaced me as CFO last year. And we've got Donna Roots, who's the Chief Operating Officer, been with us for about 10 years now. Maurice Mason, Vice President of Corporate Development. Adam Chester, our General Counsel. And Camilla Horsfall, who is Vice President, Group Communications. Okay, so let's get into the meat of the presentation. Just in terms of results, highlights, production, all disclosed previously. increasing from about 58,000 ounces in 2020 to just over 80,000 ounces in 2022, which is good. We've not been helped much by the gold price. So all the increase in revenue is largely driven by higher production. Gross profit up from 46 million to 54 million to nearly 62 million. But you will notice there has been a slight compression in the gross margin from about 46% in 2020 to 43% in 2022. And that reflects the... general increase in our operating costs offset by economies of scale. And then I'll also draw your attention to the dividend, which we've increased from 33 and a half cents in 2020 to last year, we did 56 cents. But again, more information about that later. Okay, all of this we'll come into more detail later. Just a few words on safety, if I may. Very unfortunately, we had a fatality in 2022 and a further fatality in 2023. Donna may want to talk about this more, but it's fair to say that fatalities resulted from non-adherence to prescribed safety procedures. And our response to that has to be to redouble our attempts to enforce adherence to safety procedures. Clearly, fatalities are very distressing events, but we just have to work harder to try and make sure that people adopt the safe working practices that we set out. Other than that, a general safety performance compares quite well with other similar deep-level mines in the gold sector. Donald, would you like to add anything further to what I've said there?