5/8/2025

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Good day and welcome to the Co-Mining First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitchell Craft, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining our call today to discuss our first quarter results. Joining me are Mick Routledge, Eva McGrath and Tom Whelan and we will all be available to answer questions at the end of the call. Before we start, please note our cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and refer to our SEC filings on our website. The first quarter highlights shown on slide three summarize our solid start to the year which led to the fourth consecutive quarter of positive EPS and another quarter of positive free cash flow. These were great outcomes considering the first quarter is expected to be our lightest quarter of the year and we had several one-time and quarter specific items that we had previously telegraphed. The combination of higher prices, the addition of Silvercrest liquidity and a partial quarter from Los Chispas along with Rochester's progress toward achieving steady state and consistent performance from our other operations drove these strong results which allowed us to eliminate nearly 130 million dollars of debt and metal prepay facilities in the quarter and leave us well positioned to achieve our full year guidance ranges. We're now set to accelerate the pace of further debt reductions based on strong anticipated silver and gold production growth from our balanced portfolio of five North American operations. This growth is expected to drive full year adjusted EBITDA to over 700 million dollars and free cash flow to more than 300 million dollars which should leave us with a year-end leverage ratio close to zero. It was only a few quarters ago when annualized adjusted EBITDA was only about 100 million dollars free cash flow was negative 300 million dollars and our leverage ratio was over four times which highlights the degree of change now underway at the company. Just a couple of other points before turning the call over to Mick. First on Los Chispas the integration is proceeding smoothly the operation delivered very strong high-grade production at extremely low costs during the portion of the quarter that we owned it. As we anticipated the teams have gelled exceptionally well. On the exploration front recent emphasis on near mine drilling resulted in a significant discovery in the gap zone between the Bobby Kenora and Los Chispas zones. In addition several high grade results have been received in and adjacent to the Los Chispas zone. IFA will share some additional details on these developments in a few minutes. Second in our interactions with current and prospective shareholders one of the most popular topics is our thought process for deploying the accelerating cash flows we anticipate generating in the coming quarters. It's a great conversation to have given the years of heavy investment that's been made to position the company like it is right when gold and silver prices are rising. Our board is committed to pursuing ways to generate per share value for our shareholders and we're actively engaged with them about how best to accomplish that while continuing to strengthen the balance sheet and reinvest in the business given the number of attractive opportunities that exist within the company. We look forward to continuing the conversations with our shareholders and with our board as we deliver on what should be a record year for the company and we'll provide more details as we have them. Finally we published our 2024 responsibility report today which is summarized on slide 20. Being responsible stewards and acting with integrity and respect are central to our mission of pursuing a higher standard and I encourage you to have a look and read about everything we've accomplished over the past year. Mick over to you.

speaker
Mick Routledge
Senior Vice President, Operations

Thanks Mitch. The addition of Las Chispas, Rochester's ramp up and consistent contributions from the rest of the main sites were the main headlines during first quarter. Before getting into the details of our good start to 2025 I'm happy to report that based on Emsha data Co finished 2024 as the safest mining company amongst our peers in the United States marking our third consecutive year of doing so. We take a lot of pride in our deeply entrenched safety culture and we will continue to set the bar high in this critical area. Mitch mentioned the word balanced in describing our portfolio of mines and it bears noting that with the additions of Las Chispas and the expanded Rochester Co's asset base has never been more balanced with no single operation contributing more than roughly a quarter of total revenue. That is quite a departure from past years when revenue from Palmariejo alone approached 50% of the total in some periods. The importance of having all mines making meaningful contributions spreads operating risk and lends consistency and predictability to our overall portfolio. Going through the sites and starting with our newest Las Chispas. Partial first quarter production of 714,000 ounces of silver and over 7,000 ounces of gold was right down the fairway versus Silvercrest's budget. Daily average mine production exceeding 1,300 tons per day was better than planned bringing in higher margin ounces with casper ounce for gold and silver coming to $744 and $8.38 respectively for the period. Slide seven provides a great reminder of how special Las Chispas is in terms of grade, cost and margin profile. Starting with Mexico, the Palmariejo team delivered another solid quarter. Gold production was up 2% and silver production up 9% compared to the fourth quarter driven by good productivity in Guadalupe to finish the quarter strongly. The Palmariejo and Las Chispas teams are engaging with sharing of best practices and new perspectives taking place in both directions with lots of opportunities to realize efficiencies and productivity enhancements in Coors expanded Mexico operations footprint as well as sharing and working with our teams at Kensington and Silvertip. Turning to Rochester, crusher performance continued to improve with optimization of the mile long three stage crushing circuit and this remains job number one. The team placed 7 million tons during the quarter relying less on direct to pad tons than in the prior quarter as more material goes through the crusher. The team continues to work down the line to identify and implement adjustments and modifications to progress improvements in availability. Recovery rates continue to track to predicted levels and are expected to trend higher as the average crush size trends down throughout the year towards an expected average of seven eighths of an inch which is what our budget and reaffirmed full year guidance assumes. One other note on Rochester, the team commenced the 8 million ton stripping campaign for the removal of the stage one and two reclaimed leach pads to allow for infill drilling later in the year as we look to bring forward higher grade material into Rochester's main plan. Moving to Kensington, gold production increased by 6% compared to the first quarter a year ago with the operation well positioned to reap the benefits of the multi-year investment in underground and mine development and exploration and a return to positive free cash flow this year. Finishing up with Wharf, first quarter production came in slightly higher compared to the first quarter of last year as weather tends to pose challenges there during the winter months but Wharf is well positioned to deliver another strong year in 2025. With that I will pass the call over to Aoife.

speaker
Eva McGrath
VP, Exploration

Thanks Mick. Exploration got off to a very strong start in 2025 with as many as 21 rigs active in the quarter with encouraging results across the board. As a recap, the company's exploration investment in 2025 is expected to total 77 to 93 million dollars of which approximately 85% is focused on expansion and scout drilling. At last his pass the key aims were to complete the integration of the team and reorient exploration programs from the wider region to a greater focus on the main asset. This integration has now been completed and programs aimed at maintaining a steady mine life are in place. You can see on slide 9 more details about a notable new discovery that was made during the quarter of a new vein called Augusta which to date has been defined over 200 meters along strike and 150 meters down depth. It is running multi-kilo silver, very high grade gold and remains open in every direction. In addition to the highly encouraging discovery in the gap zone, drilling on multiple veins on and adjacent to the last Chis Plus block have returned high grade intercepts that show increasing strike length on each vein. Early days at last Chis Plus but very encouraging results from the outset. At Palmoreo ongoing programs encompass the full spectrum of exploration from district scale target generation through to expansion drilling. A pilot program of high resolution geophysics was flown in late 2024 and is proving highly impactful. Exploration can now more accurately identify the subsurface locations of favorable host rocks and structures meaning scout drilling should assess targets more efficiently. An exciting structural study and mineralization review was also undertaken during the quarter which shows consistent styles of mineralization across the district indicating very high prospectivity in all four major belts, three of which are still underexplored and are shown on slide 10. The recently signed agreement gives us full access to the entire Guadalpare Zajido area that covers Independencia sewer and the historic San Miguel and La Union resources along with many other targets in the Guadalpare's trend in the northeast of the claim block. Also of note during the quarter is the validation drilling that commenced at Independencia sewer. Drilling testing the historic Fresno resources and their continuity from established veins and mines on core ground is proving highly encouraging with high grade results in the corridor. At Silvertip a brand new geological model was completed which is proving an exciting tool for targeting and exploration program planning. In addition we more than tripled the land package at Silvertip in the first quarter by staking over 60 kilometers of strike length of respective ground that has the same geologic setting as Silvertip. With that I'll pass the call over to Tom.

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks Aoife. I'll begin with a brief review of our one-queue financial results, our first quarter with the inclusion of Las Chispas albeit for only 45 days. Despite our lightest production quarter we are proud to be able to report a fourth consecutive quarter of net income and a third quarter of free cash flow. With the previously telegraphed messy first quarter behind us we look forward to a series of boringly predictable quarters as we embark on the final steps on our journey of achieving our deleveraging goal of net debt to EBITDA of nil. As noted on slide 11 with just under 90,000 ounces of gold and 4 million ounces of silver sold during the quarter we got serious sneak peek at what the consolidated core portfolio can generate in terms of financial results. Key financial headlines for the quarter included revenue of 360 million dollars, quarterly adjusted EBITDA of 149 million dollars, net income of 33 million dollars and free cash flow of 18 million dollars. We were pleased to see our adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 41 percent during Q1 essentially doubling from the prior year. As we had flagged during the year end conference call there were several one timers and first quarter specific matters totaling 130 million dollars which impacted our Q1 free cash flow. Slide 13 provides a clean snapshot of these five items. Helping to offset these outflows was the monetization of 72 million dollars from Silvercrest finished goods and bullion balances we inherited on the closing of the transaction. The monetization did not flow through the revenue line but did positively impact the Las Chispas operating segment free cash flow. Excluding the monetization Las Chispas Q1 free cash flow was 20 million dollars not too shabby for six weeks. It is important to highlight that absent these one timers and first quarter specific items first quarter free cash flow would have been approximately 76 million dollars. Based on our updated forecast pricing of 2900 and 32 dollars for gold and silver respectively we expect to generate on average 75 to 100 million dollars of free cash flow per quarter for the rest of 2025. Note three of the interim financial statements in the 10Q provides the details of our preliminary purchase price allocation of Silvercrest. Three important accounting nuances that we wanted to highlight include first the inventory acquired in the approximately 150,000 ton stockpile at Las Chispas was recorded at fair value which will lead to higher costs applicable to sales as we monetize the inventory from the stockpile. We have disclosed Las Chispas adjusted CAS and the earnings to give you a sense of the accounting impact. Secondly with just over a billion dollars allocated to the mineral property and plant property and equipment of Las Chispas expect higher amortization expense. Third there are nearly 300 million dollars of deferred tax liabilities which arose as a result of the purchase price accounting. These deferred tax liabilities will unwind as we amortize the mineral property and plant property and equipment balances which will impact future income tax expense every quarter. It is important to note that none of the above items impact free cash flow but they will impact net income. Slide 15 tells the story of Coors rapidly strengthening balance sheet. With the help of Silvercrest pristine balance sheet not only did we use their finished goods and bullion balances to help offset an otherwise messy first quarter we use the closing cash acquired of approximately 100 million dollars to begin building our cash balances up to 78 million dollars at the end of March and we repaid another 85 million dollars on our revolving credit facility which at quarter end stood at only 110 million dollars drawn. We expect that the remaining revolver balance should be repaid by the third quarter of this year and maybe sooner if prices can remain at these elevated levels. A significant benefit of this debt reduction is that we expect to cut our interest expense in half versus the 2024 level of 51 million dollars. I'll now pass the call back to Mitch.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Tom. Before moving to the Q&A I want to quickly highlight slide 17 that summarizes our top priorities over the remainder of 2025. With several key company catalysts now converging at the same time that prices are reaching much higher levels we offer investors peer leading leverage to both silver and gold and provide our shareholders with exposure to a rapidly strengthening profile as 2025 unfolds. We look forward to updating you as we deliver what should be a record year for core mining. With that let's go ahead and open it up for questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question please press star then two. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our Q&A session. The first question comes from Wayne Lam with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

speaker
Wayne Lam
Analyst, TD Securities

Yeah thanks. Morning guys. Hey Wayne. Maybe just that Rochester. Good to see the increase in times through the crushing circuit. Just wondering when you would expect to see the benefit of that roll through the silver recoveries and then just curious on the direct to pad material is this quarter representative of the percentage of DTP material that you would expect on a run rate basis or would you expect that percentage through the crusher to increase as well over the coming quarters?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah thanks. Thanks Wayne. I'll start and then Mick you can add to my answer. Look the team out there is doing a great job stepping up to this much higher mining and processing rate. Two and a half times increase over prior years whether it's at the mining, crushing, processing, refining, recoveries or tracking model. Grades are nicely ahead. We produced what we expected in the first quarter. We've kind of repeatedly proven to ourselves a crusher can do what we need it to do both from a throughput and a crush size standpoint. So we're pleased with how things are going. I think the budget and guidance are built off a seven eighths inch target. I think to the first quarter that was at about 0.925 for the material that went through all three stages of crushing. So as we see that crush size continue to trend down we'll see those recoveries continue to go up and confident that we can hit our full year guidance like we suggested in our release this morning. As far as DTP that will likely decline as we go forward and as crusher availability continues to improve. But Mick do you want to go ahead and answer Wayne's question further?

speaker
Mick Routledge
Senior Vice President, Operations

Yeah and just say going forward year on year that will decline on the DTP profile but as we reported previously we expected to put about six million tons of DTP through the pipe this year at 1.5 in Q1 were around about the run rate that we thought we would be at. On the crusher itself as Mitch said the recoveries are tracking the model. As we see softer rows it's great to have the flexibility in the crushing circuit that we didn't have previously so that we can bypass that tertiary part of the crushing circuit and still provide the right tons to the pad. Overall I see the crusher working and the material going through all three stages of the crusher. We're delivering about 70% of that material at 5 eighths of an inch so the overall blend and the target for this year at 7 eighths of an inch is within reach and not quite there yet but very typical challenges on a startup on equipment this kind and this type and we're dealing with all of those things and I'm really happy about where we are today.

speaker
Wayne Lam
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay great thanks and then maybe just at Wharf I'm curious on the stronger output this quarter versus the prior quarterly guide being significantly lower for Q1. Just wondering what was driving the stronger performance versus the expectations and if you might expect to see any bit of an offset to that performance over the coming quarters.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Mick do you want

speaker
Mick Routledge
Senior Vice President, Operations

to cover Wharf? Yeah Wharf it's really just it's all about timing and where we are in the pit at any time. At the moment we expected deliver on the guidance at Wharf for the full year. We've seen some grade profile tweaks and some tonnage tweaks but overall because that's an on-off heat bleach pad type system we are constrained on throughput and so overall then it's all about managing grade and hitting the plan and Wharf is very predictable. I'm really happy about how it's performing and we expect it to continue performing at that level.

speaker
Wayne Lam
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay perfect thanks and then maybe just last one on the cost front. You guys had cited maybe a bit lower costs on consumables. Are you seeing any impact of maybe lower labor costs as well in Mexico and then just maybe as an offset to that can you comment on some of the cost pressures you might be seeing at Rochester and Kensington?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah I'll start and then Tom, Mick feel free to chime in. I think you know with Las Chispas only having been part of the company for six weeks you know that labor labor cost differential you know is still to be seen but given the employment increase that we'll see from Las Chispas going forward you know that overall labor labor cost we should see an overall benefit there. In terms of any any real cost pressures I mean we've we've really not seen much at all. There's a good slide in the deck you might have seen it Wayne. I think it's slide 16 that just shows quarter over quarter whether it's looking back 12 months or back over 12 24 months. You know the declines have been pretty pretty significant so we're in really this nice sweet spot here where we're not seeing the cost pressures on the cost side and we're seeing the margin expansion with the higher prices. In fact if you look quarter over quarter our average realized gold price this quarter was 41 percent higher than a year ago quarter. Silver average realized price was I think 36 percent higher than first quarter of last year and our costs per ounce were essentially flat right. So we're seeing that margin expansion big time that that Tom alluded to in his in his comments but Tom any last thing to add?

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

Labor again for the most part across across our asset base we do annual raises in that first quarter and so those kind of held in and that especially across the U.S. sites and that two to three percent and we haven't experienced any

speaker
Unidentified
Unknown

particularly

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

concerning trends at all around turnover so that kind of locked in for the year and then you know we're watching diesel and cyanide and power costs and you know for the most part they're trying the right way so pretty happy with the cost guidance and nice to see us in the lower end of the range through the first quarter.

speaker
Wayne Lam
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay perfect thanks for taking my questions and looking forward to the improvement through the year.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah thanks a lot Wayne appreciate it.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

The next question comes from Joseph Rager with Roth Capital Partners please go ahead.

speaker
Joseph Rager
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Hey Mitch and team thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the strong start.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah thanks Joe.

speaker
Joseph Rager
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

So I guess first thing on the inventory accounting how long do you think it's going to take to to work through the extra you know stockpiled or inventory at last cheap cheese bus you know to bring and what level do you expect that inventory number on the balance sheet to get back down to because you know traditionally it's been more in the you know high 70s you know versus the 220 it is now.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

I'm smiling that he got an accounting question Tom you want to take that?

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah so again the inventory the big increase in the inventory relates to the stockpile out in front of the the the process plant at last cheese bus so it's 150 thousand tons which is you know if you think about that's roughly five months production and so that balance will gradually go down as Mick continues to mine and will put new tons on the that stockpile at the lower cost and then we'll deplete the existing stockpile we'll process all materials so you'll see that number come down over and for accounting purposes we've estimated that that will happen over the next year in terms of materials and supplies though I mean we've added a prudent level of inventory the team at last cheese bus had done a great job of making sure they had the right amount of spare parts etc etc and so you know you will see a an increase on the balance sheet as it relates to the their materials and supplies but we're not worried about that whatsoever.

speaker
Joseph Rager
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Okay and is there like a rough targeted number you'd like to see that inventory be at year end total dollar number value?

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

You know I think you know we'll have to wait and see in terms of you know exactly how the material comes off that stockpile and you know I don't think we have a particular target what we have is we've guided the team down at last cheese bus who've done a terrific job the integration is going super well by the way is to just deliver the budget that the silver crest board had approved back in December for the year so again no real specific target and again the value that's on that stockpile is again it's mainly driven by this the accounting requirement to fair value it so this is going to have an impact on our earnings as we deplete it's not going to have an impact on our free cash flow.

speaker
Joseph Rager
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Okay fair enough and then bigger picture question for Mitch you know now that you're in the process of digesting the silver crest acquisition how do you think about M&A going forward is the next thing on the list to start reviewing potentially a sale of something say war for kensington or is it to look for more acquisitions or is there you know a temporary pause here you know for a period of time?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah I think Tom's words of was it boringly predictable or predictably boring you know either way that's what we want to do yeah that's what we're going to be the next at least you know for the foreseeable future you know our investors have waited a long time to see the benefits of all this investment that we're now starting to be able to generate and point to and delivering on that is our focus yeah of course we'll always look at things that come across or that we identify as opportunities that fit through our filters of you know North America and make us you know better not necessarily just bigger and you know all those all those things which you know it really makes for a pretty short list but in the meantime you know what we have out in front of us here at the company is pretty spectacular and you know we've worked a long time to get to this point so we look forward on just delivering on that and showing the kind of cash flows here in the coming quarters that we alluded to in our comments.

speaker
Joseph Rager
Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Okay that's fair enough I'll turn it over thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Yep. The next question comes from Mike Seidricho with RBC Capital Markets please go ahead.

speaker
Mike Seidricho
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Yeah thanks very much for taking my questions and I'd like to go back to Rochester but maybe just to segue from the last question could you go into a little bit more detail on how you're thinking about Silvertip. I know you've said accelerate resource growth and potentially invest some more cash into Silvertip but you know prices have moved quickly in the last three or six months does that change your thinking and maybe conceptually what sort of milestone should we be looking for at Silvertip over the next couple of years?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah hi Mike thanks for the question look we remain confident in the scale of the district there at Silvertip and you know that we're on the edges of a very large system and that's why we tripled the land package there in the first quarter that Eva mentioned. We've been targeting and been I think talking over the last few months about sort of a five-year time frame to have Silvertip in a position to be a go no-go construction decision. We all want Silvertip to turn into a cash contributor versus a cash consumer but we also don't want to cut any corners. We need to go through the project stage gates. We need to keep drilling to keep improving our understanding of the deposit, keep building critical mass of the resource, support the study work that we're going to be doing. We'll be kicking off an internal or an initial assessment here in the middle part of the year probably third quarter and that should be completed later next year. That'll give us some good sort of concrete information to consider next steps you know where we go from where we go from there. We have kind of built up our organizational capabilities to support the advancement of whether it's on Eva's exploration team, Mick and the projects team, overall leadership there so we can devote some time and energy to better understanding what sorts of funding or permitting assistance might exist to potentially enhance the economics or shorten that timetable at Silvertip. We're going to take some time and make sure we do it right. Go through the project stage gates, keep drilling and while we do all that we can continue to generate the free cash flow and do everything that we've got set up in front of us here from our other operations. It's an interesting time to have a large and growing critical minerals project in Canada for sure. We'll start turning our focus a bit more to that than we have been now that we're in a better position to do so. Does that give you what you're looking for,

speaker
Mike Seidricho
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Mike? Yeah, that's good, Coller, thanks and just to be clear the initial assessment you were talking about that would be internal only right not a public document.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

That's right.

speaker
Mike Seidricho
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Okay and then if we could pull it back to Rochester. I just want to make sure that I understand it. I know this has been a topic of conversation. What should we really be watching there in Q2 and beyond in terms of optimizing recoveries in the leach cycle and getting the operation to where you want it to be? Is it total tonnage, crushed tons, the ratio between the two or is it really getting as much material down to five-eighths? I mean I know it's a blend of all of the above but if there's a metric that someone could look at and say okay we're on the right track or maybe we're taking a pause here what would that be?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

I think it's crusher runtime, just availability and as we do that we'll see the other pieces fall into place. So I think that's for me the key metric.

speaker
Mick Routledge
Senior Vice President, Operations

Mick, do you? Yeah, I mean overall in the long run what target is to eight million tons placed on the pad on a quarterly basis and as you saw we're placing about seven million this time around and that's improving. That balance between DTP and crushed material we of course want to crush as much as we can but that DTP product is valuable and we'll continue to deliver that throughout this year, probably a little bit more through the middle part of the year and less so at the back end. And then just seeing the performance stay on the recovery curve as we see the size fraction come down which we've seen so far but we're tracking that so you should see us continue to improve on that predictability and delivery of lower size fraction tons to the pad and then a quarter or two quarters later you're going to see the metal coming from that performance improvement.

speaker
Mike Seidricho
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, so if we watch the you've reported 5.1 million tons crushed in Q4, 5.5 and Q1, should we be really watching that number and if that number continues to move higher that's how you see at a high level at least that the crushing circuit is on the right track to deliver as much of that seven to eight million tons as possible. Is that a fair way to put it? Exactly.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yep, if there was one number to watch Mike that would be the one.

speaker
Mike Seidricho
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, very good. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I'll pass it on.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Not at all. Thanks Mike.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Thank you. Again, if you have a question please press star then one. Our next question comes from Brian McArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

speaker
Brian McArthur
Analyst, Raymond James

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions and apologize. I had sort of the same ones that we've sort of asked but maybe if I can do it differently. First, Tom, on the accounting, I assume at Les Chiefs what you've done is you've written up the gold and silver inventory to value it like at $3,000 gold or something and whatever it was $31 silver. Is that the way I think about it from an accounting basis and that's basically what you're going to run through the income statement but obviously the cash has already been consumed. Is that kind of what's going on there when I sort of calculate what the difference is between you know to get up to that 218 million tons there's like I think 60 million of gold and whatever it is of silver. Is that the right way to think about it?

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, you got it. So those all the most of the tons on that or all of the tons on that stockpile will flow through our income statement but we won't make net income from them. That makes sense. You got it. Yeah, we had to mark to market with a small estimate for it's great all these accounting questions. I said the

speaker
Unidentified
Unknown

small

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

estimate for the cost to complete. So again, but again from a free cash flow perspective there's no change and just you know it has an impact on your net income so we just wanted to highlight that.

speaker
Brian McArthur
Analyst, Raymond James

Right and I think you were clear too on the deferred taxes there's nothing in there that you have to catch up on. It's all book accounting the way things were allocated. Is that right? Is this going to affect the consolidated tax rate but not the cash tax rate?

speaker
Tom Whelan
Chief Financial Officer

Exactly, exactly and so it'll perversely you'll have a positive impact to our net income as that deferred tax liability gets smaller when you take a credit off the balance sheet it it hits your earnings. So again that will make the the tax rate a little wonky and so happy to work with through that with anyone separately as you try and estimate out the deferred tax liability reversal in due course.

speaker
Brian McArthur
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay and maybe just to put this to bed I think what we're really after is make sure like obviously it's been prepaid and a lot of other cash things on the balance sheet that have had to be paid. Is it fair to say now pretty well that's all gone and what we see is what we get going forward as far as cash flow there's no other catch-ups or cleanups or anything from a cash basis. Is that a fair comment?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

That's very fair. Yeah, kind of cleared the decks here in the first quarter and what you have now is what we have left is what you see.

speaker
Brian McArthur
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay and maybe just following up another question on silver tip as you said you talked about it five years but you know the world's changed a lot. You're also presumably going to have most of the debt done by the end of this year. Would it be fair to guess that you'd be more likely to pay a dividend or return capital through a buyback before big investments in silver tip? Would that kind of be the thinking still going forward assuming we stay at commodity prices where we are today?

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think that's fair. Obviously we don't want to get ahead of ourselves or our board but I think five years would be a long time to wait especially after our investors have waited a long time already. I think obviously we ended the quarter with 78 million dollars of cash and 110 million dollars on the revolver. Those things will change quite rapidly as we go forward here and as long as we're continuing to reinvest in the business the way we plan to. At these prices the free cash flow we anticipate generating should leave some room to consider a potential return to our shareholders in the near term rather than waiting down the road to decide what we're going to do about silver tip.

speaker
Brian McArthur
Analyst, Raymond James

Great, thanks very much for those clarifications. Very helpful.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

No, thanks for the questions Brian.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mitchell Krabs for any closing remarks.

speaker
Mitchell Craft
President & Chief Executive Officer

Okay, thanks everybody for taking the time to talk with us today. We look forward to speaking again following the release of our second quarter results in early August. Thanks and have a good day.

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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