Regis Resources Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Regis Resources Limited half-year results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jim Beyer, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Andrea, and thanks, everybody, for joining us on this Regis Resources December half-year financial results for FY24. I'm joined this morning by our CFO, Anthony Rakiki, and also our Chief Operating Officer, Michael Holmes. Now, before we kick off, I'll let you know that we'll be referring to various slides that are in a pack that we released earlier this morning. If you don't have the document, it can be downloaded from our website or from the ASX. Pardon me. Well, it's been a satisfying half year across a number of areas in our business. Top of the list has been delivering safe, consistent and on-plan operating performance. Pleasingly, our key safety frequency rate remains well below the industry average as reported by Demers. with an healthy lost time injury frequency rate of 0.66. Gold production and all-in sustaining costs are right on guidance. And for the December harvest, we produced just under 221,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,119 an ounce. And that included just a little bit over $100 an ounce of non-cash stockpile inventory change charges. Our half-year performance reflects the impact of a steady state at our new Gardenwell South underground mine and also the contribution of the Havana open pit cutback, which is still settling into its rhythm but expected to be steady by the end of this financial year. The resulting performance demonstrates the cash-generating capacity of our operating business and our operating assets. This combined with the very significant step of closing out our hedge book in December and breaking free of the milestone means Regus has now very clearly moved into a much stronger state of profitability and cash flow generation at current gold price levels as we're now fully exposed to the upside potential that exists for the gold price. With this major change to our revenue profile going forward, we're expecting strong profits and cash build in the second half of FY24. Further, the balance sheet is solid with low leverage ratios and the consistent operating cash flows will be used to support future growth options. What I'll do now is I'll hand over to Anthony to take us through some more of the detail on the half-year results.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. I'll start by having you all turn to slide four of the slideshow that Jim was referring to there, where you can see that the period delivered a solid half year of gold production, well on track to meet our full year guidance expectations. The open pit material movement is as per plan for Duketon, but tracking lower period on period due to the destacking of garden well stage six and the reduction in open pit sources at Duketon North, which has also impacted the open pit ore mine. Lower grade ore stockpiles offset the open pit ore mine for mill feed. Tropicana was slightly below the corresponding period's material movement due to their pit scheduling and ground control for wall stability. Underground development at Duketon proceeded above plan as the mine expands and opens up new mining fronts, which also positively impacted the period-on-period underground ore mine. All mills was impacted at Duketon by throughput rates due to the reduction in the softer material from the ladderite pits and harder stockpile material being processed. The grade of the undergrounds offsets the majority of the impact of the lower stockpile feed. Gold production was impacted by the reduced throughput with slightly lower period-on-period grade at Duketon. Now on to slide five of the PACS. which shows the consistently favourable sales revenue achievement, bolstered by the higher prevailing gold spot prices, but still affected by the 57,000 and final ounces of gold we sold into the hedge book in the six-month period. Statutory cash flows from operations were $126 million. The statutory loss was $92 million. However, the underlying EBITDA was a very positive $167 million. Slide six, that shows the cash and bullion movement during the period. You may be familiar with this chart from our recent December quarterly report. The main thing to note there is that the company increased its cash and bullion balance by $90 million in the half year before hedge deliveries and hedge book buyout costs. Those two things totaling $179 million. Hence why the cash and bullion balance has dropped since June. Anyway, what it's showing us is that there's a profitable... cash generating underlying business. Additionally, $160 million was invested across mine development, exploration, the McPhillamy's development project and other plant and equipment. This meant the company finished the period with a cash and bullion balance of $155 million. Ahead of us, in addition to much better cash generation expected from operating without any further hedge losses, We're also expecting a $20 million tax refund in the second half of the financial year. Now look at the profit and loss over on slide 7. This chart breaks down our income statement and reveals that the underlying business, free of hedging, would have created a $47 million profit before tax or say about $33 million after tax. After the 57,000 ounces of hedge deliveries made in the six months, the buyout of the remaining 63,000 ounces of hedge contracts and then the tax adjustment for the period, the statutory net loss after tax totaled $92 million. For your reference, slide 8 illustrates the differences between the underlying EBITDA and the statutory net loss period. What are those differences? Well, in this slide, you'll see the company made inventory net realisable value adjustments and exploration write-offs of $7 million and spent $98 million closing out those final 63,000 ounces in the hedge book. We did that in December. Looking back on what I've talked to you about this morning, there are some complexities in there that have to be pointed out so that you can see the underlying business is profitable and most importantly, makes positive cash flows. The second half of this financial year won't have those hedge transactions to muddy the waters, and at these production rates and gold prices, I look forward to a simpler way to illustrate good business results. Thank you, and back to you, Jim.