Perseus Mining Limited

Welcome to the Perseus Mining Investor Webinar and Conference Call. All attendees are in a listen-only mode. If you'd like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom. I'll now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and CEO, Jeff Quartermain.

Thank you, Jeff. Thanks very much, Nathan. And yes, welcome to Perseus Mining's webinar to discuss our December 2024 Interim Financial Report. This document, along with a range of related documents, was released to the market earlier this morning. I'm joined today by my colleague, Leanne de Bruyn, who, as you know, is Perseus' Chief Financial Officer. Leanne and her team have been working tirelessly to produce this financial report, and full thanks go to her and all of her team members for their excellent work. I'll ask Leanne to take you through the details of the report in just a moment. When she is done, I will share a few thoughts with you on the way forward for Perseus. And then, as Nathan has already indicated, we'll conclude today's webinar with a Q&A session. If you're listening to this webinar through your computer, you should be able to follow the presentation on your screen. If not, it has been released to the market and you could take a look at it later on. Over to you, Leanne. Thank you.

Thanks, Jeff. And hello, everybody on the call. Thanks so much for joining us. As you can see from the summary in front of you, we've had a market leading performance again in this December 2024 half year. And thanks very much to our operational team who have worked continuously and consistently to deliver these. It's easy to present set of financials. when you've got your operational team supporting you in this way. Gold produced for the year was at about 253,709 ounces, sorry, for the half year, in the upper half of the guided production. Our all-insight cost was $1,162 per ounce, well below the guided cost range. Our average gold sales price up 13% at US dollar $2,350 per ounce, delivering a notional cash flow up 27% of 300 million US dollars. We ended the financial or the calendar year with a net cash and bullion on the balance sheet of 704 million US dollars. This was an increase of 117 million in the six months. As you can see, this has helped us deliver a very strong financial performance, which is translated into these very strong performance metrics. The revenue for the year was up at US$582 million or an equivalent Australian US$880 million for the six months. This was largely aided by the 13% increase in gold price achieved for the six-month period. Profit after tax is up at 22%, delivering US dollar 201 million or Aussie dollar of $304 million. Our three operating sites delivered $248 million in operating cash flow or $375 million Australian dollars. Net tangible assets ended the calendar year at US $1.3 billion or Aussie dollar $2.1 billion, And this was largely attributable to an increase in amortization and depreciation for the year, which was then offset by our increase in cash and bullion on hand. Importantly, the board also resolved to declare an interim dividend of 2.5 Australian cents, which is up 100% on the interim dividend in 2024. Once again, Perseus has then delivered a strong growth in earnings, as you can see from the chart on the right-hand side. EBITDA up at 353 million or 533 million Australian due to the increased average sales price I mentioned earlier, offset incrementally by increase in cost of sales for the period. Our gross profit from operations up 26%, despite the 27% increase in depreciation and amortization, which was attributable largely to an increase in mining of all reserve tons at Yare during the six months. Basic earnings per share up 22% at 12.96 US dollar cents or 19.6 Australian cents. And the earnings per ounce, importantly, a key focus for us, up 25% at US dollar 819 or $1,239 Australian dollars per ounce. So cash flow, as you can see, continue to grow. You've seen that there's consistent growth from us since way back in 2021. And as I mentioned, we've delivered $248 million US dollars in a cash flow from operations for the period. And this gave us US dollar 18 cents per share in operating cash flow, up 17%. Operating cash flow per ounce of 976 per ounce, as I mentioned previously. So a strong operationally cash delivery from Perseus. Shifting our focus to the balance sheet, we ended, as I mentioned, with cash and bullion of 704 million US dollars or 1.1 billion Australian dollars with no drawn debt at the end of December. Our net tangible asset per share sitting at 0.97 US dollars per share or Australian dollars of 156. This is our favorite graph, which shows how we've delivered increasing margins over the last couple of years. All three mines have performed consistently following temporary setbacks early in H1 2025. This elevated gold price and falling unit costs contributed to our US dollar 700 million cash bullion on hand at the end of the period with strong operating cash flows. As communicated in our most recent quarterly, guidance is maintained for the FY24 at between 470 to 504,000 ounces at an all-inside cost of US$1,250 to US$1,280 for the period ended June 2025. As I referred to up at the front, off the back of the strong cash flow performance, the Perseus board has resolved to declare two and a half cents per share dividend. And this will equate to an interim dividend payout of about 21.3 million US dollars or about 32 million Australian dollars. You'll recall we announced our share buyback in August 24, and the intention was to invest up to 100 million Australian in an on-market share performance buyback. As at the 10th of February, we have purchased back 4.7 million shares at an average price of Australian dollar $2.59. To date, we're about 12% of our target, having spent 12.2 million Australian. And we point out that we do have interruptions to this program through the blackout periods related to market announcements. With that, I'll hand over to Jeff to talk about the way forward.