Regis Resources Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Regis Resources half year results briefing. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question press the star one again. For operator assistance at any time please press star zero and finally I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to welcome Jim Beyer, Managing Director and CEO to begin the conference. Jim, over to you.

Thanks, Paulie. Good morning, everyone, and thanks all for being on the call with Regis Resources for our December 2026 half-year financial results. I'm joined by our CFO, Anthony Rikiki, our COO, Michael Holmes, and our new Head of Investor Relations, Matthew Collins. Welcome, Matthew. On this call, we'll be referring to various slides that are in the pack that was released earlier this morning, and if you don't have it, the document can be downloaded from our website or the ASX. Pardon me. So now moving through the slides to slide number three, this is a great slide, and it highlights the continuing step-up in financial performance for the half underpinned, of course, by the favourable gold price environment. Running down the list, of financial results, we're very pleased with the continued uplift in earnings, in profitability, in cash generation, reporting both a record net profit after tax and cash flow for the period. Across our assets, we've seen solid and consistent operational performance, which we expect to continue into the second half of the year. Coal production and all in sustaining costs for the first half of FY26 was in line with expectations. at nearly 187,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $28.50 per ounce and that includes a $188 an ounce non-cash charge for stockpile inventory drawdown. Now, we sold our gold into another period of record spot gold prices and at the end of December, we finished with $930 million of cash and bullion after a build of $430 million in just six months. Furthermore, The company is debt free. Our balance sheet is in a very strong position and given the cash generating capability of our assets, it continues to strengthen each day which positions us well to capitalise on growth opportunities. In line with our strong balance sheet position, the board has formalised a new capital management policy which we have also released today. The new policy provides a clear structure for returning capital to shareholders while also prudently allocating capital to existing operations, maintaining a strong balance sheet and funding continued growth. We expect to pay a fully franked ordinary dividends on a semi-annual basis, having regard, of course, to prevailing cash and bull imbalances, business cash flows, available franking credits and other capital allocation priorities. Ordinary dividend payments are expected to represent between 25% and 50% of the group cash increase over the preceding half financial year. Now this has led us to the declaration of a $0.15 per share fully franked dividend for the half for a total of about $114 million and we look forward to being able to continue to deliver strong shareholder returns. And with that, I'll hand over to Anthony to take us through a bit more of the detail on the half-year results.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everybody. I'll start by having you all turn to slide number four. And with that, as well as the very impressive financial performance, as we discussed in the recent quarterly, the half-year outcomes show we are very much on track for our full-year guidance numbers. We sold 182,000 ounces of gold into an increasing spot price market, realising just under $6,000 an ounce over the period, and that underpins high cash inflows and overall profitability. Those cash flows resulted in $639 million of statutory operating cash flow. Remarkably, we also delivered a $323 million net profit after tax, a record, as Jim mentioned, compared to the $88 million in the first half of FY25. And you'll see on the bottom of slide four that the change in the net cash and bullion was a whopping 306% increase, remembering that we had $300 million in debt at 31 December 24, and we're obviously debt-free now. You'll see some more of the cash build-up in the upcoming slides in this presentation. Now, just turning to slide five, and that shows the cash and bullion movement during the period. You'll be familiar with this chart from our recent December quarterly report, which is in the format that we've been using for a long time now in our quarterlies. So this chart includes our bullion on hand, which is valued at market price rather than at cost in this instance. If you have any questions on the difference in the presentation of these cash flows versus our statutory cash flow statement in the half-year report, please feel free to ask and we can point you to the differences in classifications, et cetera. Now, reading this chart, it's clear to see that our operations generated in excess of $700 million in the half and we spent $190 million on capital, inclusive of our growth projects. $39 million on expiration and $10 million at McPhillamy's. Additionally, $19 million of expenditure was for corporate costs, interest and facility fees. And of course, you can see the $38 million dividend payment we made back in October. Moving on to slide six now, you can see a simple yet effective representation of the ability of our assets to generate significant cash. Over the past six months the business has generated $413 million of cash and bullion and look at that since December 2023, over a billion dollars. Importantly, this is not by doing anything extraordinary, it is by being unhedged and by delivering what we said we would do and doing so in a healthy spot gold price environment. Now onto our income statement and that's at slide seven. The layout on this slide shows our income statement and the simple, transparent flow from our sales to our statutory net profit. During the half year, gold sales revenue was up 40% off the back of record spot gold prices. Costs of goods sold were similar to last time round and finance costs were down, now with the extinguished debt. But you'll see tax expenses up and you'd expect that off the back of such high pre-tax profits. And that's a reminder for you all that we move back to tax payments in cash from next month. So all said and done, the half-year profit after tax is a magnificent $323 million, up 267% on the corresponding half. Now, following on from... All of the strong cash flows and profits I've mentioned, naturally our shareholders' minds turn to dividends and other shareholder returns. The Board has responded to this with a new capital management policy, the key elements of which are summarised there on slide number eight. The first immediate result of this new policy is the declaration of a 15 cents per share fully franked dividend, a significant increase on the 5 cents per share dividend we paid back in October last year. And importantly, we look forward to making French dividends a regular part of the investment experience in Regis. Thank you, and back to you, Jim.