Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited

Good morning, everybody. My name is Bayer Schnell, and it is a privilege for me to present my first set of results to you in my capacity as CEO. I'm joined today by our Financial Director, Boipelo Lekubo, in presenting the operational financial results for the half-year ended 31 December 2024. Please take note of our safe harbour statement. Albany delivered a stellar set of interim results. Our underground recovered grades increased to 6.4 grams per tonne ahead of our full year guidance. Group production was about 25,000 kilograms or 800,000 ounces for the first half, also ahead of guidance. Our oil and sustaining costs remains well controlled and on track to beat guidance too. In rand terms, all-in sustaining costs was about 972,000 rand a kilogram, or just under 1,690 US dollars per ounce. All-in costs for the reporting period, which includes our major capital, was just over 1 million rand per kilogram, or 1,810 dollars per ounce. And it's because of our relatively low capital intensity that this is not much higher than the all-in sustaining costs. We generated record interim operating free cash flows of 10.4 billion rand, or 579 million US dollars. The operating free cash flow margin has expanded to 29% as a result of our investment in quality ounces and, of course, the high gold price we received. Our headline earnings per share has grown by 33% to 12.70 per share, or 71 US cents per share, and we are delighted to announce a record interim dividend payout of 1.4 billion rand for the half year. As South Africa's largest gold producer, our goal is to produce safe, profitable ounces and improving our margins by delivering on our four strategic pillars. Responsible stewardship is at the heart of our actions and is core to our decisions. Operational excellence inspires us to do better and be better every day. Cash certainty is not only important to our shareholders and stakeholders, but also to us. As such, we manage our costs and focus on improving our efficiencies. For capital allocation to be effective, we take into account human, social, resource and financial capital, amongst others. Our decisions are made for the long-term benefit of all our stakeholders. To maximize value, we have grouped our assets into four quadrants, each with its own risk profile and specific role in contributing towards our growth strategy. These quadrants are, firstly, our South African high-grade underground assets, our high-margin, low-risk South African surface and tailings retreatment operations, our international copper gold portfolio, and our South African underground optimized assets. With our specialized mining skills and unique operating model to unlock further value in our gold and copper assets going forward. At Harmony, everything begins with safety. We are embedding a proactive safety culture focused on leading indicators as we continue on our journey to zero harm. Recent events remind us we must do more with urgency, with unity and with unwavering resolve to achieve this objective. We are resolute in our determination to ensure that every Harmonite returns home safely every day. We are intentional about safety and take personal ownership to ensure that our workplaces are safe. The necessary systemic changes have been implemented throughout the company and and we continue to develop safety leadership through our humanistic culture transformation program called Tibakotsi. We are also conducting regular executive visible felt leadership initiatives to reinforce the importance of safety. Fostering a safe culture remains an ongoing journey for us. We are encouraged by the long-term improvement in our lost time injury frequency rate to 5.52% and a loss of life injury frequency rate of 0.02 in this half. This reinforces our belief that zero loss of life is indeed possible. Moving to the operational highlights. Solid mining discipline has resulted in excellent grade control and consistent predictable production. Recovered grades at our South African underground operations increased to 6.4 grams a tonne. This performance has been driven primarily by our high-grade mines in Padeng and Moab Kotsong. With good momentum and consistent delivery at most of our mines, we are pleased that the total production remains on track to meet the upper end of our full-year guidance. Cash operating costs are predominantly RAND-based and remain well managed. The majority of our costs comprise labour and electricity in South Africa, And a five-year wage deal was signed with our unions last year, while baseload energy supply from ESCOM is regulated. As a result, our cost increases are largely fixed and predictable. Total cash operating costs in RAND terms increased by 9% in the first half. This increase was in line with plan and mainly due to annual inflationary increases. The unit cost, cash operating cost per kilogram, increased by 14% to about 814,000 rand a kilogram, or about 1,400 US dollars per ounce. Due to inflation, planned lower production at Hidden Valley and lower production at the South African optimised assets. Royalties increased by 46% due to the higher gold prices, which have improved revenue and also profitability. All in sustaining costs remained under control, and we are on track to meet full-year guidance. This is mainly due to our embedded cost controls, biorecovered grades, and by-product credits we receive from uranium and silver production. Our all-in sustaining costs for the first half of the financial year was just over R970,000 a kilogram, or about $1,690 per ounce. Our investment in quality ounces has moved us down the global cost curve. So Harmony is a transformed company, delivering consistently higher margins. This is a result of disciplined capital allocation and sound cost controls. The Harmony portfolio has changed significantly, having de-risked and is delivering improved profitability. Operating free cash flow margins at Eden Valley have remained exceptional at 50%, and this mine contributed 17% towards group operating free cash flow. Margins at the South African high-grade operations increased to 40%, with these two operations now contributing half of group free cash flow generation. The South African surface operations continued to perform well, with margins doubling to 34% year-on-year. The margins at our South African optimized portfolio remained flat at 11%. These minds continue to make a valuable contribution to our free cash flow and play a vital role in funding our growth aspirations. We at Harmony are on an exciting growth path and have clearly mapped how we will achieve our plans. Maintaining a disciplined and responsible approach to capital allocation is critical in creating long-term value. Not only does this drive growth, but it increases shareholder and stakeholder confidence. We have a balanced capital allocation framework, focusing on five core areas to ensure alignment with our values and our goals. We will always prioritise safety as we work towards zero harm. This goes hand in hand with productivity enhancements and is in line with our belief that a safe mine is a profitable mine, not the other way around. We have built a strong balance sheet, which is in a net cash position. and our major capital is directed towards de-risking our portfolio by investing in our higher-grade surface and international assets, all aimed at increasing the quality of our ounces and improving our margins. This is evident in our expansion projects at Mpuneng, Moab Kutsung, our South African surface retreatment operations, and Iwakapa. Value-creative M&A is intrinsic to our strategy, and we are actively pursuing opportunities to improve the quality of our portfolio further. We are in a position to pay a consistent dividend in line with our dividend policy, ensuring that we reward our shareholders alongside achieving our growth aspirations. Our approach to capital allocation is reaping the necessary rewards, and we intend maintaining this disciplined approach. Our aim is to improve the quality and profitability of our portfolio over time, ensuring high-quality reserve conversions with improved free cash flow generation. This production profile illustrates the evolution of our production mix from where we are today to where we are planning to be in the future. As we mine out our optimized assets, represented by the red section, the quality of our ounces improves. The introduction of neotrim copper through our international projects will drive margins higher over time. These charts illustrate how the production mix changes and how Harmony will become an even more profitable, de-risked and diversified company over time. Harmony has taken the strategic and deliberate decision to invest only in gold and copper. These complementary metals offer counter-cyclical diversification and provide a natural hedge against volatility. The combination offers a strategic balance between safe haven investment in gold and global demand for copper. They also offer synergies in production, particularly in geological proximity in copper-gold porphyries like Wafi Gold Pool. Both these metals have solid fundamentals, driving demand and growth which tie in well with our project pipeline. By focusing on these two metals, we are creating a focused, efficient, and more profitable harmony with exciting long-term growth prospects. As we mine out the optimized assets and bring on quality replacement and growth ounces, we expect the contribution from these marginal assets to decrease to around 9% of production over time. In turn, our international gold copper industry South African surface source operations will represent a far larger portion of production offering a lower risk asset portfolio. This clearly illustrates how we have re-engineered the company. To ensure we achieve this plan, we are allocating the bulk of our major capital towards these projects that will result in margin expansions. For this financial year, we are investing over 2 billion rand at our high-grade projects, Moab, Kotsong and Mpuneng. We have over 1 billion rand earmarked for our high-grade or high-margin surface operation projects, mainly at Mineway Solutions. The Eden Valley mine has been allocated close to 600 million rand and studies are underway to determine if we can extend the life further by expanding existing tailing storage facilities. This demonstrates our clear intention to improve the quality of our portfolio whilst paying dividends at the same time. The acquisitions of Mpening, Moab Kotsong and Mineway Solutions were transformational for Harmony. This is evident in our overall improved results. We are therefore investing in these transformative assets to ensure they continue creating value for years to come. Phase 1 of Kereeran tailing storage facility expansion at Mineway Solutions was delivered on time and on budget. Phase 2 is currently underway and we expect to have it completed before the end of calendar year 2025. Mineway Solutions steady state production is over 100,000 ounces over its life per annum. The projects at Mob Kutsong and Mpeneng are progressing well and will extend the lives of these mines to at least 20 years. These projects have added a combined 5.2 million ounces of gold reserves and will ensure steady state production at Mokot Song of over 200,000 ounces and at Mpuneng of over 250,000 ounces per year. Both mines will deliver an average recovered grade of about 9 grams per ton. These projects demonstrate our commitment to gold mining in South Africa, ensuring that they continue delivering excellent margins at a low oil and staining cost for years to come. The feasibility study updates that EVA copper is progressing well. We have completed the technical aspects and are awaiting the final permitting amendments. EVA copper is now expected to produce between 55 and 60,000 tons of copper per annum and 14,000 ounces of gold as a byproduct over its 15-year life of mine. Conceptually, this translates to a mine of a similar size to some of our high-grade underground assets. The oil in sustaining costs is anticipated to be in the middle of the global industry cost curve, and we are targeting first copper in 2029 calendar year, subject to the completion of the study and board approval. At Wafi Golpu, negotiations of the special mining lease are ongoing. Our comprehensive project pipeline is well sequenced and manageable. Our timing is deliberate and ensures project capital remains affordable and does not put pressure on the balance sheet or on our capacity to deliver successfully. These projects are catalysts to meaningfully sustain production and expand our margins while driving costs down. We have a clear strategy and a clearly mapped pathway to becoming a global leader in gold and copper mining, producing higher quality ounces and delivering higher shareholder returns. Allow me to hand over to my colleague and financial director, Boipela Lekubo, to discuss the financials. Over to you, Boipela.

Thank you, Bez, and good morning to everyone. Please note that we report in rand and select U.S. dollar figures are included in the annexures. Harmony delivered an exceptional financial performance and outstanding earnings growth during this interim reporting period. This was on the back of operational consistency and a higher average gold price received. Group revenue increased by 18% to R37 billion, mainly due to the 23% increase in the RAN gold price. Net profit increased by 33% to R7.9 billion, while the rolling 12-month EBITDA increased by 28% to over R22 billion. The strong operating free cash flows we continue to generate resulted in our balance sheets shifting further into a net cash position of 7.3 billion rand. Headline earnings per share increased by 33% to 12 rand 70. Harmony's investment in quality ounces has resulted in record operating free cash flow generation in this interim period. We've also delivered an impressive three-fold expansion in margins since FY22. Total operating free cash flow for the group increased by 46% to $10.4 billion, or $579 million in the first half of this financial year. While the gold price has been a significant tailwind, our ability to deliver to plan, alongside the transformation of our portfolio, has enabled us to deliver yet another strong financial performance. High operating margins have boosted our balance sheet and we're well positioned as we head into the second half of this financial year. This is evidenced in our ability to produce to plan and the average of the higher gold price we received rather. Gold prices have further increased to around 1.7 million a kilogram compared to the average of 1.4 million per kilogram we received during this reporting period. Our planned FY25 total capital intensity remains affordable at around R225,000 a kilogram or $415 an ounce. We continue to protect and lock in margins through an effective hedging program. We typically hedge between 10% and 30% of production over 36 months as per our 30-20-10 program limit. so please refer to our hedging table in the annexures for more information on that. Our net cash position has increased significantly to R7.3 billion over the past 30 months. EBITDA growth has been excellent, and our 12-month rolling EBITDA is currently at R22 billion. Given our comprehensive project pipeline, which includes the highly anticipated Eva Copper project in Australia, we are strengthening our balance sheet. We have almost 18 billion rand or 1 billion US dollars in headroom made up of cash and undrawn facilities. We remain flexible and agile should we need to deploy capital. As it relates to the project that Bayers referred to earlier, we've been able to comfortably fund the various capital demands within the company. As it stands, we're able to fund EVA from our own cash flows and available facilities. Our balanced capital and allocation framework, solid cash flows, and balance sheet strengths have once again allowed us to pay a dividend. Our dividend policy ensures we're able to reward our shareholders alongside achieving our growth aspirations. We are pleased to declare a record interim dividend of $2.27 or $12 per share. We continue delivering geared year-on-year dividend increases. Total cash returned to shareholders in the first half of FY25 is R1.4 billion, while we've returned over R4 billion to shareholders since FY21. This demonstrates confidence in our plans and our cash flows. Allow me to hand back to Bez to conclude. Thank you.

Thank you, Boipelo. Harmony has a de-risked and diversified asset portfolio offering near-term copper optionality. We are South Africa's largest gold producer and have close to 75 years of specialised gold mining experience in South Africa. We have been operating in Papua New Guinea for over two decades with a presence in Australia over the same time. We delivered a strong first-half performance and reiterate our full year guidance. Harmony continues to generate stellar cash flows and our balance sheet is robust, flexible and in a significant net cash position. The gold price has continued to rally, further enhancing our strong financial position. We however remain disciplined and responsible with our capital allocation and we will not deviate from our risk-based approach to decision making. Having a balanced approach to capital allocation will enable us to deliver on our growth aspirations and ensures we continue to create real, long-term value for our shareholders and our stakeholders. This, to us, is mining with purpose. Before we take questions, I would like to thank each harmonite for their dedication and commitment towards ensuring we consistently achieve our goals safely. I would like to thank our board, shareholders and stakeholders for their continued support. I thank you. Jared, we'll now take questions from the audience.