Alamos Gold Inc. (AGI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Alamos Gold. My name is Paul Murphy, and I am the Chairman of the company, and I will serve as the chair of this meeting. This year, to address the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and for the safety of our employees and shareholders, the annual general meeting of shareholders is being held entirely online through the Lumi virtual platform. The platform allows Alamos shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders to participate, submit questions and vote on matters before us today. Shareholders and proxy holders can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the messaging icon at the top of your screens. Management will address any questions submitted following Mr. McCluskey's corporate presentation. I declare the voting is now open, and I will explain the voting procedure for the virtual meeting. If you have already voted or sent in a proxy, there is no need for you to vote during the meeting unless you'd like to change your vote. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have not already voted in advance of the meeting can cast their vote by using the voting panel on the screen. You may choose to submit your votes immediately or you can choose to wait until each resolution has been read prior to casting your vote. Voting will remain open throughout the meeting until the last item of business has been put to a vote and I declare the voting closed. In the interest of time, I have asked Jamie Porter, our Chief Financial Officer and Shareholder; and Greg Fisher, Vice President, Finance and Shareholder, to move and second motions where required. I should also note that management has received sufficient proxies to carry all matters put forth by management at this meeting. The purpose of today's meeting is to receive and consider the consolidated financial statements of the company for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, and the auditors' report thereon; also to elect 10 directors who will serve until the next annual meeting; to reappoint the auditors who will serve until the next annual meeting and authorize the directors to set their remuneration; and lastly, to consider and, if deemed appropriate, to pass with or without variation a nonbinding advisory resolution on the company's approach to executive compensation. Each of these matters is detailed in the company's Management Information Circular dated April 3, 2020, and made available to our shareholders and on SEDAR. I will simply refer to this document as the circular throughout the meeting. I will now call the meeting to order. Nils Engelstad, Vice President and General Counsel, will act as secretary of the meeting; and I appoint Computershare Trust Company of Canada to act as scrutineers. The notice and proxy materials for the meeting were mailed to shareholders, and we have received affidavits of Computershare and Broadridge as to their mailing. Unless anyone objects, the reading of the notice shall be dispensed with. The preliminary report of the shareholders indicates that a quorum is present. The results of the final scrutineer report will be incorporated in the press release filed on SEDAR and EDGAR promptly following this meeting. We have received approximately 76.7% of the votes. 300 million shareholders out of the 390 million have voted. The first order of business of the meeting is the receipt of the audited financial statements of the company and the auditors' report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, with comparative figures relating to the previous fiscal year-end, December 31, 2018. I propose that the reading of these financial statements be dispensed with. If anyone has any questions regarding the financial statements, I ask that they submit them now and they will be dealt with during the general question-and-answer period of this meeting. Thank you. For the next item of business, the election of directors, each of management's proposed nominees has consented to act as a director of the company. We have not received any further nominations in accordance with the company's bylaws. The nominees are Elaine Ellingham, David Fleck, David Gower, Claire Kennedy, John A. McCluskey, Monique Mercier, myself, Paul Murphy, Robert Prichard, Ronald Smith and Kenneth Stowe. I propose to ask for a single motion approving the election of each of these 10 individuals as directors. I will ask Jamie Porter for the motion.

I move that the 10 persons nominated, as set out in the circular, be elected as directors of the company to hold office until the next annual meeting of the shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.

I now ask for Greg Fisher to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you, gentlemen. The next order of business of the meeting is the approval of KPMG LLP as auditors of the company for the following year. I move that KPMG be appointed auditors for the company for the ensuing year at a fee to be fixed by the directors. I ask Jamie Porter to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you. The next and final order of business of the meeting is the approval of the company's approach to executive compensation. Details of this advisory resolution regarding the company's approach to executive compensation is set forth in the circular. The advisory resolution must be approved by a majority of votes cast by shareholders present in person and proxy at the meeting. I move that the advisory resolution approving the company's approach to executive compensation as set forth in the circular of the company be passed as a nonbinding advisory resolution of Alamos Gold. I ask Jamie Porter to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you. I ask that shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have not yet voted in advance of this meeting to submit their votes using the voting buttons on their screen. I will pause here for 2 minutes to give you time to submit your votes, after which I will declare close -- the closing of the voting. Thank you. [Voting]

Thank you. Voting for all items of this meeting is now closed. I have been advised by the scrutineers that based on the votes submitted in advance of today's meeting, there are sufficient number of votes submitted in favor of each of the resolutions presented at this meeting. I therefore declare that each of the motions is carried. The scrutineers will tabulate the results of the meeting and a final report of the vote will be furnished by the scrutineers subsequent to the meeting and will be incorporated into the press release and posted on SEDAR and EDGAR promptly following today's meeting. That completes the formal business for today's meeting. If there are no further -- if there is no further business to be brought before the meeting, I will ask Jamie Porter and Greg Fisher for a motion to terminate the meeting.

I move that the meeting terminate.

I second the motion.

Thank you. Motion carried. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. I will now hand the meeting over to John McCluskey, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you very much, Paul. I'm going to make a presentation here. I've been making this presentation since 2003, so this is my 17th annual general meeting as the Chief Executive Officer of the company. The first one where we've not been all together in Downtown Toronto with many familiar faces that we typically see and good time together with investors, analysts. It's a point in time where it's been good to take stock of how far this company's come along the way and where it's going. When I first took on the job as Chief Executive Officer, the company had a $15 million market cap. And today, we have a $4.6 billion market cap. We've gone from a company with an option on a very prospective property called Mulatos, which by now has produced over 2 million ounces of gold. They were a producer from 3 significant mining operations with lots of growth prospects. And really if you look at us over the last 5 years, we're one of the fastest-growing gold mining companies in the sector. So passing by the cautionary notes and -- I'd like to draw your attention to our first slide in the presentation being Slide 3. So we delivered on our operational objectives and made excellent progress on our growth initiatives this year. This includes advancing the lower mine expansion at Young-Davidson, delivering another year of significant reserve and resource growth at Island Gold as well as seeing the benefits of the first phase of what we expect will be multiple expansions of the operation. This sunrise at Island Gold taken last fall represents where Alamos is today, eliminating a strong outlook at Island and a bright future ahead for the whole company. Moving to Slide 4. We produced 500,000 ounces of gold in 2019, meeting our production guidance for the fifth consecutive year. We also met our cost guidance, which included a 10% decrease in total cash costs and 4% decrease in all-in sustaining costs. We expect further declines in our costs in 2021 and beyond. With the stronger gold price, we generated record revenues. In line with the lower costs, this translated into record operating cash flow of nearly $300 million. On a per share basis, this represented a 38% increase from 2018, continuing a strong long-term growth trend we expect to build upon in the years ahead. Draw your attention now to Slide 5. Mulatos continued to be an incredible success story. The operation started producing in 2005 with about a 6-year mine life ahead of it, which would have taken us to 2011. Instead, Mulatos produced its first million ounces of gold by 2013. And this past year, it produced its second million ounces of gold. Mulatos is now in its 15th year of production and has at least another 6 years of production ahead of it. This 2 million ounce milestone also marked the end of a 5% royalty that we have been paying on since the production started. At current gold prices, this is a saving of roughly $85 per ounce. Later in 2019, we completed construction of Cerro Pelon ahead of schedule and under budget, which had first production in the fourth quarter. We are already benefiting from its higher grades, contributing to strong production in the first quarter of 2020. We also completed permitting of La Yaqui Grande in 2019. We are next source of higher grade, low-cost production at Mulatos. We're in the process of finalizing the project design and economics and expect to announce construction decisions later in the quarter. Moving now to Slide 6 to talk a little bit about Island Gold. Island Gold had a record year, an exceptional year really with record operational performance, strong exploration success. The mine produced a record 150,000 ounces of gold, a 42% increase from 2018 and generated an impressive $65 million of free cash flow. In addition to the strong operating performance, we saw excellent exploration results throughout 2019, culminating with a 920,000 ounce increase in mineral reserves and resources announced earlier this year. Mineral reserves and resources now total 3.7 million ounces, having doubled from the 1.8 million ounces when we acquired it in -- at the end of 2017. This large and growing mineral endowment provides the basis for our Phase 3 expansion study, which we're currently working on and we expect to have finished by the middle of the year. I'll talk now about Young-Davidson and I'll draw your attention to Slide 7. After some challenges at the operation during the first half of 2018, we took steps to ensure better performance at Young-Davidson and we've continued to benefit from those efforts. Underground mining rates increased 8% to a record 6,700 tonnes per day in 2019, consistently exceeding guidance throughout the year. This drove production higher to 188,000 ounces of gold, which met the high end of our guidance year. We also advanced the lower mine expansion, which is now in the final stages. We expect to have it completed by beginning of July. Now I draw your attention to Slide 8. The photo on the left was taken at an investor tour that we hosted last June. At that point, we had just completed the rock excavation, where our new crusher would be located about 1.5 kilometers below surface. Less than a year later, the crusher is installed and it's now commissioned. We recently completed several other critical path items, including the connection of the ramp system from the upper and lower mine and removal of the rock pentice that separated the upper and lower portions of the Northgate shaft. We expect the lower mine expansion to be completed in July of this year, and that is going to be a game changer for the company. Effectively, it will allow us to boost our production rate from the 6,000 tonne per day capacity that the mid-mine level has, which we've been improving upon, but we've built the infrastructure, the lower mine, to effectively accommodate 8,000 tonnes per day and we intend to ramp up to that level over the next couple of years. But we expect to be at least at 700 -- at 7,500 tonnes a day by the end of 2020. Moving now to Slide 9. I'll touch on a few topics that are fundamental to our company in operation. Safety is one of Alamos' core values. We're committed to creating and maintaining a healthy, safe work environment for our employee and contractors. In 2019, our lost time injury frequency rate was 50% lower than in 2018, and our total recordable injury frequency rate remained relatively flat. These are metrics we are working on to improve as part of our Home Safe Every Day program, and that means continuously reinforcing a culture of safety first. Now turning to Slide 10. Health and safety of our employees is part of a larger effort to ensure that we are operating the right way by all of our stakeholders. With the environment, we're committed to minimizing our impact by continuously looking for ways to reduce our footprint and by reclaiming areas that we impact. With our host communities, we invest in ways that will provide lasting benefits well beyond the life of our operations. A great example of this is the voluntary relocation of residents in our Mulatos mine to the community of Matarachi, which included the construction of 21 new homes, church, school, a medical clinic and a community hall. We're proud of these investments, and we're honored to have received prestigious Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice for 2019 awarded by Cemefi in September for our work within this community. This award was in addition to being recognized for our long-term CSR efforts in Mexico, having received the ESR award from Cemefi for 12 consecutive years. With respect to governance, we've built and continue to refine a framework that ensures accountability to all of our stakeholders. That means board independence, cultivating diversity at all levels within the company, and aligning compensation to performance and shareholder interest. As far as our outlook is concerned, as we transition to 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has created a new set of challenges for all of us, but we are adapting with our foremost priority being the protection of the health and safety of our employees, contractors, their families and our host communities. Moving to Slide 12. We've been fortunate as a company to have not had any confirmed cases of COVID-19 at any of our operations or offices, but that doesn't stop us from taking action to help prevent the potential spread of the virus. In March, we instituted a number of increasingly strict health and safety protocols across the company. These range from medical screening for all personnel prior to site entry, social distancing practices across all operations. On March 25, we voluntarily placed Island Gold at temporary care and maintenance. And in early April, we suspended operations at Mulatos following the mandated closure of mines by the Mexican government. These temporary suspensions of Mulatos and Island Gold will impact our second quarter but do not take away from our strong second half outlook. I said that we started ramping up operations at Island Gold earlier this month and we began ramping up full operations at Mulatos the 18th of May after the government suspension was lifted. We're also making good progress on the lower mine expansion at Young-Davidson, and as I said earlier, it's going to be a game changer for the company. It's going to be a driver of significant free cash flow growth in the second half of 2020. With that, I'll ask you to turn to Slide 13. Here, we outlined how we have a strong second half outlook. We have a number of significant catalysts coming up over the next several months, which we expect will be transformational for Alamos. Our Phase 3 expansion study at Island Gold will be completed by midyear. Given the significant growth of the deposit over the past few years, we expect this study will showcase Island Gold as a bigger, more profitable and longer life operation. As I noted earlier, tying of the upper and lower mines at Young-Davidson is in its final stages and we're looking forward to that being completed in July. The lower mine expansion, once it's completed, is going to be a very significant driver of free cash flow growth. Turning to Slide 14. Our strong outlook is starting to be reflected in our share price. We were a strong outperformer in 2019, and we're on the top of the performing gold equities this year, up 50% to date and 140% since the start of 2019. In addition to the strong share price performance, we are focused on returning capital to shareholders. In 2019, we returned $27 million to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, up from $8 million in 2018. In the first quarter of this year, we returned another $12 million through dividends and buybacks. Our dividend has tripled over the last 2 years to an annual rate of USD 0.06 per share, and we expect further increases as we generate strong free cash flow growth. Finally, we have taken a long-term view building and operating Alamos Gold. Our focus is on creating sustainable, long-term value, and we have a good track record of doing so with an average annualized return of 15% since 2003, outperforming the TSX Gold Index and the price of gold. Given the catalysts we have coming up over the next several months, quality of our assets, growth, our strong balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to continue this outperformance well into the future. That concludes our formal presentation. I will now turn the call back to Scott Parsons, our VP of Investor Relations, for any questions that you have coming through this webcast. Thank you very much. Scott?

Thank you, John. We have not received any questions through the online platform. So I will now turn the meeting back to yourself for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you, Scott. And I'd just like to thank everyone who has come online, our shareholders, investors, friends who have often come by the annual general meeting to catch up with us. It's a very unusual year for us to be holding our meeting this way, but I think it's indicative of just how well Alamos Gold has pulled through and adapted to the circumstances. And our whole company has been that way. We've kept very, very positive. We haven't missed a beat. We were able to get our first quarter numbers out right on schedule. Really, I have to thank a tremendous management team for the effort that they've put in and the positive attitude that they've maintained throughout this pandemic period. I'd also like to thank the Alamos Board of Directors who give us tremendous guidance and I will be very pleased to work with again for another year. And with that, I close the meeting. And thank you once again for your attendance.