Vault Minerals Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Red 5 Full Year Financial Results for FY23. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, first for teleconference participants, followed by online questions from webcast participants. For teleconference participants, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. For webcast participants, if you wish to ask a question, please do so by selecting the blue hand symbol located in the top right icon on the webcast. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Matthew Collins, Corporate Development Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone on the call. On the call today, we have Mark Williams, Red 5's Managing Director, along with Chief Financial Officer Patrick Duffy and Chief Operating Officer Richard Hay. We'll present this morning's FY23 financial results, referencing the slide deck that was released to the market earlier today alongside the financial report. As explained by the operator, there will be time for Q&A at the end of the presentation, and I'll now hand over to Red 5's Managing Director, Mark Williams, to step through our ESG highlights.

Thanks Matt. Moving on to slide four. Very pleasingly, we finished the financial year with a much improved safety performance. After a renewed focus on safety by the whole team, no recordable injuries occurred during the last four months of the year. This resulted in a notable reduction to the 12 month moving TRIFA rate down to nine from 15.5 quarter on quarter. No environmental compliance breaches occurred during the financial year. And as part of the board renewal process, I'm delighted to welcome Russell Clarke and Peter Johnson to the Red 5 board. Russell is the new chair and Peter is a non-executive director. Both Russell and Peter are very accomplished directors with extensive mining and governance experience.

over to you patrick for the financial results in detail thanks mark we'll go back to slide three please uh red five has been through a challenging 12 months uh however the company is now in a much stronger position generating very good cash flow from our new king of the hills gold line king of the hills produced first gold on the 5th of june 2022 And it wasn't until we completed the cutback of the open pit and access the primary ore body in February 2023 that the new mine has started generating consistent, strong operating cash flows. Despite this, Red 5 had an EBITDA of $96.1 million and cash flow from operations of $47 million and recorded a small net loss of $8.7 million for the financial year. In December, we declared commercial production, providing guidance on the second half of the financial year, which, pleasingly, we were able to hit the upper end of production and the midpoint of the cost guidance with an all-in sustaining cost of $1,837 per ounce. At 30 June, our balance sheet is in a more stable position with cash and bullion of $46 million. a net debt position of $82 million and having reduced the net debt position by $56 million in the second half of the financial year since 31st of December 2022. Let's go to slide five, please. 2023 was a year of transformation. It's hard to believe a year ago, we were a little over a year ago, we were based at the Darlow Gold Mine and processing ore at a much smaller plant at Darlow. We have accordingly increased our revenue by 156% going from $165 million of sales revenue in FY 2022 to $423 million in FY 2023. As mentioned, we had first gold on the 5th of June 2022 and we closed the Darlo process plant in July 2022. Commercial production was declared on the 16th of December 2022, and then subsequently we were able to complete the cutback of the stage one in the open pit in February 2023. Since then, we've had four months of consecutive record monthly production from March to June, which has resulted in strong operating cash flows for the company. The King of the Hills Process Plant is now operating at 5.5 million tonnes per annum, a 35% increase on the former nameplate capacity. I do note that with the net loss of $8.7 million, we have treated all revenue and expenses through the P&L since the 1st of July 2022, whereas the accounting standards changed only 12 months ago and previously, Revenue and expenses up until commercial production would have previously been capitalised and taken to the balance sheet. It goes to the next slide. Not surprisingly, the cash reconciliation probably takes provides a better view of the year that we've had. Which included a raising $152 million additional equity to support the business during the financial year. Three drivers behind this additional equity We're firstly relating to the delays in the cutback of the open pit, where previously we had expected to get there in October and didn't get there until February 2023, which was impacted by the shortages of labour in the Western Australian mining industry and particularly impacted by COVID absenteeism and the reopening of borders in 2022. The delays in getting to the higher grade ore in this zone and also which reduced our production and also having to carry an additional four to five months of fixed costs significantly impacted the financial position of the company. The second driver is related to this and was the impact of the delays on the process plant. which is designed to process hard rock that suffered greatly from the reliance on a higher oxide blend as we're waiting to hit the primary ore body in the open pit. Since that point in time in February 2023, we have seen a dramatic turnaround in the performance of the process plant, which is now operating at much higher availability levels, higher throughput and higher recoveries than were expected. The third driver relates to the underground mine, which took 12 months to ramp up to full productivity levels. However, since April is now achieving the expected tons of grade in the underground. And looking forward, we're much more confident and more bullish about the future of the King of the Hills underground coal mine. The only other material point item to note that we haven't discussed elsewhere in the presentation in this chart is the $20 million that was invested in the construction of the Paving Storage Facility 5, which we finished in April and May of 2023, and which is now a long-term asset for the company. Next slide, please. Pleasingly, we've now laid solid foundations for the company with a stable balance sheet at the 30th of June and looking forward to a stronger balance sheet in FY24 as a result of generating strong cash flows from King of the Hills. At 30th of June 2023, all creditors were within normal trading terms, and this has continued in July and August of this financial year. Our current ratio of 1.3 times compares favourably with our peers in the gold industry. At the 30th of June, our net debt position was $82 million, which consisted of cash and bullion of $46 million, offset by the outstanding debt that we have with Macquarie, BNP and HSBC of $128 million. For FY24, we have scheduled repayments of $23 million. However, it is our intention to accelerate the debt repayments with a view to refinancing the debt facility in calendar year of 2024. Finally, I just note that we have a hedge book of 313,000 ounces, an average price of $2,526 per ounce, at the 30th of June, which is required by our lenders and represents approximately 40% of our production during the remaining three year loan period. It is our intention to continue to deliver on a monthly basis into those scheduled forward hedges and reduce the hedge book down to a more sustainable level. On that note, I'll hand back to Mark.

Thanks, Patrick. Moving on to slide eight. The company reaffirms its FY24 production guidance of 195,000 to 215,000 ounces at an oil and sustaining cost of $1850 to $2100 per ounce. Our three mining operations at Darlow, King of the Hills Underground and King of the Hills Open Pit continue to perform strongly. and our process plant is humming along and expected to operate at an average of 5.5 million tonnes per annum throughout this, on average through FY24, well above its main plate capacity. To underscore, our goal for this financial year is a simple one, to generate, to deliver against our targets safely, efficiently and cost effectively, generating positive cash flow and targeting to accelerate our debt payments. This will provide the company with a robust balance sheet for future growth as we continue to unlock the potential of our long life mining operation at King of the Hills.

Next slide, please. And that is our final slide for today. Before I pass back to the operator for the Q&A section of today's call, I'd like to remind everyone that you can subscribe to our mailing list via our website or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to get regular insights as to what is happening at the company. I'll now hand back to the operator for the Q&A.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. Our first question comes from the line of Paul Caner with Ord Minette. Please go ahead.

Hi, gents. Thanks for taking my question. Just remind me again, if you could, just the planned shutdowns that you have for the mill through FY24, please.

Yeah, Paul, the planned shutdowns for the September quarter, the December quarter, and I believe the June quarter, so three planned shutdowns. We've already completed the mill and crusher shutdown in July. this quarter and there's two more to schedule for the rest of the financial year.

Yep two again and the downtime in the September quarter on the back of that shutdown?

In the end I think it's close to six to seven days but yeah again that's behind us and and we're now well ahead of performing really well against our expected targets.

Yeah, no jobs. Thanks.

Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. There are currently no further questions from the teleconference. I'll now hand the call over to Mr. Matthew Collings to address questions from the webcast.

Thank you. A couple of questions from the webcast. The first is one that perhaps we didn't communicate very well at our July-August update on performance. We've had a couple of questions on why monthly production updates have stopped. It was our intention and communicated at the time, but not widely enough. With hindsight, to stop those and revert to a regular quarterly reporting schedule once we were through the ramp up and sort of stabilised operations at King of the Hills, and that's our intention going forward. Everything is on track for Q1 to be aligned with our stated guidance, but we'll be reporting on a quarterly basis and sticking to that schedule as we go forward from this point. A second question somewhat related to that. Can we expect to see the same cash flows for the next two quarters as we saw in Q4 of last year? And unless anyone else has anything to say, my basic point for our guidance and for our cash flows is that the Q3 and Q4 combined average is probably a better indication of our path forward. But I'll speak to Patrick Duffy who might have further to say.

Yeah, I think that's the best expectation to average the second half performance is a good indication of what FY24 will be.

Next question, working through the list, July and August production looking like more akin to the June or the March quarter. I would just say that, again, the The July and August results so far are on track to maintain our FY24 guidance figures that we've provided to the market.

And... I'll just jump in. I think just to repeat Mark's words, all three mines are performing really well and both undergrounds particularly are knocking it out of the park and the process plant continues to perform strongly.

For Patrick on the debt facilities, a combination of questions. Why the target to refinance in 2024 and what would be the ideal debt facility post refinancing?

Yeah, good question. So we have a project financing facility that is typical for a new project with the three lenders, but there are constraints within that project finance facility and it differs from a standard corporate facility that are an established mid-tier coal producer would have. And there's constraints on capital distributions, there's constraints on growth expenditure and more onerous covenants. And we're also required to pay quarterly repayments under a sort of planned schedule. Whereas the intent, if we can reduce the debt on an accelerated basis, is to convert that to a corporate facility typically with a three to five year bullet payment, so a payment at the end of the loan term rather than having to service on a quarterly basis and moving away from the constraints that you have on capital distributions or growth capital.

There is another question on the interest rates and interest applicable in the finance facilities, but I'll deal with that one offline. Patrick, I don't think all of the details are out there, so we'll just have to talk through and double-check what's there. And one question for Mark, just on the skills and the new board members who have come and what skill set they do bring to the Red 5 board.

Thanks, Matt. I think I touched on this earlier in the presentation. Both Russell and Peter have have many decades of experience in mining across the globe, particularly here in Australia, and they bring significant experience of mining the industry and also governance. So we're delighted to welcome Russell and Peter earlier in July to welcome to the board.

Thank you, Mark. Last question from the webcast. Hedge book was discussed. Can you unpack a little on how the hedge book can be reduced? We have a scheduled set of hedges in place and they'll be unwound in line with that schedule. We published the schedule yesterday. Within the last two quarterly reports, I'll have to go back and find out which one, but essentially we're on a repayment schedule of about 100,000 ounces per year on those hedges, and they'll be paid down in line with their maturity and in line with the terms of the hedges that we've signed up to with the banks. That was the last of the questions from the webcast. I'll hand back to the operator now to... close the meeting, but thank you to everyone who has dialed in, and we look forward to updating the market on our Q1 results in October. Operator, thank you. That ends today's call.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.