AngloGold Ashanti - H1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AngloGold Ashanti's 2023 half-year results market update. All attendees will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions when prompted. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Stuart Bailey. Please go ahead, sir.

Moderator (participant)

Thanks, Judith. Welcome, everybody. Good morning, and good afternoon to those in this time zone. We've got a reasonably detailed and presentation today. Alberto and Gillian will run through the operating performance, strategy, and the financial performance. Just before we start, I would just point you to the safe harbor statement on slide 2 of this presentation. That contains important information regarding forward-looking statements. We would suggest you do refer to it when you have a minute. Without further ado, I'll hand over to Alberto.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you, Stuart. Good day, all. Thanks for joining us. Let's start by recapping some of the milestones so far in our journey to turn our performance around and regain cost competitiveness. The priorities we laid out last year, probably 18 months ago, were all ultimately aimed at safely closing the gap, cost gap with our peers, which had opened up to the widest ever. We continue to believe that to sustainably rerate our equity, we must look to the cumulative impact of several interlocking initiatives that together will improve our overall business.

Those formed my core priorities when taking over, to improve safety and set new climate targets, to evaluate our culture and values, to renew our leadership and simplify our operating structure, to restart and ramp up Obuasi, to initiate our full potential and implement our full asset potential program, to basically start and then consolidate our Nevada footprint, to extend our mine lives, to take pragmatic commercial steps to unlock value, finally, to assess our portfolio and to decide what belong and what did not belong in our portfolio. Like any turnaround, there has been some bumps around along the road. I would probably say that the biggest one that has affected all of us is inflation, stronger and higher than we all anticipated. You would have seen in our H1, there's a 9% inflationary impact in our cash costs. Very significant.

You look at how that reduces, for example, in our quarter Q2, all-in sustaining cost, 9% increase versus last year. Again, it's affecting all, as I said, our top competitors. If you take a average of the top four, they're all-in sustaining went up 15%, one five, versus our 9%. We've also faced our share of operating headwinds, which have frustrated our progress. Earlier this year, we had the tank failure in our processing circuit at Siguiri, which was repaired, as I'll talk about it later. Brazil, again, we had the issues in Cuiaba and the underperforming in CDS specifically. They continue to draw significant time and resources, but we are, again, taking strong steps, and we'll talk about that later, too. We're on the right track with good progress made. We're among the safest mining companies in the world.

We've set up a clear path to reducing greenhouse gases. We've attracted world-class talent from some of the best companies in the sector, melding external perspective with the deep institutional knowledge inside the company. Obuasi restarted safely and is ramping up as scheduled and will become one of the preeminent assets in our portfolio. Our full asset potential program is working to counter the unprecedented inflationary headwinds and to even decrease cash costs, as we will see with Sunrise. Nevada, we basically, in a very short space of time, went from nothing to now, we expect by the end of the year to have around 14 million ounces of resource declared. Right now, we are identifying a target of 6-8 in Merlin. We've more than replaced depletion in the past 2 years.

We proposed a combination of our Idupriem operation in Ghana with Gold Fields, creating the largest gold mine in Africa. We're now working to close a transaction that will, in a single, clean step, align our corporate footprint with our operating portfolio, giving us a primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange, while maintaining important listings in South Africa and Ghana. Next slide. I will spend some time on this slide. This is the reassessing, let's say, of the portfolio. You will see we subdivided into Tier One assets, Tier Two assets, and other. Starting with the Tier One, that are self-explanatory. You can see 1.7 million ounces of production a year at total cash cost of $940, all-in sustaining of $1,200.

That would situate you along the, let's say, 1st quartile of big assets in the world in all metrics. It accounts for 80% of the EBITDA of AngloGold and 75% of the mineral resource. Long life, and very competitive assets. Let me go over each one quickly. Geita is performing well. We did have an issue in the 1st quarter, just a scheduled maintenance, but we expect to make it up. If you look at H2 production, we expect to be roughly repeating what we did last year. Last year in H2, we did around 300. We'll do probably a little bit less than that, but it will skew hence in Geita that to a 40-60 production. We've done it before, we will do it again.

That will have important impact in lowering our cash costs and keeping our cash costs guidance, as I'll talk about it later. Obuasi. Obuasi, we started that will also have, like, a 40-60 split, probably a bit even more skewed. We did about 120,000, and we are saying, and we're planning to do 180,000 in the second half. Last year, we did 160, but last year we were, at that time, being able to hoist about 4,000 tons per day from the mine up, let's say, up from the underground. Right now, we're up to 6,000 tons per day with much more flexibility. The team on the ground, and we all, the, the corporate team, are confident that we'll be there or thereabout in Obuasi. What does that do to cash costs?

If you take the first half, and compare it to the half, second half, just by the sheer size of production, and the fact that about half of the costs are fixed, half of the costs are variable, that would decrease cash costs in Obuasi by a significant amount in nominal terms and real terms by about $160. If you take then Kibali, Kibali seeks to repeat what it did last year of 180,000 ounces. Again, better production, H2 to H1. Idupriem, we also expect about 14,000 higher, and Tropicana similarly. That completes the Tier One assets that are the cornerstone of the company in the very near future. You have the Tier Two assets. Those are the ones where, probably they'll be run more for cash.

They will come in second in the rank in terms of new capital. The Tier Ones probably will have priority, We will still obviously nurture them with sustaining the necessary sustaining CapEx. You start with Sunrise, that's an interesting one. It was the first asset that we started the full asset potential, I've always been sort of reluctant to put a number to those programs. You hear a lot of companies saying, "We did $500, we did $1 billion," then the profits never change. In the end, what matters is the bottom line, that's what we are talking about to you today.

We expect the cash cost of Sunrise to go down by $100, more than $100 an ounce this year. You all see, already see that in the Q2 results. We're quite happy. That is not the only reason, but clearly a significant impact of the full asset potential on Sunrise. Siguiri, it was an issue. We lost about 25,000 ounces because of the tank collapse. The team on the ground did a magnificent job in putting it sooner than we all expected, and we're now right back to normal operations. The metallurgical recovery is a bit lower than usual, as we bring in the two new plants that are finalizing repairing, it should go completely normal. Production is normal. Expect to see, again, a better second half versus first half on Siguiri.

Cerro Vanguardia will be probably similar, Cuiaba. Cuiaba, we're quite happy. We will exceed the outlook on production. It is covering not only its operational costs, but it's also covering all its sustaining CapEx in the second half. we, we basically now stabilise into a, a to, let's say, 120, maybe 140 to 70 thousand ounces of... 2 to 1 ratio of concentrate to gold production, and the operation of concentrate is moving quite well. So it, it, it lost money in the first quarter because we couldn't export any concentrate, but as we now normalise it, we are also expecting a much better second half. Then we have the other ones.

The other ones we've said before, by scale, they don't belong in a portfolio like Anglo Gold, but we are still responsible stewards. We want to obviously make sure that they are handled in the best possible way. They are very high in the cash cost, and they are causing a significant drain and loss of competitiveness. That's why they are in other. In CDS, what we've said is, it's a complex mine, and at some point this year, we'll take a decision. We'll try to sell it as we did before, and if we can't, we will take other decisions, like putting it in care and maintenance. No decision has been taken, but you shouldn't expect it, that it's part of the Anglo Gold portfolio in 2024. Sierra Grande is different.

Sierra Grande, we expect it to be cash positive in the second half. It was slightly negative in the first half, but it's small in nature. If at some point in the future, we, we, we can have, find a good home for it, we will do, but there's no urgency on Sierra Grande because it's... As I said, we don't expect any losses in the second half. It's, it's, it's, it's back to, let's say, to, to covering for its own cost and sustaining CapEx. That's our portfolio. I think-- Let me probably say one last thing. In Brazil, we were devoting a lot of resources like we should, to what has been a significant issue in the company. Our Acting CEO, Marcelo, is over there. We have a new head, SVP, Marcelo Pereira. He...

comes from a lot of gold experience in Vale. He will be the SVP, let's say, the head of all of the Americas, eventually including Nevada. He will be a good steward on Brazil to do this in the best, safest, and best way. We have been a long time in Brazil, and we will do things like we always do in the right way. We also have new finance team, and so we're giving them all of the support and a lot of resources in this transitional period. Okay, if we move now to safety. Safety continues to trend in the right direction. It's clear down to a clear safety strategy, where we emphasize on the few things that can cause serious harm. That's the Major Hazards program, and it is so far working well.

Our total recordable injuries are 0.9 per million hours. That would be a best top performance in the mining world, not only in the gold world. Let's go to the next slide. I will again divide between Q2 and Q1, and then I'll give you some ideas of what we expect between H2 and H1. The second quarter was a much better performance from every point of view than the first quarter. I have to say we're... Anyway, I, I won't talk about market reaction, but clearly, we would expect that there's significant good news in the second quarter, and I'll try to tell you why. Production was 12% better in Q2 than Q1. All-in sustaining costs were 4% lower in Q2 versus Q1. Net operation cash flow, no, net cash flow from operations was significantly better in Q2.

In Q1, we had net operating cash flow from cash flow from operations at about $90 million. You can see it in the report. That moved to almost $300 million in the second quarter. A very big jump for both because of the greater production and because we had basically controlled and isolated the bulk of the negative impact in Brazil. In Q2, we're feeling much less the negative impact on Brazil than in Q2. Probably the other consequence of this, if you look at free cash outflow, it went from negative $160 million to negative $45 million, and that's even with losing about 25,000 ounces of Siguiri, and we missed the latest declared dividend in Kibali, so we would have been roughly breakeven.

As we look into H2, I've already talked about production, we expect significantly greater production in H2, and that has a definite impact in cash cost. We expect lower all-in sustaining cost. Probably that trend of reduction of 4% on quarter-over-quarter, we expect it to continue, and hence, that will. We also expect to be positive in the second half in free cash flow. All in all, a much better H2 and more in line with what we are gearing the company to deliver. You will see more the impacts of full asset potential and the other operations, other things that we are doing. Let me, I'll talk later about Nevada, so let me just, I'll pass on to Gillian, and I'll come back later. Oh, yes. No, not yet. Oh, there you go. I'm sorry.

We have too many meetings. H1 production performance. Look, I think inadvertently I covered this already, I think I will skip this slide, and I will go to the next slide, which is full asset potential, which I like quite a bit. This is Sunrise Dam, and this illustrates very well what we are talking about. Very briefly, you see underground mine tonnes roughly at about 200,000 ounces, 2,200,000 tonnes of underground ore tonnes in, in the, in the previous period, and then the full asset potential goal of taking it to 250, and you can see that we have already reached around 240. What does that mean? If you look at, at, at, at 200,000 tonnes, the cost per tonne are about $100.

When you move to 240, the cost goes down to $80 a tonne. A very significant drop. These are the we have 5 or 6 of these that in the end translate into the $100 per tonne reduction, $100 per cash cost per ounce reduction that we expect to see and that we are already seeing in Sunrise in 2023. Let's move to the other one. These are the gate tonnage, something similar. One of the key initiatives was to improve underground output to 1.4 million tonnes per annum, bringing forward high-grade ore and increasing mill feed grades from Nyakanga underground. The immediate focus is to increase cemented backfill rates to allow earlier mining of secondary stopes. We've also redeployed fleet from Star and Comet to Nyakanga to increase stope tonnes.

You will remember me flagging the processing opportunities the team identified last quarter, all of which have implementation lead times as we do studies and order equipment. Since implementation, we've seen improving runtime with new crushing screens and additional cyclones, that we should then see tonnages lift from 5.6 million tonnes per annum to 5.8 million tonnes per annum. We've seen a very strong lift in metallurgical recoveries from 88% to 92%. There is still more to do, but we're starting to see the early wins at[Geita]. Let me talk about our commitment on renewables. We entered into an agreement with Pacific Energy to construct and operate 62 megawatts of wind and solar generation capacity at the site.

Pacific Energy will construct a renewables project and continue to operate the combined renewables gas power station under a 10-year purchase power agreement. Once complete, the project is expected to deliver a 50% reduction in overall natural gas consumption. The capital cost of constructing the renewable infrastructure will be incorporated into the ongoing power costs charged to the Tropicana JV partners. The project is designed to maximize the emission reduction while maintaining power costs at current levels. The project is due for completion in early 2025, with on-site construction expected to commence in the second half of this year. I will hand now, indeed, to Gillian.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Alberto. Hello, everyone. Let's first take a look at the macro environment and its impact on our business. Gold price closed in Q2 at around $1,920 an ounce, up about 8% year-to-date, with price received in the first half up 2% year-on-year. We have 135,000 ounces, or just under 5% of our production, hedged with a zero-cost collar option, with a floor of $1,950 an ounce and a ceiling of $2,029 an ounce. This is essentially in place to protect the downside of price risk at our Brazilian assets. On inflation, we do see some easing, albeit significantly higher than the same period last year, specifically in some of our key jurisdictions.

You can see there, Ghana, Guinea, Argentina, and even though Australia has come down slightly, still very high, and particularly in Western Australia, where we operate. You may recall, we anticipated 6% inflation for the full year of 2023. We're currently trending at around 9%, as Alberto mentioned, and this has impacted our cash costs by $98 an ounce on the half. In currency, we do see continued weakness in the Australian dollar, the Argentine peso, the Ghanaian cedi, and this improves our cash cost by $48 an ounce. Oil prices, all of you will know, has continued to come down across the year. We have a hedge in place for about 40% of our consumption at $89.20 a barrel, and a realized loss of $5 million year to date.

We look at the key financial highlights. We ended the first half of 2023 with revenues of $2.2 billion, up 3% from the first half of 2022. Adjusted EBITDA was $678 million in the first half versus $864 million for the first half of last year. This is mainly due to increases in inflation, as I mentioned, higher operating costs, higher investment in exploration and evaluation as we've planned, and then environmental provisions related to new legislation in Brazil, as well as legal and project fees related to our corporate restructuring. This is partially offset by higher gold sold and the higher gold price. H1 headline earnings were $139 million or $0.33 per share, compared with $300 million or $0.71 per share in the first half of last year.

Net cash inflow from operating activities was $293 million, versus $992 million year-on-year. Remembering that half 1 of last year benefited from the release of the $460 million cash lockup in Kibali. After accounting for growth CapEx and corporate-related expenses, we recorded a free cash outflow of $205 million for the half. Adjusted net debt of $1.2 billion, with $454 million higher year-on-year, and reflects $217 million of dividends paid and $150 million for the acquisition of Nevada assets. Adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 0.74x the at the end of the half, below our through-the-cycle target.

We've declared a dividend of $0.04 per share on the back of our improving costs and production profile through the remainder of this year and our commitment to generate positive cash flow performance. We take a look specifically at our cash costs for the half. We ended the half with cash costs of $1,189 per ounce, 11% higher than the same period last year. We flat-flex for macro factors that I mentioned earlier. We've seen an increase of 6%, and that includes the impact of the one-off tank failure in Siguiri and also the impact of concentrate sales at Cuiabá. In underlying performance or the things we control, we had a number of moving parts, three key areas in volumes and grade.

Kibali, lower recovered grade of 14% due to changes in mine sequencing, partially offset by higher tonnes milled. Geita, lower tonnes treated of 8% during the half, compared to the same period last year. That was in line with our plan and the shutdown that was scheduled, February, in February this year. Tropicana, lower recovered grade of 2%. We did have offsetting cash. Oh, sorry, I forgot about the strong improvement actually in volume and grade at Obuasi and Sunrise Dam. Alberto spoke about Sunrise Dam, higher recovered grade of 9%, really demonstrating the embedding of full asset potential. At Obuasi, higher gold production due to the continued ramp up, higher underground throughputs, resulting in 39% higher underground tonnes mined, and also the recovered grade increased by 11% year on year.

On cash costs, we did have a few prior period impacts related to insurance and legal fees on a tax audit, and then we also had lower cash costs coming through, actually from lower strip ratios in some of our assets, and also some cost relief in the regions. As Alberto mentioned, in Q2, we saw a robust improvement in cash costs, and we're showing that in the bottom slide, or sorry, bottom chart, which shows despite the tank fail at Siguiri, Q1 and Q2 improvement in underlying cost performance of 8%. On free cash flow. Our position was affected again by the one-off events, Siguiri, as well as working capital needs during the transition to concentrate sales at Cuiaba.

Comparing the outflow of $205 million versus an inflow of $471 million for the same period last year, the Kibali one-off payment of $460 million is obviously the biggest factor. On top of this were the higher operating costs that I just spoke to, as well as a $50 million change in working capital against the prior year. The primary drivers of working capital movement in the period, with the movement being $186 million, relates to predominantly to the, the concentrate sales at Cuiaba, inventory on hand and debtors balances. Just remembering that we actually didn't we shipped our first vessel in April of this year. We expect most of our assets to improve operationally in half two, and to benefit from some tailwinds on input costs.

We're also working really hard to turn the tide in Brazil, as Alberto already mentioned, and to really improve that cash flow position, that has impacted us by $140 million in this half. Okay, I think that's it on free cash flow. Balance sheet and liquidity. The balance sheet continues to be solid. We have long-dated debt maturities, low leverage, and $2.3 billion in liquidity, including cash of over $700 million. Adjusted net debt, as I already mentioned, $1.2 billion, 6% higher than Q1. Leverage of 0.7 times, remaining below our target.

The group's corporate restructure, with the change in domicile and primary listing location, is expected to close in September and is anticipated to result in a one-off transaction cost just below 5% of market capital on the day, obviously, depending on share price and exchange rate at that point. Finally, we go to guidance. As Alberto mentioned, we're reconfirming our 2023 guidance. Based on our first half performance, we do remain on track to achieve this. Reduction is planned to be second half weighted, roughly 40/60, consistent with prior years. We also expect unit costs to decline in the second half of 2023, as we see fuel and input prices continuing to come down and the temporary production stoppage in Siguiri not recurring.

We have a clear plan to improve our cash conversion and overall cash generation in the second half, and these, with the efforts and the focus on Brazil, we anticipate managing within our current guidance. With that, I'll hand back to Alberto to conclude.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you, Gillian. Moving to Nevada. Our position in the Beatty District has the potential to produce north of 300,000 ounces of gold, multi-decades at, let's say, high 900s, all-in sustaining costs. As a reminder, we've declared 8.4 mineral answers of mineral resource across the tenement, and what you see today is the enormous potential for growth that is outstripping our earlier expectations. Our improving understanding of the geology, the structures and alteration in the area is helping us to identify new targets and increasing our confidence of what this property will deliver. We've now successfully consolidated the Silicon-Merlin complex after integrating the ground acquired from Coeur. To date, we have drilled more than 200 kilometers across both properties, which we now refer as the expanded Silicon Project. Next slide.

Completion of the feasibility study for the North Bullfrog Project is anticipated by year-end. The feasibility study is proposing an open-pit mining alternative using both gravity milling and heap leaching for ore processing. Results from recent mineral resource conversion drilling are being incorporated into an update of the minerals resource model. This model will be the basis for the final optimization of the feasibility study. Permitting processes are underway for the North Bullfrog Project, and environmental baseline studies are being reviewed by the agencies for completeness. Federal and state permitting processes are expected to formally commence during the first quarter of 2024. Now, this is the expanded Silicon Project that covers the northern and southern deposits of Silicon and Merlin, respectively.

As I said before, we folded Coeur Sterling Project into our land package and has allowed us to optimize the inferred mineral resource drilling program, targeting, in particular, the Merlin resource. We're incredibly excited about the results from this drilling so far this year. The mineralization at Merlin open in several directions. You can see the drill holes and more than, again, 50 kilometers in that tenement. The section shows a representation of the extent and size of the deposit, along with some very exciting intercepts. You will obviously take your time to look through this cross-section in detail, but I'd like to point out that you will see 285 meters at 3.3 grams per ton, 250m at 2.5, and just over 100m at 2.4.

We are now using this latest information to update our geological understanding for input to a conceptual study and initial mineral resource declaration anticipated at year-end. We disclosed an exploration target in Merlin alone of 6 million ounces to 8 million ounces, and we expect to formally declare that resource by the end of 2023. Given the considerable and growing potential at Merlin, we are integrating the Silicon Project into the expanded Silicon Project. This will capture the synergies from increased economies of scale and integrated infrastructure with potential for large-scale mining. Moving to the JV in Ghana, we continue to work progress with the proposed joint venture between our Idupriem Mine and Gold Fields Tarkwa Mine in Ghana.

This complex will have an estimated annual production of more than 300,000 ounces over the first three years, and it will have a margin with an estimated all-in sustaining cost of about 950 ounces over that period. We expect after that, when we formally have the JV, to optimize the mine and to probably have numbers that are very preliminary right now. We have a reasonable confidence of how big and how good it will be in the first three years. It will have scale. It will become the largest gold mine in Africa. We expect reserves of the proposed joint venture will exceed the sum of the reserves for the standalone operations, given the extent of the anticipated operational synergies. The structure is straightforward.

Assuming the necessary approvals are received, an incorporated joint venture will be established with Goldfields in Ghana. At the end, it is proposed that the government of Ghana will have a 10% stake in that entity, with AGA holding 30% and Goldfields 60%. We have begun discussions with the government of Ghana to ensure they have an understanding of the combination and its benefits for all stakeholders. We will continue this engagement and look forward to concluding it in due course. Focus areas. As I've said before, 2023 remains a transitional year for us. We remain focused on making more improvements and on delivering more consistent results in line with the targets that we have set out. The full potential program is working as intended. Our Tier One assets are performing well, with improvements in the pipeline.

We're focused on further optimizing our important Tier Two mines and determining with our stakeholders, the best forward for our remaining assets. Obuasi's ramp-up continues to progress. We have the right people and the right organizational structure in place. We're focused on improving operational and capital efficiencies. Our world-class exploration team continues to add value through the drill bit across our properties. Our technical team continues to progress on Nevada opportunity, and we're working to optimize our corporate structure. We expect, as I said before, a second half that is cash positive, more than 200,000 ounces, increasing production versus H1, lower cash costs that would put us within guidance and lower all-in sustaining costs that will be within or very close to the guidance that we have put out previously. Next slide. This is a new and interesting slide.

Since the beginning, I alluded to the priority of closing the gap between, let's say, the top three, four mining, gold mining companies in the world and ourselves. If we go back to late 2021, when this journey started, AGA's cost inflation was at the top end of the peer group. As you can see in this slide, in the last 12 months, we moved first to the midpoint and then to the lower end of this range. The last 24 months, we moved first to the midpoint and then to the lower end of the range. We know there is more work needed to do even better and ultimately to bend our cost curve downward, but we're quite satisfied with the progress up to date. Having said this.

We expect to continue this trend of regaining our cost competitiveness and to close even further the gap between ourselves and the main competitors. How will we do that? We will continue our full asset potential that will deliver results. Obuasi going in 2025 to +200,000, 400,000 ounces at very competitive cash costs will be a very big part of this. In the long term, we will, as I've said before, streamline the Brazil operations. That will be an important part. Finally, in the medium to longer term, Nevada will contribute significantly and further enhance our cost competitiveness. Let me discuss our corporate restructuring briefly. By now, you're familiar with our proposed re-domicile transaction. This comes after the progress we've made in many other areas of our business.

The corporate structure was announced on May 12, and will provide AGA with a UK corporate domicile and transition our current ADR listing in The U.S. to a primary listing of shares on the New York Stock Exchange and secondary listing in Johannesburg and Ghana. This move mirrors a transition of our portfolio over several years and matches our corporate footprint to that reality. It will, we believe, provide us enhanced access to capital in the world largest market for gold share, improve our competitive positioning along the industry's highest rated and most valued gold miners, increase the size of our sell side coverage universe, and improve our overall strategic flexibility. We will do all of this with minimal disruption to all of our shareholders. The shareholder vote for this transaction will take place the 18th of August.

A refresher on the before and after corporate structure to this business. We put in place the new U.K. incorporated TopCo, following the scheme, that new U.K. incorporated TopCo will have the same underlying shareholders as AngloGold Ashanti immediately prior to implementation. No change of economic substance, the current AngloGold Ashanti group with no changes to the team. A primary listing, as I said before, the New York Stock Exchange and secondary in JSE, A2X, and Ghana. Relevant approvals to implement the proposed transactions have been obtained from the South African regulatory authorities, and we have also received the key administrative approvals required from other jurisdictions. We mentioned in May, there are anticipated to be one of cost in implementing the proposed transaction, comprising primarily taxes payable in South Africa, which amount to roughly 5% of our market cap.

These costs, primarily taxes in South Africa, move broadly in line with the changing market value and will be funded from available cash resources and other currently available sources of liquidity. We would anticipate that the transaction, if it's approved on the eighteenth of August, to close by around September 20. We talk about the largest capital market being the U.S., but it's important to see what it looks like. This is, by any measure, the largest and most liquid equity capital market in the world and home to some of the largest institutional investors. Its sheer size dwarfs any comparison. More importantly, if you see the gold, that one on the right, the gold global concentration, 66% of it is in The United States, U.K., 23, rest of the world, 4%, Europe, 7. Again, United States dwarfs, and we are significantly underrepresented.

If you look at that chart carefully on the left, you will see when we talk that we are underrepresented in the largest pool of gold capital, this is what it means. We believe there's an enormous opportunity for us as we position ourselves closer to a large universe of active investors in particular, who, when you look at their holdings across a universe of North America, we see a lot of headroom to lift their positions as we transition to a primary listing. Thank you, and we are open to questions now.

Judith?

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star then One on your telephone keypad or the keypad on your screen. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press Star Two to exit the question queue. Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you're welcome to press Star and then One. The first question comes from Catherine Cunningham of J.P. Morgan.

Catherine Cunningham (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, guys. Thanks for the presentation. Just one question from me. I appreciate you've already said that you expect costs to be lower in the second half of the year, and that's one of the reasons why you've reiterated your full year guidance. Just curious, when you look across all of your operating geographies, which regions do you currently have the most conviction in around inflation abating? And which regions, in your opinion, are at the highest risk of seeing a more sort of persistent and sticky inflation?

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Oh, thanks, Catherine. Look, we, we still expect inflation. When we talk about this guidance, and it's interesting, we, we experienced in the first half about 9% inflation, but there's a denominator effect in that one. That means that in the first quarter of last year, we had not seen any major inflation because we were using old stocks. We started to see that in Q2, and then we fully saw inflation in Q3. As you move into Q3, just by the denominator effect, you would expect a much lesser impact on a year-to-year basis. We are assuming that the inflation for the full year will be higher than what we initially told the market. I believe we initially told the market we expected around 6.

I think for the full year, we're expecting a 7%-7.5% increase in inflation for the full year. Again, the issue with guidance is you have to meet it, whatever it is. You don't put out a guidance saying, "Guidance, but this in general." We will have to overcompensate with efficiency, the higher costs and the higher inflation, and we plan to do it. We plan to do it also by the effect of the significantly higher production that will bring down, by again, that denominator effect, the cost in all those places where we have a lot of confidence. In our tier one, in Obuasi, in Geita, in Kibali, we have confidence that they will reach we already seeing them reach the levels that are required to substantiate what I have said before.

Catherine Cunningham (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, cool. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Jared Hoover of RMB.

Jared Hoover (Equity Analyst)

Afternoon, Alberto and team, thanks for the call. Just a few questions from my side, please. The first, just around the degree of volatility in your business and probably aligned to the full asset potential as well. I mean, I appreciate the comments on the call that you seem to have quite a high degree of confidence in meeting your full year 2023 outlook. That implies quite a step up into the performance in the second half of the year. Generally, your business has an inherent level of, of seasonality in it, and that seems to be exacerbated this year by the one-offs at Siguiri and Cuiaba. I guess that's why when you have free cash on negative quarters, like the first quarter and the second quarter, it almost makes investors a bit skeptical that the turnaround is working.

I guess my question really is: When do you think we might get to a stage where you'll have less volatility on your business so that investors can more wholeheartedly buy into the investment case at AngloGold? That's my first question. My second question is just around costs, and you've got quite a nice waterfall chart in your pack where you outline the non-controllable factors and the one-offs. I think Siguiri and Cuiaba were about $20 an ounce each in the first half of the year. I'm just trying to understand the amount of those costs that would be repeated into the second half of the year. For example, if you don't manage to sell all of your concentrate at Cuiaba, would we see some of those costs potentially in 2024 as well? My last question is on slide 33 regarding your restructure.

I think you've got a table on the left-hand side, and I guess my takeaway from this is that you almost telling us that it doesn't matter whether you get inclusion into MSCI US and MSCI DM. We know that MSCI have already told us that they won't be included AngloGold in those list in those indexes. Potentially, if you don't get inclusion in Russell 2000 either, that there still is quite a big pool of capital in The U.S. that would potentially still be looking at you to take positions. Have you had any discussions with some of these global investor number 1 to number 15, who you think might be interested in your stock? I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you. Okay, look, there are some things that you can control and others that you can't. At Siguiri, as I told the team, you will always trip, it's how you stand up, and they did a very good job. Yes, I wouldn't, I'm not happy that losing 25,000 ounces, but I'm very happy that everybody was safe and that they fixed it so quickly, and they were back to normal. That volatility, you can never really do anything about it. Brazil, it's been an issue for a while, and it, it takes a time. You can't shrink yourself into greatness, you try to fix things, but at some point, you take decisions and say, "Okay, this is the way forward." That's what we're communicating with you today. I expect that in the...

let's say in 2024, with the tier one and tier two assets, and the tier one being much, much more predictable, we will go back to. Historically, it's a 45, 55 split. It's always like that. This now for those three assets, it's gonna be like, maybe 42 split, a little bit more skewed, but there's good reasons as to why. In Ghana, there was good reasons as to why. In Obuasi, we're ramping up, and I'm sorry, in Ghana, it was the, we were doing scheduled maintenance. And Kibali, probably it also has its seasonality. I think that investors should have confidence that there's always that seasonality in 45, 55.

What we're going into so much detail is saying, "Well, we are expecting an increase in production driven by things that we have done in the past." We've done it in Ghana, we've done it in Obuasi, and we've done it in Kibali. There's no reason why we won't do it again. I'm, I'm... I probably would see it a bit differently than you. If, if people understand the business and understand what our seasonalities, I think that we should be fine. I, I, I do agree that when you have too many things, we had the issues in Cuiaba, we had the issues of regulators. You have an issue in Siguiri, there's a bit more volatility than you would want to. I'm just trying to convey that.

the very solid reasons why H2 will be better. Let me ask Gillian to help me on, on the cost one. She's as very clear.

Speaker 8

Yeah, no worries. Thanks for the question. I think we see Siguiri and Cuiaba as truly one-off, and I'd like to just sort of help you understand why we see that. Firstly, in Siguiri, as Alberto has mentioned, the team have successfully recovered, and they're coming back, they've come back online, and we see this as a sort of one-off event that happened in the first half. For Cuiaba specifically, what you just need to remember is that the team needed to mobilize very quickly from a mining, processing, refining business to concentrate sales. In the first half, they needed to very quickly mobilize, set up logistics, pathways, storage facilities, negotiate with the port, arrange contracts with traders.

Very much almost a sort of new sort of business operations needed to be thought through, and so that had a cost associated with it in the first half. They have successfully built that capacity in Cuiaba, we ran 3 trials before we settled on a contract with a trader, which we have done. We feel relatively comfortable with the pricing mechanism that we have in place and also with the terms, to help us kind of release the cash flows and optimize the working capital in the second half. For those 2 reasons, we sort of see both of those items as absolutely one-off impacts and not to be repeated in the second half, and also not impacting our 2024 performance. I think that's probably all I would say.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Yeah, that's it. Thank you. On the restructure, I'll ask Stuart to help me. Overall, we expect in the medium to longer term, a quite positive influence and. In the short term, there's going to be pluses and minus. There's a particular probably clarification in that table, and again, Stuart will talk about it, but it means they don't necessarily have to follow an index. Stuart, why don't you?

Moderator (participant)

Yeah, I think your characterization, Jared, was pretty much there. You know, correct, that MSCI will keep us in the EM category for now. You know, that could well change in the sort of medium term once, you know, our sort of filing status in The U.S. changes, if indeed it does so. I'll just stress what I've said earlier and before, which is that, you know, the indexation wasn't the key driver of the transaction, and neither is it something we control. To repeat, Alberto, we're still positive in the medium to longer term that the indexation is, will be positive for us. As you mentioned, there's not only MSCI EM, there's Russell, there's CRSP, and there are other big opportunities in that market.

On the active side, you know, we have conversations with investors all the time, not just in the run-up or, you know, to the vote and following announcement of the transaction, but over years and years. So I think we're reasonably comfortable, of the fact that there's a, latent demand[audio distortion]tap into once the shift is made.

Operator (participant)

Very clear. Thank you, team.

Moderator (participant)

Thanks very much, Jared.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Sipho of Value Corp.

Speaker 9

Hi, thank you for taking my call. Am I audible?

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Yes, you are.

Moderator (participant)

Yes.

Speaker 9

Okay. Yes. I'm just actually questioning. My questions are, maybe I've got two, three questions. First, on the property in Nevada, the Bullfrog. How much? Can you remind us again, how much will it... What is the estimated capital of that project? The other question that I've got is actually on your all-in sustaining margin. At current run rate, you know, trailing 12 months, well, to date, you are almost back to the, the, to 2016 or so level, which was 16%, 17%. Alberto, maybe can you characterize what is driving this, what seemingly is coming out as a deterioration in your business? You know, it's the asset quality deterioration. Well, I know you've got your Full Potential Program, but why not amp it up?

Why take it an asset at a time? Why not maybe take three, four assets at a time to actually see meaningful impact so that we can arrest the decline in this quality of asset that seemingly is coming through your, your results? That will be all for now. Thanks.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you, Sipho. Look, we've said that by the end of this year, we will talk about the results of the feasibility study in North Bullfrog, and we will anticipate what we can say of the concept study that we would expect to finish for Merlin, for the Silicon Merlin, and we'll talk more about CapEx. What we have set up today is that these, what we anticipate is low CapEx, heap leaching, some mills, but nothing out of the ordinary. We haven't given detailed CapEx numbers, but it would be on the low side. What we do know and we have said is that, when we model the whole sort of district, we expect to have all-in sustaining costs in the high $900s.

That just tells you in the long run that the, the CapEx is really... These are not complex projects. Look, on the all-in sustaining cost, I probably categorize it different. The one thing that probably I'd ask you to consider is inflation. We can't be held accountable for inflation, like no other mining company can. If we had lived in a world of normal inflation, our cash cost and all-in sustaining cost would have gone down. I would probably advise you to look in carefully at that graph that we put in of all-in sustaining costs, and you can see how, like, sustainably every quarter, we have closed the gap with our competitors. In the end, that is what matters.

We cannot control inflation, but we can in control the relative gap between us and our competitors, and we are doing much, much better than 18 months ago. For me, that is not a deterioration. For me, that is an improvement. Again, we, we may see things differently.

Operator (participant)

Okay. Those conclude the questions. Going on to the next question, which comes from Adrian Hammond of SBG.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Good day, everyone. Two questions, please. Firstly, for Stuart, if we perhaps have, addressed my query around credit ratings and whether the redomicile to The U.K. would improve your credit rating. Secondly, for Gillian, I'm just, curious to see your interpretations and initial impressions of, AngloGold's joining and whether you've identified any, obvious opportunities. Thanks.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thanks, Adrian. Just I think in and of itself, the redomicile, no, on the credit rating, it's not, you know, because it doesn't, on day one, change the company. I think the opportunity sits in, you know, with credit rating agency like Moody's, which, you know, has a, as a rule or a policy, sort of tethers your rating to your sovereign, wherever you're based. You will trade. You cannot trade more than two rungs away from the sovereign with Moody's. You know, obviously, we would be looking for some benefit in that regard.

I think, you know, for the medium to longer term, for us, the, you know, the best and fastest way to accredit rating changes to, just stick with what we're doing, improve margins, improve costs, and keep the balance sheet strong. That's where we're at.

I think we won't be capped, and that's the biggest thing, which we were capped before. It's interesting, if you look at the price of our bonds, in the past years, they've actually been better than a rating, and a little bit is that recognition that we were. Yeah, we were being held back, so, in time, I do expect that we should improve as we continue to deliver.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Thanks.

Speaker 8

Um-

Cameron Miram (Analyst)

Thanks.

Speaker 8

Okay, so look, goes to the, the question, Adrian, I actually didn't expect that one today. What I would say is, I'm even more happy that I, that I joined the organization. You know, when you look at how Alberto was characterizing the portfolio, we have, a set of tier one world-class assets, fantastic people. I've been here in South Africa for the last two weeks, and I'm always impressed by the capability of the team, capability, commitment, and focus of the team. That's both from a finance perspective, of course, but also from the, from a technical perspective. I believe in the future strategy. I think we have a lot that we can do to develop and grow our business.

So, yeah, like I said, I'm very happy and looking forward to presenting a really strong set of results at the end of the year.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Thanks, Gillian. We look forward to it, too. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Cameron Miram of Bank of America.

Cameron Miram (Analyst)

Thanks very much for the presentation, all. Just two quick questions from me. Firstly, on full asset potential, how challenging do you think this sort of result at Sunrise Dam is gonna be to replicate across the portfolio? You know, is it a case that a lot of these measures that you, you kind of take are, are highly asset-specific, and at Sunrise Dam, these are some of the easiest wins, or is that not the case? Then just secondly, actually, on exploration, I'm just interested, given the, the kinda nature of gold mining and gold assets, how are you thinking about the, the right amount to be spending here, given where AngloGold is on its journey and, and things like reserve life? Thanks very much.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you. Actually, the we have a dedicated team led by a very experienced, let's say, veterans in the company on continuous improvement. They actually have a system to replicate, sort of what they see as quick wins. Probably the one that I would highlight is on plants, plant recovery, metallurgic recovery improvements, and that's what I see that we're doing that in, like, about three or four places already. Just in. This is about putting new cyclones, shear reactors, improving the leaching, sort of the chemical reaction and hence, increasing the recoveries from. It's enormous. If you go from Sunrise 82, now to 85, and projected to 88. There's a lot of money in that.

That's one particular that I can remember that has that has been replicated in most places. The other one is, I would say, the everything around increasing efficiency of transportation, be it underground tonnage that we saw in Sunrise or be it in Tropicana, and also on the everything around haulage, around truck, increasing truck availability, use of availability and productivity. They're relatively sort of not rocket science, but they do take time implementing. This one in particular, for example, on plants in Geita, which we're doing right now, well, you got to order the shear reactor. You got to order the cyclones. All that take months and months and months, and that's why you only start seeing the benefits, let's say, in 2024 and the full benefits in 2025.

Yeah, there's a lot of commonality and learnings that this team that is, let's say, in weekly conversations, where all of the assets are implemented full asset potential, that's the sort of modus operandi. Exploration. Look, I think we spend about $35 million in greenfields, and that team has earned its money. On average, their objective is to discover a tier one every five years, and you look at what they did, well, they're the ones in Silicon. Silicon is an amazing story. I think it has surprised a lot of our peers that were already there. How can they find this? It's, it's an interesting story, this was.

This particular acreage of Silicon was out of, you couldn't claim it because it was under a nuclear facility, and there's prohibition because of the nuclear facility. Suddenly they left the moratorium, and for some reason, our team was able to go in, and that really put the ground for our ability to buy Corvus. We could buy Corvus and pay the premium on Corvus because we were gonna have shared infrastructure on their acreage and our acreage, and we've moved from 0 to 14 million ounces by the end of the year. That, exploration greenfield of 35 is, I think, at the right level. Brownfield is a different one. We spend about $280 million on brownfields, and in the team, we have the CDO, Terry.

He has moved and created a new person reporting into him. That is the new brownfield head, and he will try to look at ways to probably optimize the $280 million. I... Is that the right amount, or could we spend a bit less? My, my guess is that we could spend a bit less, but that's part of the, that's what an operating model does, and the focus on a probably company lens versus an asset lens will do.

Adrian Hammond (Executive Director)

Thanks, Alberto. Very clear.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Leroy Mnguni of HSBC.

Leroy Mnguni (Mining Equity Analyst)

Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. Alberto, I was wondering if you could maybe give us a bit more detail on your thinking around the other assets or the, the tier three assets, so CDS and Sierra Grande, in terms of, you know, how much time do you want to give yourself to try and turn those assets around and, and get a buyer before you make the decision to close? Is there a scenario where you decide to keep them and run them instead? Then if you were to close them today, what, what, what would that cost you? Then, just on the re-domicile costs, I appreciate that you expect to become free cash flow generative in the second half of the year, and you've clearly said you're gonna fund those out of internal cash.

Is there a scenario where you decide to use equity instead, if, you know, there are some concerns around your, your balance sheet? I suppose it is an equity story after all. It's about, you know, an equity re-rating. It does make sense to, to use your equity, especially if you have, credit agencies starting to raise concerns around your balance sheet. I'll leave it there for now. Thanks.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you, Leroy. They're different, MSG, Sierra Grande, and CDS. On CDS and Sierra Grande, what I've said is that we're happy that the team on the ground has been able to move it and to lay an operating plan that will move in the second half, and we're already seeing it in, let's say, in July, into a break-even. It lost not a lot, about $15 million, $20 million in the first half, but still, we, we don't want to have anything that cross-subsidizes in a structural way, and so that's the message. We're happy that Sierra Grande has sort of turned the corner. They've done very good work. They've done full asset potential, and so the fact that they become, let's say, break-even in second half, takes a lot of the pressure out.

in the longer term, it's just the size. It's not the size for a company like ours, but if there's no buyer, we're gonna keep it open, we're gonna keep producing, and we'll continue to be good stewards. We have a good team on the ground, so there's really no rush. CDS is a bit different. It's very high all-in sustaining costs of close to $30,000, and the, the really difficult to improve production. We have to take a decision this year. We haven't taken the decision. We would love to be able to sell it, and there is some interest again in some companies that would probably be good stewards, so we will keep trying to do that.

What I've said is that you don't expect to have that one in particularly as an on-ongoing concern in, let's say, towards the end of the year. We would have done one or the other, because at this stage, it's still negative cash flow, and so that's that will have to stop. There's a lot of attention to it, but yeah, we will have to take a. I would think that we will have clarity the next quarter that we talk. Regarding the re-domicile, I would probably start by saying that I have heard, at least myself, no concerns on the balance sheet. I believe it is very solid, as Gillian talked about it, and it's just no point of going for what will be whatever, $400 million or something to do equity.

There's no plans, and we will not do any equity raising for that. We said that we will fund it with internal resources, and we are, as we look into... I've quoted just the second quarter. We had an almost $300 million of net operating cash flow from net cash flow from operations. We expect a much better second half, and then we'll use the balance sheet. It's in a very strong position.

Leroy Mnguni (Mining Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Thank you. Thanks, [audio distortion].

Operator (participant)

I will now hand it back over to Mr. Stewart Bailey for a question from the webcast.

Moderator (participant)

Alberto, just a quick one from René Hochreiter at NOA Capital. Just saying, could you give us some any news on Quebradona at the moment?

Alberto Calderon (President and CEO)

Look, Quebradona, we continue to optimize. It is a great project, and we will build it one day. Unfortunately, the country is in a big turmoil. You can see if you don't follow the news, you can see the latest news in Colombia. It is a typical Mexican Colombian telenovela. Anyway, it's very difficult right now, and it just makes it very difficult to get any right now, permission. We continue to engage with the government. It's a good project. In the long term, we will do it, but I can't give you any updates on any progress because it's, there's a... The Minister of Mines changed. He's new. It's, it's, yeah, right now, probably no news. It's still, I would put it, it fits well with the sequencing of CapEx.

The big CapEx of Nevada will come, let's say, in 2026, 2027, 2028, and then Quebradona will come in. That's my expectation. At this stage, I can't give you any update.

All right, Alberto, that's it. Any closing remarks?

Look, the closing remarks is, I hope that we were able to convey why Q2 was much better than Q1, and why the things that hampered us in Q2 and partly in Q1, Brazil, Siguiri, are now in a much better state, and why we have confidence that our tier one assets, our big cash providers, will have a much better second half, Kibali, Obuasi, and Geita. We're confident on our H2, we're confident on our guidance. We don't take our guidance lightly. Last year, we were probably the only one of the big companies that kept guidance.

We work hard on credibility, and so when we are putting out and saying: we will keep guidance on production, we will keep guidance on cash cost, and on all-in sustaining, we say: We think we can, but if anything, we're a little bit higher, but only a couple of points. It's because we value and we respect, again, our stakeholders, and we want to keep our credibility. We have confidence that we can do that, and I hope that we have given you the details to underpin that confidence, and I hope you... we can get it. Anyway, thank you all, and we're, again, look forward to Q3, and seeing you again. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's event. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.