Aura Minerals - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to third quarter 2025 earnings call. This conference is being recorded and the replay will be available at the company's website at auraminerals.com/investidores. The presentation will also be available for download. This call is also available in Portuguese. To access, you can press the globe icon on the lower right side of your Zoom screen and then choose to enter the Portuguese Room. After that, select mute original audio [Foreign language]. We would like to inform that all attendees will only be listening the conference during the presentation and then we will start the question and answer session when further instructions will be provided.

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals or the beliefs and assumptions of Aura executive toard and the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario, the industry and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in their respective forward looking statements. Present at this conference we have Rodrigo Barbosa, President and CEO, and Kleber Cardoso, CFO. Now I will turn the conference over to Rodrigo Barbosa. You may begin the conference.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Good morning all. It's a pleasure to be here again with you sharing more about our results in the quarter and give a little bit of background and look in the future. This quarter was another solid step towards our programs to grow and we are also walking the talk while growing while paying dividends. Just before I jump into the quarter results I think it would be valuable to make a quick overview of what happened in this company in the last two years and then can position ourselves that continue towards the future, continue trajectory to growth. In two years we built Almas on time, on budget, setting new benchmarks, how to put the money into production with less than 24 months between start of construction to commercial production with no lost time incident. We also built Borborema on time, on budget again and with no lost time incidents.

In the meanwhile we acquired Bluestone with the project Era Dorada, we advanced in Matupá, we are advanced also in exploration in Serra da Estrela and recently we signed a contract to acquire MSG from AngloGold. In the meanwhile we've been also reaching record high productions in the last quarter with 74,000 ounces. When now with stable productions plus the production that's coming from Borborema is allowing us to grow production as we had promised to the market. In the meanwhile we are also controlling our costs. So that with this higher gold prices and also higher production, we've been able to achieve record high results and then also be able to pay the dividends.

Now let's move to the presentation and I will share a little bit in more details about the quarter and then Kleber is going to present about the financial results and then I come back with the questions and answers. In the quarter as I mentioned, 74,000 ounces of production, reminded that we started with 60,000 ounces, 64,000 ounces and now 74,000 ounces. While Borborema in the third quarter was still ramping up, we now have Borborema continue to ramp up close to full production during this quarter. Very soon we also have the closing for MSG and then we will add new production from Serra Grande MSG. As I mentioned, this higher, this higher production, stable cost and higher gold price allowed us to reach $152 million of EBITDA.

This is close to 50% more, 45% more than last quarter and almost double when you compare to the last quarter. The Q3 2024, and then while the gold price for this quarter was $3,473, just slightly below $3,500. Now gold prices are hovering around $4,000 per ounce. When you look back and see our last 12 months of EBITDA, we reach it now at close to $419 million with the gold price at $3,068. Our last 12 month EBITDA should continue to grow as we are adding new quarters with higher production and also higher gold price. As I mentioned, cost has been under control and actually with this Almas plus Borborema has a lower all-in sustaining cash cost compared to our average.

We've been able to gradual now decrease our all-in sustaining cash cost that now we presented at the $1,396 per equivalent ounce. Understanding that now I will explain later. With the higher gold price we divide the copper production for a bigger denominator so it's less gold equivalent ounces which means also higher all-in sustaining cash cost. Not because the mine is not performing, just because gold price is increasing. Even with that we've been able to reduce all-in sustaining cash cost in one side. The very good news is gold price continue to appreciate. We come from $3,287-$3,825 closing on Q3. That also has an impact over our zero cost collars over all calls and when we mark to market this higher gold price has impacted negatively by $75 million on our net income.

Again this has come from a very good news which gold price is increasing but for part of our production, a minor part, less than 20%, this impact we have collars that set the price between $2,400-$2,600. That Kleber is going to explain in more details as other important events that happened during this quarter. MSG we continue to advance on the conditions for closing. We expect to close during this quarter as we initially planned. We also, we are now declaring dividends, important dividends to our shareholders at $0.48 per U.S. dollars on shares in Nasdaq, which is the equivalent of $0.16 for each BDRs because each share in Nasdaq means three BDRs, which compounded with a share buyback on the last 12 months, it's a yield of 77.4% to our shareholders.

We see our share appreciating but is appreciating more our results or cash flows. We still see significant room for Aura to continue to grow in cash flows but also in our market value. I mentioned already about Borborema now commercial production on time, on budget with no lost time incident. Another important milestone that we reached now as we were projecting in or one of the objectives of listing in Nasdaq was to increase daily trading volume by offering new shares over $200 million and now to increase our daily trading volume. We come from $1.5 million per day of daily trading volume and now we are reaching close to $30 million per day on average, which allow more sophisticated and bigger investors to invest in our shares.

that, there is still room for us to close the gap on our price per NAV, as we are still discounted compared to our peers. On the next slide, as we always present, we had another quarter with no lost time incident. Actually, now we are two years with only one single lost time incident, while we also built Borborema, and Borborema also reaching over 1,000 days without a lost time incident. In terms of the stability of the structures, we do regular auditing by third parties, and recently it has been audited also, and we are fulfilling all the legal obligations. Also, all the structures are stable. In terms of quarter production, on the left side of this slide, we see that we come from 60,000 ounces, 64,000 ounces, 74,000 ounces.

We still have room to continue to improve as we gonna add Borborema full production next year. We still have MSG after closing. We still have Era Dorada, Matupá to build. Down the road also develop Serra da Estrela. When you see on the right side, the mines have been stable quarter-over-quarter. Apoena is slightly better than last quarter, but yet 1,000 oz more. Minosa is super stable. Almas, we are increasing production at Almas as we are increasing also capacity and more volume at the plant. Now we see on the top of those slides, on the charts, Borborema assuming a more relevant position that should continue to increase along the next quarters. In terms of our sustaining cash cost, as I mentioned to you, we've been able to manage and control our all-in sustaining cash costs.

Actually as you can see, we are reducing on Q3 2024 despite two things that's happening that's impacting negatively sustaining cash cost. Number one, we are in investment phase Apoena pushing back the pit to connect the pits and create a super pit that it will last until next year. That push back has a higher all-in sustaining cash cost compared to our average. That is pushing more towards a higher number. However, we should go back to normal levels in Apoena after 2027. On the other hand, we also see as I mentioned, are is now we are converting to less gold equivalent ounces. We get the production of copper we get, so we apply the price of copper. The revenues of copper we divide by the gold price.

The higher the gold price, the lower the gold equivalent production and also the higher all-in sustaining cash cost on the calculation. That does not mean that we are increasing on the efficiency level. The all-in sustaining cash cost for another was just a mathematical result of this conversion of gold equivalent ounces. If we were not by that, we would be even lower all-in sustaining cash cost on this quarter. Next slide. As we are progressing very well during the year, we have maintained our guidance for the year. If you look on the left side in terms of production with the constant price that we use when we projected the guidance to the market early this year, we are now production of 204,000 ounces last quarter, 74,000 ounces. Understanding that Borborema still have room to improve.

You see, that will be very much in line with the guys in the mid part of the guidance, slightly above or below the mid part of the guidance in terms of production. On the other hand, in terms of cash cost and all-in sustaining cash costs, we can see here that Aura has been performing at the very low end of the guidance, if not below the lower end of the guidance. In terms of CapEx, we also continue to maintain our guidance for the year. As I mentioned earlier in this presentation, it's remarkable the achievements we are having with our shares in the Nasdaq and also Brazil. We come from, as I mentioned, $1.5 million per day on average, and since the Nasdaq listing, we've been able to reach $13 million, $15 million, $22 million, now $29.7 million per day.

That also shows that Aura can now be in the radar of major investors. With that, start closing the gap of a price per NAV compared to peers. Next, the remarkable event for the quarter is that we declared commercial production of Borborema on time, on budget, with no lost timings, actually again setting benchmarks since from scratch to commercial production in close to two years. If you see on the picture on the top on the right up, we see the wastewater or the sewage treatment station. I would remind investors that we are innovating in this project where 100% of the water that we get externally comes from sewage water from the city that we are treating and use in operation.

We recycle all this water within our own operation and we add what we lose in terms of evaporation. Next slide. Kleber, I'll turn to you.

Kleber Cardoso (CFO)

Thanks Rodrigo. Good morning everyone. We're going to start with a summary of the main financial KPIs on stage. We show the results for the reporting quarter, the last few quarters, and dotted lines accumulated last 12 months for the end of each reporting period. Overall, as Rodrigo mentioned, it has a quarter of a couple of record highs in terms of net revenues. We reached $248 million on this third quarter, bringing the last 12 months to $772 million. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, we have a record high for the fifth quarter in a row. Our EBITDA improved over 40% compared to the previous quarter. Ended with $152 million on this Q3 as a combination of the higher production, lower cash cost, and improved gold prices. As Rodrigo mentioned, gold prices average market price is about $2,034.50.

During Q3 we still have some upside opportunity on the fourth quarter with current spot prices in the last 12 months. I just said we are now close to $420 million increasing quarter after quarter. When we look at the net income we're reporting a profit of $6 million. We saw our P&L being hit by non-cash losses related to our outstanding gold derivatives. Gold prices came from the beginning of the quarter below $3,300 and ended the quarter over $3,800. We had to mark to market on outstanding position with impacting $75 million. A non-cash financial loss in the quarter. On the bottom we see what is our adjusted net income excluding certain non-cash items. We are reporting $69 million on this Q3. Also significant improvement compared to the previous quarters coming from $37 million on June 2.

In terms of cash and net cash and net debt, our cash, we closed with our cash over $350 million in the third quarter. Already benefiting from the $200 million net proceeds from the Nasdaq IPO. Our net debt dropped to only $64 million at the end of the quarter. It's a combination of the proceeds from the IPO and also a strong free cash flow from the operations. As a combination of much lower net debt and increasing adjusted EBITDA, our net debt over the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA dropped to 0.15x. Now, understanding the main items between our interest EBITDA and the net income for the quarter. As you saw, we are reporting $152 million in adjusted.

With that overall, what we highlight as well is the strong performance that we had in the over five operating business units, with Aranzazu reporting the highest EBITDA, was to $40 million. Minosa and Almas around $35 million each of them. Also very strong performances, probably about the first quarter in which we were still ramping up. We had a production in three months in the quarter. A very good EBITDA at $25 million. Apoena, despite being in investment phase as Rodrigo mentioned, also close to $20 million in EBITDA. In terms of financial expense, the biggest, we had $103 million in expenses in the quarter. Most of it related to the outstanding gold hedges we had. Most of that is the no cash loss that I mentioned before.

$75 million to market and in the quarter we had about 17,000 on collars which were settled and paid which led to cash payments on those positions of $17 million. Income tax expenses of $20 million. Pretty much consistent with the results from operations bringing our net income to $6 million and then to the right side the items that we exclude to calculate our adjusted net income. All of them no cash, they unrealized, the biggest one they unrealized, the loss with the gold hedges, effects was immaterial for this quarter and on this quarter we had a benefit in our net income due to the appreciation of the Brazilian real, Mexican peso. We saw benefits on the deferred tax assets on non-monetary items so we excluded this benefit as well bringing the net income to $64 million-$69 million at the end of the quarter.

In here we show the detailed analysis of the changes in our cash position throughout the third quarter. On the far left side of the page in red we see we started the part with $168 million.

On this left portion of the page is what we call the recurring free cash flow to firm, which is the cash flow generated by now the five mines in production, not including how much we're investing to grow the business. We generated $75 million, already deducting the realized losses with the gold hedges. In the middle of the chart, we report today what we invest in to grow the business, either expansion CapEx or exploration CapEx in projects or to increase the life of mines. We invested $90 million, coming down from the previous quarters as Borborema announced in commercial production, and to the right side where the financial items highlighting the repayments of principal debt.

We paid $34 million of gross debts, paid dividends of $28 million in Q3 related to the Q2 results, and then of course the net proceeds from the IPO bringing the cash position over $350 million by the end of the quarter. With this, we end the presentation and open to questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We are going to start the question and answer section for investors and analysts. If you wish to ask a question, please click on raise hand. If your question has already been answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on put hand down. Please hold while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Lucas Laghi with XP. You can open your microphone.

Lucas Laghi (Equity Research VP)

Good morning Rodrigo, Kleber, Natasha. Congratulations on the results. Really, really strong results and congratulations on the ramp up of Borborema. I have two questions. The first one, considering your very comfortable balance sheet, I mean especially after the follow-on most recently and with gold prices providing a very strong free cash flow level. Could you please provide us an update on your capital allocation strategy going forward? I mean we know about all the projects that you have to implement as you mentioned, but considering this free cash flow level and your balance sheet, would it be worth accelerating on M&A? Do you see opportunities here as well considering your leverage levels as you speak, or should the focus be on the above-mentioned projects that you guys are indicating to the market.

Another, my second question, if you could provide an update on the company's priorities regarding resources to reserves conversion. I mean, where should we expect Aura to expand its life of mine considering operating performance, products going forward? Still on this topic, specifically on Borborema, if you have any updates on the road relocation that we know that could trigger an increased reserves figure as well. That would be my questions.

Thanks a lot.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Thank you, Lucas. In terms of capital allocation, as you mentioned, we have a plan to continue to grow, develop our greenfield projects, continue to invest in exploration to increase our resources and reserves. I will detail more on the final part of the question. We still feel that we understand that the real valuation price per NAV starts to get to more decent levels when you are close to a million ounces of production. Before acquiring Era Dorada, before acquiring MSG, our plan was to go beyond 450,000 ounces. Now you can add MSG on top of this. Last year produced 80,000 ounces in that mine. That mine will produce less this year and probably next year, not 80,000, because we have an investment plan to put that mine into full production.

You can add also Era Dorada that we recently, early this year, we showed a new PEA that has a production of 90,000 ounces-95,000 ounces. We are advancing on the feasibility study to publish by the end of this year. If you add both, then you see that you can go beyond 600,000 ounces. To get to our mid announces, we will continue to monitor and to look at new M&As. We have not stopped that. We see still room for us to grow through M&A and we are actively looking at other alternatives in terms of, and about the dividends, as you can see, we have been able to pay strong dividends, actually highest dividend yield in the industry in the last four to five years on average.

In the meanwhile we've been able to acquire companies, develop a new project, expand exploration program and maintain low net debt levels. We should continue to see this kind of movement along the next years. Aura is still now benefiting from higher gold price and stable to lower all-in sustaining cash cost. It's a very good combination for the company moving ahead, which will position us to continue to deliver growth and continue to deliver value through dividends and share buyback to our shareholders. In terms of exploration, we have exploration program in all our mines and business units. We see very interesting potential to expand resources reserves in Almas either by the underground that we already develop in the ramp. We see a lot of regional exploration targets that may take few years to mature.

On the underground, this will be released probably in the next AIF. And new resource and reserves, we see a lot of room to increase. Also, resource and reserve in Matupá, adding the new acquisitions that we made last year and also San Andrés, we see very important upside. Also, in Apoena, only now we are understanding the geology and the few layers of gold that we have. We are now connecting the pit. There is a lot of opportunity also to expand the current pit and also on the regional side to expand resource and reserves. Where we see it more limited is in Honduras in terms of exploration. This is where we do not see that much of upside. But we do have also, as you mentioned, a very interesting and very fast upside to be converted in Borborema once the road relocation is approved.

You asked about when this is progressing. It's a little bit slower than we expected, but it's moving in the right direction. We are now doing a lot of designing, engineering, and all those in order to provide the national authorities the good information, information enough so that they can approve.

Lucas Laghi (Equity Research VP)

Perfect.

Very clear.

Thank you very much and have a nice day, guys.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia with Safra. You can open your microphone.

Ricardo Monegaglia (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats on the results and dividend. My first question maybe to Kleber is how do you assess the ideal level of dividends to be paid in a quarter? Just to get a sense of how you got to this $40 million. Any color on that will be helpful. Maybe what could we expect for the upcoming quarters? Should we, as your results will grow as you generate more cash, we'll have less CapEx from Borborema. Do you think maybe it's feasible to have quarterly dividends above the levels of this quarter? My second question, nice work on the liquidity, right? Average daily traded volume. I want to get a sense if you guys, if this current level or the current average is your end goal.

If not, if you could share any number on regards to what is your goal in terms of liquidity and what else is in your hands to increase that. Thank you guys.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

If you want to answer the first one and then I go back to the second one.

Kleber Cardoso (CFO)

Ricardo, it's a combination of factors. No, it's above the minimum. We have been consistently paying dividends above the minimum. We take into consideration the cash, the evolution of the cash flows on the decrease of gold prices, and also a preliminary view on expected cash investments, capital allocation in the new projects that we have ahead of us. We have taken that into consideration and then have been able to pay again above the minimum and keep our dividend yield analyzed above 7% going forward. If you look at the fourth quarter gold price, it's already at new levels when compared to the third quarter. It's now in commercial production. We cannot promise, but we see room to keep increasing the level of dividends going forward.

Of course, then depends for 2026 on the projects that we're going to invest in allocation decisions. Yeah, in general we see that potential.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

On the liquidity targets. I think our Nasdaq listing or recommendation from the banks was that for us to be included in the radar of major investment funds in the U.S. or Europe we would have to reach above $10 million per day, desirably above $15 million per day. And now we are reaching close to $30 million, which is above what we expected. We do not see this number, except from our valuation of our shares, to continue to increase because the calculation is based on the available shares to trade compared to the daily trading volume. Of course, you can have days more and days less, but $30 million is very comfortable for us. Of course, the higher the number the better. We will also always try to push this daily trading volume higher because the higher, more investment those investors can do.

On Aura, $30 million is already a very good number.

Ricardo Monegaglia (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, no, I agree. Just a quick follow up. Is there any indexes that you guys foresee to enter in the coming months or any like long term desire of an index that you guys could potentially enter in the future?

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Do you want to take this, Kleber.

Kleber Cardoso (CFO)

There are several indexes regardless, some related to Nasdaq, some ESG indexes. We are mapping some of them. We understand we already met the threshold, so I hope as well not long time from now, and some we need to work with those indexes to be added. Not to mention one, but we have a couple that we are following and we have a plan to work to be added more.

More to those indexes.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Which is one of the reasons that we also listed in Nasdaq. To increase our daily trading volume is also to attract the indexes. The indexes need to see several months of high daily trading volume in order to include us, if not two or two quarters. We do expect to be included in several indexes along the next couple of months.

Ricardo Monegaglia (Equity Research Analyst)

Great news. Thank you guys. Hope you have a nice day.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Edgard de Souza with Itaú BBA. You can open your microphone.

Edgard de Souza (Sell-Side Equity Research Associate)

Hi. Hi everyone. Thank you. Thank you for the questions and congratulations for the results. Very strong results, record high EBITDA. My first question, Rodrigo, I wanted to understand a little bit your focus next year for the greenfield projects. Of course you still depend on the social license to decide whether to proceed with Era Dorada or Matupá. It seems that you will not get into next year without proceeding with one greenfield project. There are also a lot of opportunities that are operating assets, right? I was in Almas last week. I was impressed with the brownfield expansion there. There is also the potential of the brownfield expansion at Borborema and also MSG that is still pending the closing. With all that I wanted to understand how do you rank all those opportunities and which are your priorities for next year?

If you could share a little bit your thoughts on those three assets, maybe touch a little bit on the brownfield at Almas. How is the closing of MSG? What are you already doing there? How do you expect the turnaround to be next year? If you are even considering starting the brownfield before receiving all the approval for moving the road, maybe it could make sense given the current gold price levels. My second question, you already discussed a lot, your very strong balance sheet position with the strong free cash flow generation that you will generate over the next few quarters. This will allow for higher dividend payments, your brownfield and greenfield expansions. You have always been mentioning potential M&As. I know that you, Rodrigo, have been very active in this front.

What I want you to understand is that considering all that you have to deliver next year, the greenfield, the expansions at your current projects, do you think that there is room for adding another project already in 2026? Would that be operating assets, pre-operating assets? How are you thinking about this? Okay, those are my questions. Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Thank you, Edgard. The way we see all the brownfield expansions, Almas, Borborema, now the pushback also in Apoena, those are led by the mines itself. It took us a while to create this culture of decentralized decision-making process and also strengthen the local teams. The local teams, with some support from corporate, have been able to plan and invest and implement the expansion. That does not compete with bandwidth with corporate. All of them are analyzing, and actually as you mentioned, Almas is already implementing expansion, and we also have a plan to expand significantly Borborema once the road is reallocated. We do not plan, going to the second question, to start investing heavily on expansion of Borborema before the road relocation because there is the.

The mine will not be able to supply the extra capacity Borborema, which is different from Almas that we've been able to see the underground and few other near mine operation. The mine can also provide a higher volume to the plant that's been expandable in terms of capital location. Next year we continue to move forward with the feasibility study and also with the socialization of Era Dorada. We expect to release the new feasibility study by the end of this year. While we're advancing and getting close to also a construction decision for Matupá, between the end of this year and next year we can decide which one to start building first and how far we'll take from starting one to take to another one.

Are we taking six months of delay, one year of delay, or a year and a half? All those studies are being done for us to understand how we could fast track the execution of both without overlapping a lot of activities. You ask us about M&A. As I mentioned, M&A continue to be an important pillar for our growth strategy. We aim to move closer to 1 million ounces, not at any cost. It needs to be accretive acquisitions in order to create value to our shareholders. In that direction, we see either brownfield operations like MSG that will have a specific team to turn that mine around, taking some attention from corporate. It is not the same team to build new mines.

That gives us a lot of bandwidth to do both, to expand greenfield and also do the turnaround in MSG. We continue to see other alternatives, either brownfield or greenfield. Not a greenfield that we would have to invest next year, but perhaps a greenfield that we could continue to plan, detail engineering, and be able to start building in two years or three years after we're finishing with Era Dorada and Matupá.

Edgard de Souza (Sell-Side Equity Research Associate)

Thank you, Rodrigo. That's great.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Marcelo Arazi with BTG. You can open your microphone.

Marcelo Arazi (Equity Research Associate Director)

Good morning guys. Two questions on my side as well. The first one is a follow up on the dividend discussion. Given that you guys have been paying more than the, than the policy over the past few quarters, can we expect a change in the policies? Is that something that you guys currently discuss? On the second one, we saw some significant impact this quarter from the gold hedges. I wanted to hear you guys, what are your thoughts on this going forward? Should we expect a change in the approach on the gold hedges going forward? How can we expect this to evolve, especially regarding the Guatemala project? Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Thank you, Marcelo. On the, on the dividend policy, we have no discussions to change the policy. 20% of the EBITDA minus recurring CapEx seems to be already a very interesting number. Although we've been able to pay more, right. What we should see on Aura is at least 20% of the EBITDA minus recurring CapEx. When we feel we have extra cash, then we will pay more as we've been doing in the last quarters. You asked, the second question was about.

Kleber Cardoso (CFO)

Derivatives.

Good colors [Foreign language].

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

For the derivatives. Think when you see when we made the derivatives for Borborema, gold price around $2,000, the payback we would like to guarantee was with the $1,700-$1,750 and we still had to build a project to finish Almas and then Borborema and then also the acquisitions. We prefer to do a zero cost collar in order not to drag cash from operations and preserve our balance sheet. Now as you see gold price going way beyond our break even or going way beyond the minimum requirement to guarantee the payback. Also with very strong cash flows from operations, we do not see a room need anymore for zero cost collars. If we go on hedges we might just buy some puts just to guarantee that that project will pay back the equity and the debt. But yet, right.

We are in the business of gold. Volatility of gold is important for our shareholders. We would do that no more in very specific cases if necessary, but no more selling calls.

Marcelo Arazi (Equity Research Associate Director)

That's clear. Thank you guys.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Rafael Barcellos with Bradesco BBI. You can open your microphone.

Rafael Barcellos (Head of LATAM Metals and Mining, Pulp and Paper, and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hello, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. Rodrigo, you discussed a lot of your, you know, growth initiatives. I just wanted to go through a specific one. MSG, right. Could you please give us an update on the expected closing of the MSG deal and, of course, whether you can already move on with some of the turnaround plans before having the closing of the deal? I mean, just to understand whether we should adjust something in our models here on the expected ramp up, or, sorry, on the expected turnaround for the MSG operation.

Secondly, about M&A, given the persistently high gold and copper prices, I just wanted to understand if you think that makes sense to be more aggressive in another point of the cycle or if M&A still makes sense and ultimately understand what has changed in your framework for M&A initiatives.

Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

On MSG, things are progressing for us to have the closing during this quarter. We should see Aura really jumping in and driving that turnaround from the day after the closing. We are not. We have been able to meet a lot with Anglo, which has been very kind to open all the information, the offices, and visits. We have a very focused team at the operation understanding more, and we are working on the plan, but yet no decision. We cannot influence. This mine still belongs to AngloGold, but we have a very strong already and detailed plan to execute the day after closing. This plan should take all the turnaround there to put this mine at the levels that we believe is more efficient. It will take close to a year.

You will start seeing some results in the first six months. Yet only after one year we'll be able to put that mine into a very high production. We will not push too high production for next year because we want to focus on underground development, availability of the equipment, and also mine planning. That takes time and cannot be done very fast. You ask about acquisitions with higher gold prices. We are in the business of producing gold. Of course, with this high gold price, on one hand, we have a cash flow, important cash flow from the operations. Perhaps when you acquire something, the price is going to be higher compared to what we could see two years ago. Yet we still have, for example, Borborema now just entered full production.

We bought this and invested with a lower gold price. We acquired that Era Dorada with a lower gold price. We acquired Matupá, still to be built, with the lower gold price. Now we want to continue to grow through new acquisitions. I do not think we will be able to buy any important assets with the pricing that gold price of $1,500-$1,800. That will be higher than this. Yet I will be very careful in order to make sure that we will not destroy value. Even if gold price goes down a little bit, we will still keep being able to add significant value to our shareholders by new M&A. We will be very careful. We will think about upside and downside cases. I think it is important to continue to grow.

If you see recommendations from the analysts and the banks, what they see is actually gold price continue to appreciate and not yet to devaluate. Once major and fundamentals economic and geopolitical structural changes is happening in the world. We do not see that moving back to the old time. That will continue to put pressure on gold to continue to appreciate.

Rafael Barcellos (Head of LATAM Metals and Mining, Pulp and Paper, and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Henrique Marques with Goldman Sachs. You can open your microphone.

Henrique Marques (Associate Analyst of Equity Research)

Hey guys, thank you for the question. Going back a little bit on the dividend side, you already mentioned you're not planning on changing the dividend policy. I just want to know with the possible change of the dividend taxation, does that change at all your strategy on shareholder remuneration? Maybe explore more buybacks instead or can we see an advanced payment of dividends to avoid the possible taxation as well? Second question just on Almas cash cost was a great performance, double digit decline quarter for quarter. Just trying to understand what your expectations of how sustainable this lower cash cost is for next quarter and eventually 2026. Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

If you want to take the first one and then I can check the second one.

Kleber Cardoso (CFO)

Yes.

Historically we have had in place a buyback when we were listing on TSX and also in Brazil. It's something we're working to put together again, a buyback program of course, always balancing because one of our main goals on moving to Nasdaq was to increase liquidity. We will have to, going forward, balance how much we return capital for dividends and buybacks. It's in our radar and we should see like the next couple of weeks or months. I think that's on the buyback. On the dividends, we're watching the discussions on taxations, etc. If you can do anything to minimize any burden, we're going to evaluate, but we don't have any decision on that yet.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

This new taxation on dividend does not affect the dividends that we are paying through our company. This is only from Brazil to outside, which is within our operations to pay dividends from Brazil to corporate, which is part of our production. Then your question about the Almas all-in sustaining cash cost. I think we are reaching very reasonable levels. If we continue to expand the plant as we are planning, there is still room to improve. When we add also higher grade for underground, we might also be able to reduce a bit. I think these levels are very reasonable to continue. We will have ups and downs quarter by quarter because it always depends on the nature. Nature is not always homogeneous, so it has variances of grades according to the month.

I think we are at very reasonable levels now.

Henrique Marques (Associate Analyst of Equity Research)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Graham Tanaka with Tanaka Capital. You can open your microphone.

Graham Tanaka (President)

Thank you. Congratulations on your performance. Outstanding. As we follow for the last two years. Great results. I just was wondering at M&A what have you seen in general, general pricing of the cost of acquisitions. Given the sharp rise in gold prices, a lot of interest from everybody overseas. Are you seeing a very, you know, more difficult environment for pricing of M&A, and have you lost any potential deals because of increased competition? Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Of course, when with this. This new, the appreciation of the gold price, assets tend to evaluate more. Yet that did not happen all over the assets. Producing assets and producing company has picked up higher, pick it up more, this appreciation, rather than greenfield projects, companies that still have lack of source of capital. Yes, I think we will see higher prices in the market. We are very cautious. Yeah, we gave up already, yes, one deal because of a higher gold price. We felt it was not fitting very well within our portfolio, and we did not see value, how to optimize operations, optimize investments so that we could increase internal rate of return despite higher gold price. Yes, that is happening as we speak. Hopefully now with stabilizing gold price, then you.

Because when it goes up very fast, the expectation of the buyer and the seller are very different. That avoids a lot of transaction. Once gold can be a little bit more stable, then those expectation of the buyer and the seller, that narrow the gap, and then you'll see more transactions.

Graham Tanaka (President)

Right.

Okay. Thank you. Longer term, say maybe over three or five years, three to five years, what do you anticipate the range of potential growth rates to be in production volume, and will the mix be changing in terms of how much growth you can achieve from exploration, productivity gains, and M&A? Will there be much change in the future relative to the past? You have, you've done a great job on M&A and even adding to existing production. Thank you.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Yeah, I see that we can continue to do the same strategy we've done in the last four years up to a million ounces, either enhancing our production and also building the new greenfield project and new acquisitions. As I mentioned, we can. We know very much how to go beyond 600,000 ounces of production, but that you reach a million ounces where we believe is the right spectrum for to be the decent valuation. We should continue to pursue new M&As, and the last four years are a very good example how we see M&As. What you will not see on Aura is super large M&A that if gold price perhaps goes down, that can significant jeopardize our equity market value or cash flows. We would like to be balanced among the Aura portfolio.

Of course as we are growing we will see bigger mines. As you can see now, Era Dorada, it is close to 100,000 ounces Borborema without expansion, close to 80,000 ounces, but with expansion above 100,000 ounces. So that you should see also as going more towards 100,000 ounces, above 100,000 ounces of mines potential production along the next three few years, yet not provoking unbalance in terms of production among our assets.

Graham Tanaka (President)

Fabulous.

That's very reassuring. Thank you very much and good luck.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Adriano Mariani with Sagil Capital. Can you please touch on latest thinking regarding sanctioning of Era Dorada vs Matupá. How is social license going in Guatemala?

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

We are progressing with the discussions with local authorities, local community representatives. We also brought a few of them to visit our operation in Borborema a couple of months ago. They were very well impressed by how professional we run the mines, how much attention we give to hiring local people from local suppliers, and also how well we treat our internal employees. That is helping them to socialize with their own communities. Things are progressing well. Yet we do not have the decision. I think we are moving in the right direction to be able to make any decisions between the end of this year and early next year.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Frederico Hadoua with 10X Capital. You can open your microphone.

Frederico.

You can open your microphone.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

We don't hear you, Frederico. Maybe the microphone is not working.

Operator (participant)

I believe he's having some technical issues. The Q and A section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Rodrigo Barbosa for the company's final remarks.

Rodrigo Barbosa (President and CEO)

Thank you all for participating in this call. Again, Aura is moving very fast in our plan to deliver growth, to deliver dividends, value to our shareholders. As I was mentioning, in four or five years we came from our three operations, now we are five, in order, two ready to be built and another one that we will incorporate after the closing. In the meanwhile, we've been able to pay the highest dividend yield in the sector, maintaining our low leverage for the future. What we can see right this quarter now, perhaps a higher production. With Borborema now reaching close to full production next year, we have MSG production incorporating into our production, also generating EBITDA. We will be investing either in Era Dorada or Matupá if we decide to build Era Dorada. We will invest in Era Dorada first.

We'll delay six months, a year, a year and something, and then we build Matupá. We will continue to see Aura pushing up our production while our cash cost, as we mentioned, is being able to stay stable or even decrease once, or the project that we are building has a lower all-in sustaining cash cost compared to our peers. If gold continues at this level or even appreciates more, you will, we will see quarter by quarter now a significant boost in our EBITDA when new production is coming in, new gold price replacing old last quarters that had a lower gold price. Always very well positioned to continue to grow. M&A is important for us. It's part of a strategy. Again, reinforce order, we don't want to go crazy and we don't, we're not, we don't want to build empires.

We like creative acquisitions and with a very well thought in our balance sheet so that if something goes wrong it doesn't significantly jeopardize the whole story. It took us a lot to get to where we are right now. We see a lot of room to continue with the same speed. We don't need to put everything on risk with the craziest acquisitions. I thank you all and I look forward to meeting you next quarters.

Operator (participant)

Aura's conference is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a nice day.