Aura Minerals Inc. (AUGO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you, everyone, for joining our Aura Day 2025. It's a pleasure to have you here. I know it's quite cold outside. So it's a double pleasure to have you out of your places to come to join us. I'm Natasha, as part of you might know, I'm the Head of IR of Aura. Before jumping into the presentation, let's pass through the schedule. So we are starting with our CEO, Rodrigo Barbosa. He's going to discuss the company's strategy, growth plans. And then Glauber, our COO, he is going to discuss our operations and exploration and strategy. And then we are going to have our Project Director, Pitágoras, to discuss how we are going to grow in the next years. And then we have a break, a 5-minute break to have a coffee. And then we are going to have Lina to discuss -- our special guests to discuss the gold market, gold price, and then you can have the opportunity to have a Q&A with her. And to close the event, we are going to have our CFO, Kleber Cardoso, to discuss the cash management; and Isabela, our people -- our Head of People, to discuss our people strategy and how we manage all the communities and ESG. So to check our team, we are not all of here, but it's always good to remember that we are here to represent the total directors of Aura. So for sure, they are going to be very well represented for the management team, but they are here with us also. So now I invite Rodrigo Barbosa. Rodrigo, if you could join us. Thank you.

Thank you, Natasha. Okay. So good morning. Glad to be here. Thank you for coming. What we're going to share, I think it's a pleasure to be with all of you and share a little bit more about Aura Minerals. What I would highlight is for you, what we're trying to do here today is not only what we are achieving, but how, how we are achieving those results, how we make our decisions because I think once you learn about how we are making decisions, how we think about how we're approaching the projects, how we think about the capital allocation and people development, then you can really see and understand what is Aura 360. It's a company that has -- doesn't have extraordinary assets. It has a median average asset, but does achieve extraordinary results. And the reason for that is that we have a super high-quality team represented here by the leaders, but also a culture that we believe that the human being has an unlimited potential to deliver results. And we give to each of our employees and Aura Minerals a room for them to develop and to deliver results aside from what we really expect from them. So that kind of environment is generating significant results and value creation for you, shareholders and for the communities and also for the environment. That's -- I think I would invite you to try to understand not only what we're achieving, but how, right? I think that's as important as what we have been achieving. Aura Minerals, I'll give you here. So just a summary and then each of the leaders of our areas is going to go in more details. We are a company that has not only the highest growth in the industry, but it's the highest growth with the highest yields and returns with the highest dividend yield and with the highest ESG standards. What we've been achieving in the last 4 years is exactly right and we're going to go through the what -- how has been the last 4 years and then project a little bit where we want to achieve. We just updated today that we can reach over 600,000 ounces of production within the next few years. That's over 100% increase compared to what we've had in the last 12 months without new acquisitions. And I would say also that the 600,000 is somehow conservative because if you just add Era Dorada and Matupá, it's not including some expansions. So we still have room to improve from that, not including also new acquisitions. Some examples of the numbers that we've been achieving. The 600,000 ounces of production that we see that we can reach within the next few years now is also being combined at a very high daily trading volume. I wouldn't say very high, very high for the standards that we had in the past. But we just came from $1.5 million of daily trading volume now reaching $20 million, $30 million per day. If in the past, I would talk to the major and most sophisticated investors, they would give us the feedback. Please, Rodrigo, we like the story. We want to buy our shares, but bring this above $10 million, $15 million because we cannot get in or out in the minimum investment that we do. That's why we see now and Kleber is going to share Fidelity, Capital, BlackRock, [indiscernible] all of them just in the beginning to buy our shares. And I think this still has a long way to run for us, the long opportunity we have to teach them more about our case and then provide them an ability to invest in our shares.

$3 a share...

Sorry?

Our dividend is how much $3?

Our dividend is 20% of the EBITDA minus recurring CapEx. We've been paying in 2021, 13% 2022 was 6%, '23, 6%, '24, 9% the last 12 months was 7.4%. That's the highest dividend yield in the world in the gold sector. So -- and I will also invite you to take a look at the moment Aura is now is going through a major transformation also in our cash flows. It's a company that produced $136 million EBITDA in '23, $267 million in '24. Only the last quarter with the gold price at $3,400 is $152 million and not including gold prices now $4,200, $700 more than last quarter, plus a commercial production that we cleared in Borborema. So if you do the math, you're going to see that we are finishing this year already with a significant higher EBITDA and a running rate also significantly higher compared to last year. And on that still have opportunity to increase from with Era Dorada, Matupa and few expansions that Glauber is going to talk. So on the resources and reserves, we can grow on production, but we can also grow in resource and reserves. It's a company that is going to grow in EBITDA and going to grow in the life of mine, the amount of years that you're going to use to discount our cash flows. It's a company that has underinvested in the past in terms of exploration. And since 2020, we started increasing our resource and reserves, and we've made a major change in terms of multiplying by 3 resources, multiplying by almost 3 reserves and yet still a lot more to do. There's still a lot of opportunities that Glauber is going to share with you in terms of exploration for us to increase the life of mine of our mines, right? I talked already about the dividends that we've been among, if not the highest dividend yield in the world in the gold sector. Our strategy continued to pay under our policy or above the policy if we feel we have extra cash, right? And last but not the least, as I was mentioning, many investors in the beginning was asking us what is your best asset, right? Because if you see our assets that are almost same size, each one has some advantage or disadvantage. But our best asset is the team that is here is the culture that we are managing this company because with that team, that's how we create value. We buy assets, underperforming assets or assets that have some issues that others cannot develop. And then we can build them or reduce the cost and then generate value to our shareholders. And that's only possible because of the team that's represented here by our leaders. Looking ahead in terms of strategy, the strategy we have for the next year is exactly the same strategy that we had in the last 4 years. There's no change. What we're seeing and that's remarkable what this company is achieving is delivering exactly in each of our strategy. Aura is walking the talk, and I'm very proud of that. We -- in 2020, we laid out this strategy that we're going to grow and deliver shareholders' value on 3 different variables. Number one, we're going to develop greenfield projects and improve our production and EBITDA with high accretive projects. Number two, as I was mentioned, we're going to increase the life of mine. We're going to invest in exploration and we're going to increase our resources and reserves. Number three, we're going to tackle the multiple. So one, we -- the number -- the first one, we increased EBITDA. The second one, we increased the amount of years you discount our cash flows. And then number three, you have a multiple effect over the first 2, which is to tackle the multiple. It's a company that's still not well known for U.S. investors, for European investors, very well known for Brazilian but not yet in North America that had a low daily trading volume, low coverage. Now we have -- it's improving the coverage. So it's a company that is discounted compared to our peers. We not only catch up with the NAV, multiple of NAV to our peers, but as we're going to see, we're going to change the peers. And that will also have a boost effect over our valuation during the next years. So we're going to grow. We're going to increase life of mine and we're going to tackle the most. That's exactly what we've been doing in the last years. In terms of delivering the projects, a few examples. We built Almas on time on budget, not only on time on budget, but setting new benchmarks in the world how fast you can put one mine to production. From scratch to commercial production, Almas in 20 months, Borborema in 24, less than 24 months without any lost time incident. That's very significant fast way of building the mines that also Pitágoras is the head of our -- the team that's building those mines that can share a little bit with you. We also -- we built Almas, Borborema, we acquired MSG. We did the feasibility study of Matupa. We just now released the feasibility study of Era Dorada. In terms of exploration, it's not a different story, right? We are increasing resources, reserves as we speak, and Glauber is going to give you a little bit more details. In terms of multiples, we are tackling also addressing the multiples, which we believe yet we are discounted. But now we have a more daily trading volume. Now we have new analysts covering our company. So gradually, we see that we can also improve our multiples. And I won't go in much detail. Glauber can give the details about our growth plan. But this is, we just recently published this new view of where we can achieve without any new acquisitions. So we already know very much how to get above 600,000 ounces. So that's more than double the production of '24. And projects that Era Dorada with the gold price $4,200 leveraged, it's over 80% internal rate of return. It's not a project that provided 20%, 25% internal rate of return project that's delivering a super high return. And it's the same with Borborema and will be the same with Matupa. And hopefully, MSG, as we improve efficiency, Glauber is going to talk also a little bit more about this, how we can improve. We'll see this company reaching over 600,000 ounces in the next years. Very few other can present a solid plan that can grow those more than double the capacity. And if you do the projections with the gold price, we don't need to issue equity to fund this project. It's fully funded internally with our own cash flows and with our debt capacity that Kleber is going to also present here. In terms of exploration, so I presented how we can grow 600,000 in the exploration. This is an impressive number that we see here, right? We come from measured indicator of 3.5 million ounces. Now with this new acquisition and also Era Dorada, we are talking about almost 10 million ounces in measured and indicated. That's a remarkable increase in our resource and reserves when we acquired and also increased investment in exploration. And it's such a low-hanging fruit in exploration for us because this -- most of our mine has been underinvested in the past that our cost of discovery is $34 per ounce in exploration. The average of the industry, it's $131. That shows that's a company it's not close to not assessing upside in terms of exploration. We are intensifying exploration investment and the results also has been remarkable here. And at this 9.6 million ounces, I'm not including here doubling the capacity for Borborema because we were -- we did the feasibility study over 800,000 ounces in the deposit that has 2 million ounces. And the reason that we could not include more ounces is not because they are not viable. It's just because to be reserves needs to be available for mining. And there is a road, federal road that crosses part of the pit. So we were limited at 800,000 ounces. We are advancing discussions with the national authorities so that they provide the license for us to move the road. And immediately, we're going to add significant reserves in Borborema. And that 9.6 million is not including this additional. We're going to also talk about here underground of Almas that can also add additional resources and reserves. So there's still ongoing increase in resource and reserves in this company while we are also adding new capacity and new production. In terms of multiple, I would highlight here is this, we see this is the average of the analysts. We believe we are even lower than this because the NAV does not include expansions, that thing that doesn't have a technical report yet. So we are discounted compared to junior producers. And we don't feel as you get closer to 600, 000 you are junior producers anymore. You go more towards the intermediate producer. So there's still room for us to tackle the multiple in this company. On the top of building the projects, on the top of extending the life of mine, we're going to also address the multiples. Kleber is going to share a little bit more on the finance side, but just not to lose opportunity how this company is providing returns to our shareholders. And all of that, it's on the last 4 years with the gold price that varied. Normally it was at $2,000, $2,200. And listen, what we were able to do is paid $276 million as a dividend or share buyback. We invested $484 million in expansion in project that has very high returns or exploration that has a very low cost of discoveries. And yet before our new listing, we were always below 1x EBITDA and now going to 0.15. So a company that, yes, has been able when we laid out this strategy to grow and pay dividends, some of our shareholders were skeptical, how can a company do both? And we could. We showed that we could. And now with this higher gold price, we'll be even accelerating this process. And that's because the projects that we have has such high returns and short payback once you sequence them , Borborema is already generating cash flows. So we're paying the debt of Borborema now is going to start building Era Dorada. So the company deleverages very fast. So we can sequence the project and with that, do both, build, buy, acquire and pay the dividends. And that was with the average gold price significantly lower than it is today. And this, I think it's a very important slide. It doesn't have the information on quantitative but it's very qualitative. And I like this slide because we like to say we are a simple company. We think simple. I think we do the simple things but we do very diligently. Right? And the way we managed Aura, I think it's very different from many other players, not only us doing this direction. But that is, I would say, what is giving us -- providing us this ability to generate extraordinary returns compared to -- even if you compare it with the mines that we have is that we believe that the best way to manage the mines is to invest in the management team at the mine level, provide them with the right tools, with the right KPIs, with the right incentive plan but then make them improve the efficiency. That gives us a lot of fast speed making process, but also those that understand the potential of the mines to improve on a daily basis are the ones that are living there on the daily basis. While on the other hand, corporate need to think in 2 very important things that corporate needs to centralize. Number one is capital allocation. Number two is people development. Those are the most important thing that any corporate company or any corporate structure should focus, not on the day-to-day improvement decisions but how you're going to allocate smart capital and how you're going to develop the best team and not only the best team but also provide the best culture. You need to provide them an environment, safe environment for them to take risks for them to create new ideas and implement new ideas. Pitágoras can also share a little bit how he's building the project that we've been able to do very, very fast because he has autonomy to make the daily decisions and make correction on the daily basis and then just inform us. It doesn't need to consult. So that also gives us a lot of speed. And Isabela is going to share more with you how we think about human development, how we think about also our ESG standards. And Kleber is going to also give some examples I just open here the room for him to give the examples. A few examples, how we think, right? Again, the strategy is simple. The execution is super diligent. A few examples how we think is there's no need to increase and to assess all the upsides of the project before you build I see many companies lose a lot of waste, a lot of time and capital trying to optimize, optimize. Let's do more drilling, let's improve more resources. Let's see if we can increase a little bit more the capacity because the market is going to like it. But then time passes, right? You put more capital, it's more capital at risk. We think it different. If the project is good enough to be built and has good return, build it and then access the upsides later because then you derisk the project, you put less capital, you go -- you went faster to the cash flows. And then you restart to invest the cash from the own operation that's already derisked and then you can access the upside. That's why we see, and Glauber is going to share, significant upside in Almas. We could see those upsides before. But there was no reason to invest on those upsides before because it would take time and capital. That's why we -- you see a lot of room to improvement in Borborema. We know the upside for Borborema. And -- but we didn't want to wait everything to be state-of-the-art to build those projects. There is also a very specific agenda for us, understanding that on mining, what you have in licensing by law is not enough. You need to have a social license. It doesn't matter if the President of the country gave you okay. It doesn't matter if the ministers gave you okay. It doesn't matter if the law allow you to build one project. If you don't go with the people that will be directly or indirectly affected by the project and communicate with them and understand you have the reasonable conditions to build, you should not build because then you have trouble. So we take this very seriously, and we learned in many of our mines. That's exactly what we've been doing in Era Dorada. It's fully licensed. We could start construction today, but we are doing a lot of social work, social assessment, understanding what are the needs the shirts that some of you received here is an example of a small part, right, because you need to integrate the company within the community. But not only this, we're doing a lot of other works that is going to be shared, but integrating the company, participating on the sports on the soccer team and so on, but that's very small. We have a much more profound approach that we are taking with the communities in Era Dorada in order to make sure once we start the construction, they are fully aware how we're going to build this mine, how we're going to operate and how they are going to benefit, right? And Isabela is going to share with you about how we are also approaching our ESG standards, the social work I mentioned, but also the environment. Aura Minerals today is one of the most well-recognized company on sustainability in Mexico, one of the most recognized sustainability company in Honduras and the most just recently awarded in Brazil by the highest sustainability standards with the project of Era Dorada. So it's a company that believes that high returns goes hand-in-hand with a high responsibility on social and also in the environment with the highest safety standards that Glauber is going to share. A well-managed company will have a very high social standards, good safety records and good results. Everything goes together and that's the quality and the result of this management team that we are very proud to be sharing here with you. So with that, I finish -- I turn the floor to Glauber. Again, there's a lot of information that we'll be sharing with you, but I also pay attention to how we are making our decisions because that's how we differentiate ourselves is on the how and the what is just a consequence of what we've been doing. And Glauber, I'll pass to you. And then by the end, we'll have a room for Q&A, and then I'll go back with the wrap-up.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Following what Rodrigo summarized in the beginning, my main objective here today is go through these 5 steps here. The first one is how Aura 360 culture drives our everyday performance. I will share some real example that reflect this strong culture and how important is for our performance and the growth that we are planning. In terms of operation, how we are improving our technical standards to make sure that we have stable operations and we can deliver the results quarterly over quarterly. The third one is go into more detail in our growth plans to achieve more than 600,000 ounces, this main target. And also bring some example from the recently M&A that we did. And one of those is the MSG case. It's the first case that we acquired an operation in this new Aura era, but we are doing everything based in what we learned in Aranzazu when we went through the same process to make some change, to increase performance that will reflect directly in the results. And the last one is our new chapter. We already proved the capacity to build new projects on time, on budget in Brazil. It's a market that we have a lot of knowledge there, but it will be the first time that we will build a new project in another country. So it's a new challenge for us, and I will present a little bit how we are preparing to go through that process. First of all, Rodrigo told you that our best assets are the people. And I want to share the results on safety that for me, reflects directly the -- how strong is the culture to make sure that we have a safety environment. Here, you can see in the chart this orange curve is the work at hour that we have. So we have more people, we have more operation, more people, more employees and more work at hours and more exposition as well. But even with that, if you look in this green line is what we call the lost time injury frequency rate. We have more than 1 year with 0 accident with lost time injury in all of our operations. Even building new projects, we have a lot of people, contractors and everywhere but we still keep a very good performance on safety. And for me, it's a connection with the culture that we are implemented. And as a reference in the market, we are below the benchmarking. We can see here that in accordance with ICMM that they have the data that reflects the total reportable events and we are below the average of the market. Why you say that this is so important? Because we understand that if we have a stable safety results means that we have a stable operations. And if we have stable operations, we can have a sustainable growth plan as well. So this is the fundamentals for our plan, for our performance, and we are very proud about that to be able to share those data. We talk about people, but there is some governance behind those results. It means that we don't have the best assets. Rodrigo already told that, not -- it's average assets is challenged. But to make sure that we deliver the results, we need some framework behind that. Our framework is based on performance, continuous improvement and innovation. Everything is included in our life of mine plans, our budget, our master plan, connected with what we call the Aura loop. And the Aura loop is our design thinking that we test this small that make us be able to test fast, make some adjustment with a big impact in the company results. Once it's proven, we can scale. So this is the mentality that we have to make sure that we have agly process to take decisions. And the principle behind that is basically 3. The first one is the centralization. We empower the local management to take decisions, make -- with that, we make sure that they have the best information to take decisions and they have the sense of priority to take that. So we can speed up the process to take decisions. Aura loop that is the concept to bring discussion, include a diverse team and speed up the process to take those decisions. And the last one, with no information, we can do nothing. So all the KPIs, all the information is everything in our analytics center. It's a portal that we have when we have all the information there. And with those informations, we empower the operations with insights to take the decisions and make this process faster. Sharing what we did in the last 12 months in our operations. So we are on track to achieve our guidance for 2025. But to guarantee this delivery, we can see that in each operations, we have a lot of actions and a lot of work behind that, like in Almas, after the first year that we have trouble with the contractor performance, we changed the contractor. We increased significantly the performance. And now we are able to expand the plant and to increase production as well. If you remember, Almas originally was built to process 1.3 million tonnes per year. We did some improvement to achieve 1.8 million tons per year. Right now, we are running 2 million tonnes. And with some works to that is in the commission phase to achieve 2.5 million tonnes per year. So it's -- when we say that it start small to be faster, to derisk. And once it stabilize, we are able to grow and we are able to expand. And Almas is a good example of this agility. Last year, and I will show more in detail in advance but we present that we found the opportunity to develop an Almas underground. Since that information 1 year ago, we already start the underground development this month. So it's 1 year from the information to start off the execution that represents how fast we are in this process to take decisions and to execute. Aranzazu is stable. It's more than 4 years delivering production quarterly over quarterly but we are not accommodate. So it means that we're still looking for opportunities like the molybdenum that we already discussed. And also, we are working with continuous miners to improve mining development performance to reduce risk or to reduce costs, to reduce risk, improve the safety standards. Minosa, is also very stable in deliveries quarter-over-quarterly. This year, we started the process to reach the remaining areas in the pad, the liquidation pad. We have an inventory of more than 600,000 ounces and we expect that we can recover between 15%, 20% of those ounces during the life of mine. This year, the contribution is 1,000 ounces in the current results that we are expecting. Apoena is still growing the life of mine, but also the performance. We are expanding the mine to speed up the access for the higher grade in the shift in Nosde pit that I can tell a little bit more in detail in the exploration presentation. And Borborema, the brand-new operation that we have is running a full capacity. We did on time, on budget. We are already working on improving capacity. The mine is performing pretty well. The plant, the mill is performing pretty well as well and we see some room to increase the capacity without too many investment. The bottleneck right now is the filter that we already start the assembly for two new filters that will be -- with that, we will be able to increase capacity in Apoena as well. This is the growth plan. It's feasible. It's completely -- it's everything in our hands to be done. We have 2 ways to grow. The first one is improving the actual operation performance. And as I commented in Almas, we are increasing capacity pretty fast and we're still working in a bigger expansion. So we are splitting in 2 steps. One is particularly done that is to put the plant in 2.5 million tonnes per year capacity but we are already starting to achieve 3 million tonnes per year. So the study for that, we expect to deliver in the first quarter of next year. And if it's approved, we understand that until the end of the year, we are able to implement. Borborema, the highway, we moved a lot in terms of projects. We delivered the studs for the agency. We have a lot of meeting with them to make sure that we have a robust plan to move the road. And when we move the road, we can unlock a lot of value, bringing those resource that actually, we have more than around 2 million ounces of gold and we expect to bring in reserves once we move the road. And the other one is Aranzazu, we are planning an upgrade on the plant from 1.2 million for 1.35 million.

1.75 million or 1.35 million.

1.35 million. In the other pillar to grow, we have new projects. I can -- I will have a chance to go into detail in Era Dorada, we are advancing the feasibility study and we advanced the permit as well and the social license that is the main issue of this project. And Matupa, we got almost all the permits to start the construction and we still invest in increased life of mine. And also, we have good results to present here. And the acquisition is the other pillar that we already advanced. We also advanced this year. The acquisition of MSG, it's exactly in the DNA that we have. So we can acquire it and we can put our culture to bring some improvements. The MSCG case is what we are doing and included the team that is involved in this process is the same team that did the turnaround in Aranzazu with new people that also bring more energy for that process. The main issue that we have is we need to debottleneck the mine. So the reason that the mine is the bottleneck right now, the first one is mining development performance that we expect to address with a very good plan in terms of infrastructure, in terms of prioritize the main ramps, the main access and also the underground fleet that is under performance and we are scheduling 8 to 12 months plans to rebuild those equipment. And we already started this process that will take 8 to 12 months. But the main issue is how can we convert more resources into reserves. If you can see, we have 0.3 million ounces as a measured and indicated and -- sorry, it's 0.37 ounces as a reserves and 1.08 million ounces as a measure and indicate. So it's -- actually it's around 30% conversion rate. And we understand that following those steps, reduce dilution in the mine, being more selective and reducing the minimum mining width from 1.8 to 1.4, we can increase the grade and also bring some resources that with the previous method is not profitable right now and put that as -- convert that into a reserve. We are changing the mining method that we will be able to increase the recovery at the mine less pillar than actually has been done. And the other one is cut costs to say, reduce costs. Once we reduce cost, we can reduce the cutoff of the mine and we can bring much more of those measure indicated resource that is already proven that is there, but convert that into reserves. What we expect with this plan, we expect a significantly reduction in the all-in sustaining costs and stabilizing in 80,000 ounces per year but we already see room to increase those productions in the near term. Era Dorada is the new acquisition, the new project that we acquired in the beginning of the year. We have some new numbers from the feasibility that we published. We expected production over 100,000 ounces per year in the average. We have 1.7 million ounces as a resource -- 1.7 million ounces as a reserve, sorry, and 0.6 million ounces as a measure and indicate an inferred resource. Considering the CapEx, the production, we expect we are 35.6%. NPV, it's $1.3 million. And the CapEx for construction in the new review is $382,000. As we already told in the before, so the main issue in Era Dorada is to get the permit to operate. And we did a lot of work since the acquisition. From the legal side, the legal side, we have all the permits for the underground constructions. We are missing just the construction permit that is local is in the municipalities, not in the federal government that we expect to be issued soon. And the other is the -- what we call the social license that is the more challenging one to get. But we were able to advance pretty good, better than we expected when we acquired the project, but with a lot of effort. So we invest more than 853 hours in communications and meetings with the leaders of the community. We have more than 9 communities engaged, 6 directly and 3 indirectly. That's cover all the communities that we have in the surrounding area. We have more than 22 community projects or social projects already defined with the community. It's something that we are building together with them, 4 is already completely. We have 4 ongoing and 14 in the -- under structuring to start in the beginning of the year. We also get the main leaders in the community and we invited them to visit Borborema and we had a chance to present how we operate and how we connected with the community where we are. And it give for us a very good goodwill with them. They liked a lot of they saw and the feedback that we received is very positive that say that we do what we talk that we do is the walking the talk that Rodrigo commented in the beginning. And as a social integration, we are supporting the soccer team there is one way that we see that we can connect faster with the communities and the chart that you guys have here is part of this work. Almas I presented exactly this slide last year. And we -- in that moment, we said that we will start the drilling. And if it's approved, we will start the mining development, the exploration ramp. It's exactly what we are doing, completely in line with the schedule that we planned. And we expect to -- in 12 months, we expect that we can achieve the ore in the underground and start the ore development and also to get position to make more drill holes and extend this underground mining even further. And Borborema, just to remember the road here, we have the design of the pit. We can see in this white line is the road crossing the deposit. And once we move it, we can assess that area in another day, and we can unlock a lot of reserves to be converting into reserves. It shows what we are doing, what we are planning to do, but the other pillar that we need to reinforce is our resources and reserves base. And so with that, I'm going to share how is our strategy to replace the reserves and also extend the life of mine. Just to have an idea, since the anomaly that we find for 1 hour to became a target normally take 10 years in the industry average. But just 0.1% is converted into a target really. So there is a lot of effort. We -- as we do not invest too much in this phase. Normally, we are engaged in some project that has some feasibility is ready to build. But in the near mine, we need to develop new targets as well. And from the -- when I became a target until the production, normally, the average of the industry take 25 years. So what it means, if you do not look to the future, we will not have time to develop new targets to keep the life of mine of our operations. So it's what we actually invest part of the exploration CapEx that we have is for the definition drilling to convert resources into reserve. But in the average, 30% is greenfield investment. So what means greenfield is new targets around our mines, but targets that is not under production yet. Here is the evolution. Even we are increasing production, we also are increasing our life of mine. Apoena, you show the example. So we -- when we assume Apoena, the life of mine is 3 years. And 9 years later, we have a 4 to 5 years life of mine, mining those 9 years. So it's to show how robust is our exploration plan is. In Almas, I comment the underground but the potential is much bigger than that. If you compare with some similar areas in Brazil, like the Crixas Greenstone, the Pillar Greenstone that are under exploration for many years before the Almas greenfield, they have between 11 million, 6 million, 65 million ounces and Almas that we just start is 1.1 million ounces, but we have a lot of targets around the mine that we are working in exploration to bring that as a mining in our life of mine plan. And with that, we can extend the life of mine or increase the production. And what we are expecting to do is both. Apoena, as I comment, all those names,Japonês, Japonês West and Nosde, lavrinha are minings that we mined or still mining. But in the center area below the Nosde is the focus that we have right now. We can see those dot lines in blue and the red represent the mineralized horizon that we have. We call the blue one middle trap and the red one, the lower trap. We mine just the upper trap in Nosde and we are -- we have very good intersections, confirm the continuity in the middle and the lower trap. So this is to say that we have a very, very -- a huge potential to increase life of mine in Apoena as well. And here about what I say about greenfield projects, we have many targets in this trend in a radius of 50 kilometers that we are investing in exploration and we see a lot of anomalies, a lot of good intersections that can be converted into resources and reserves in the future. Borborema, during this year, we did some exploration. as well. And we found in the surface a very good intersection in the north part. That is the opposite part of the road. It means that if we move the road, we can expand for the south part but we start to drill in the north part that we believe in this continuity and we can increase the pit for the north direction as well. Matupa is still -- it is in our growth plan. We already have X1 that is the target that support the current plan that we have. But we are very, very advanced in Serrinhas and Pé Quente. With those, we believe that we can more than double the reserves that we have right now. And the focus is in working that definition, but also look for new targets because if you can see in this picture here in the 50-kilometer radius from the X1 plant, we have a lot of targets with good surface samples that we expect to advance on that as well. So with that, we can see that we improve a lot in terms of predictability. We are consistently delivering the results. We have a very, very clear plan to achieve more than 600,000 ounces. in 3 pillars, that is the improve -- the expand and improve the current operations that I showed a lot of opportunities on that, that we are working, building new projects. We just finished Borborema and we already have Era Dorada and Matupa in the pipeline to start and new acquisitions. So we just finished the acquisition of MSG. We started the turnaround process, but we're still looking for new opportunities for new M&As as well. Now I pass the floor to Pitágoras, once the project is the fundamentals for our growth plan, he can show a little bit how we are being able to deliver on time, on budget those projects in Almas, in Borborema and also in the expansions in the current sites. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Good morning. My name is Pitágoras. I'm in charge of the projects and the construction of Aura, not only the greenfields, but the most complex when you have more complexity of the brownfields. So I will talk a little bit, as Rodrigo said, about how we do the things. Considering our culture, we have 5 main pillars. We started the things thinking people. We start the discussion in the engineering, how we build our project since they are fast track. How they are fast track, we have a lot of activities in parallel, and we need to take care of the people to not have any incidents. And we also discuss the operational phase to avoid any problem during the operation. And the next step is how we will deliver for the company, the projects on time and on budget and also with a lot of care and confidence. The third pillar, we talk about the growth to support the growth. We need to structure ourselves to build the projects considering the goals of the company. The third pillar, we need to think about costs. We need to think from the beginning in the acquisition kept it on the construction and engineering to have the highest considering the lower bottom of the second quartile and the top bottom of the first quartile. And the fourth one is related to people. When we start the project, that's the moment that we have the best opportunity to implement our Q3. We need to get it right from the start. And so we select the right people to share our quarter. And the last one is the most important one. It's not the -- they have less importancy is to listen the community. We need to understand them, what they need and implement the ideas and do a win-win work with them. And talking about safety, we have currently more than 1,250 days without LTI and more than 7,600,000 hours worked without LTI. When higher is this number, we know more close we are to an incident statistically. And so we have a strong management to trying to avoid an incident and start from the beginning. The main point is the lessons learned. Each project that we start, we do so with operational, with the construction team and update our main risks and involved with the management team and implemented all the safety needs. We already have identified what are the main risks for each one of the phase of the construction. And talking about our way to do the things, we started our first greenfield that was Almas in 2022 with the goal to deliver it on time, on budget and with quality. And when we start to discuss how we can achieve our goals since we need to start the earth moving on the -- during the rainy season, the team start to discuss and decided, oh, we can do that. It's not conventional, but you need to do some change. One of the change that's not conventional that we've done, we decided instead to hire a contractor to do the earth moving, we decide to do it by ourselves. We rent the equipment and do the earth moving in the rainy season, heavy rain. And we have -- we had success on that. Without that, we had a lot of claim and a lot of issues and not able to deliver it at a time. As Rodrigo said, it was a decision of the team in the field and we support them and success that. The other point was the mill. We have an existent mill that it was acquired but not put in news and have a lot of issue. We quoted with the main suppliers and the price that they gave to us was 80% of a new one. And we decided in the field, no, we can do this refurbishing with specialists, and we do that. The team decided they have the independence to decide and we, again, had success, have success. The mill is still operating and with a higher capacity than it was designed for. The third example and the most important one was the team. This picture is a picture of the day that we started up the plant. We do not have one operational, one construction team delivering a project for the operational team. We have a unique team working together to deliver one project as best as possible and do not have a handover for the construction team to the operational team. Everyone was working together to put the plant to operate according to the project. And the handover never happened because it happened during the execution of the start-up. Suddenly, the operational team was operating the plant, achieving the ramp-up that was in 5 months and the handover never happened because we are too integrated that it was not necessary. And we acquired Borborema in the Q4 of 2022 during the conclusion of the construction. And we do the lessons learned and all of the things, not only the lessons learned, but the best practice we improved and implemented in Borborema. And in Borborema, we had to make challenges that the first one was the lack of water. We have a project that it was never implemented. They have a good results, economic results but there wasn't water. And we decided to look for a solution to use the gray water, but we're not considered the gray water. We have a proposal for big companies and we also have opportunity to develop this project with a local company. And we decided considering our future to develop local supplier and develop local people to build this plant with one local company and to implement it currently is in operation with the nominal capacity. The other thing was the filtering. In Brazil, since we have the accident with the dams, we started to operate, we got licensing and to operate with dry storage facilities. And the main problem of these facilities is the humidity. No one of the project that we visited and do the benchmarking achieved the humidity from the beginning to start the pile. We've done a lot of work, a lot of benchmarking all of the implement -- develop and implement a continuous plan. And as Glauber said, we started to operate without any issue related to immunity to stack the pile. And it was only a decision and implementation and work for the local team, considering our way to work. And we also bring the community development. We developed in Almas and trained during the construction more than 600 persons. Here in Borborema, we do the same from the beginning. The persons that we trained there, 60% were absorbed for the company and about -- on top of the 60%, 30% was already promoted considering our meritocracy. And then now we have a new challenge, as Glauber said, that's Era Dorada is a project out of our jurisdiction that we got all the lessons learned, not only related to community but our best practice to build projects and started to implement it. And in summary from January to September, January 2022 from September 2025 that have a total of 45 months, we built 2 projects from the scratch and have the expectation with our lessons learned with the challenge to being in another jurisdiction to implement with the same quality. So that's it.

Now we have 10 minutes break. If you want a coffee, bathroom and then we are back to have Lina. [Break]

Thank you. I will come back to the presentation here. Just one second, please. And now I will invite our CFO, Kleber Cardoso, to talk about cash management. Thank you, Kleber.

Morning. Morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone online, and thanks for coming here. It's good to be the first to present after Lina, no? Thanks Natasha for that, I'll do my best. So let's see. Okay. Here in my presentation, I'm going to touch on 3 highlights of our financial strategy. Our view on how we allocate capital and how we try to use capital allocation to maximize shareholder value. The second point I'm going to talk about costs, where we are in the cost curve compared to peers and also the impact of increasing gold prices in our margins. And the third one is the strategy behind the listing on NASDAQ to increase the average daily trading volume and what to expect going forward. First on capital allocation. This is a simplified way to show the buckets, different buckets we allocate capital. The first one, business maintenance is which every company is expected to do on day today. We investments we do in sustaining CapEx to keep our business. How much the minimum we have to invest every year at least to replenish the ounces that we deplete by production, tax payments and others. Then the other 2 buckets is where we focus on the return to our shareholders. The first direct to shareholder return is for those who don't know our has a dividend policy, we have been paying and we pay dividends on a quarterly basis. We have a minimum dividend policy in which we -- most of the last 5 years, we have exceeded the dividend -- the minimum dividend policy. We have a dividend yield, as Rodrigo mentioned, is probably one of the highest in our industry is 7.5% in the last 12 months if we include share buybacks. But more important than having this high dividend yield in the last 12 months is how consistent high has been our dividend payments. If you take it from 2021 to today, so in the last 5 years, we had years in which we paid at least 6.5% in dividend yields up to 13.5% in the yield. So the dividends have been robust, not just because of gold prices but have been consistently robust in now in 5 years, I would say. And the last one to highlight the investment that also generates shareholder return is the investment to expand our business. which includes the investments we're doing not only to keep the life of the mines, but to expand the life of the mines. As Glauber showed, we have been accelerating the investment in geology more than doubling the reserves doubling the merger indicated resources in the last 4 or 5 years. Also, we have been very active in terms of making acquisitions and also building new mines, as Pitágoras was showing, and that is growing the company in generating shareholder value. on this business expansion, we have very good examples on our mindset on what we take in consideration when we make a new investment. So when we're deciding to make one acquisition or building a new projects, we don't focus on size. Of course, we want to grow. Every company want to grow. We see there is a value for growing. But the decision-making is based on financial KPIs. We make a new investment decision what we think in consideration is, okay, which decision I'm going to make that's going to maximize my internal rate of return is going to minimize the payback. We're going to get from this investment and reduce risk. So many times, we even decreased the size of the project to start, so that we can decrease the CapEx while you're allowing room to then pursue for expansions or optimizations once the project is derisked. For this, we have -- I bring 2 interesting case studies. This is the case study for Almas. I think it's a very nice example that explains very well how we think about capital allocation. here, we're bringing what happened in the past when we started planning for this project. What we're executing today and what you expect going forward. So a little bit history about Almas. Almas was a project at that time. It was not an operation we acquired in 2018. When we acquired Almas, there was a feasibility study at the time had been produced 2 years earlier for a mine with production capacity at the plant of 2 million tons per year. We've had that time an expected CapEx of $93 million, which in today's money would be about $120 million. After the acquisition, we did a new feasibility study as we do for all assets we acquired with what in mindset, okay, which project is going to maximize internal rates of return, reduce payback, reduce CapEx. And then we decreased the size of the project, then we decided to build the mine that was going to produce from the beginning, 1.3 process, 1.3 million tons per year at the plant while leaving the plant flexible enough for potential future expansions. You see the CapEx will reduce from today's money, $120 million to $73 million. So there is a meaningful reduction in the CapEx. The NPV even increased and the internal rate of return optimized. We increased from 33% to 44%.

[indiscernible]

Yes. No, here was even less, was $1,600 the gold price for Almas and when we did the feasibility study. Then what we did with that plan. So we executed exactly what we planned. We built on budget in the time expected first year of production was exactly what we expected, 54,000 ounces. The EBITDA was higher because, of course, gold prices benefited us. And then once was in production, generating cash flow, we decide, okay, let's replan and go for the optimizations now. Earlier this year, we issued a new feasibility study already planning to increase the production capacity to 2 million tonnes per year from 1.3 million tonnes. Going back to that initial project, but now much more derisked, which of course, delivers a higher production and a higher NPV. But we are not stopping there. Now we're planning in the future. We are planning to go even further. So we are now operating we're at 2 million tonnes per year, planning already to increase to 2.5 million tonnes. As Glauber mentioned, potentially even 3 million tonnes and making all the investments to keep expanding the life of mine, they have potential of the underground and so on and so forth. This is for Almas. When we go to Borborema, it's -- Borborema is one step behind Almas. We just declared production -- commercial production Borborema. But the mindset was very similar. So Borborema, when we released the feasibility study, the gold price was $1900 was already a very good project in terms of returns would yield a 22% IRR with a payback of about 3 years. If you take what we planned in the feasibility study with higher gold prices, of course, the internal rate of return increases significantly with a simulation with $2,600 gold prices, the payback would be already below 2 years. And then we went ahead and executed this project, again, on time, on budget, with no accidents, is already one of our lowest in sustaining cash cost mines and we are in the phase now that we were 1 year ago with Almas to plan for a potential increase in potential optimization expansions? Working to move the roads, as Glauber was explaining, which can increase very significantly the reserves and resources, still investing to increase even further the resources to in the north area. And then once that's accomplished, we can just like with Almas to plan for expansion in production capacity. So these are just 2 examples, but we can -- you can expect a similar approach for the next future projects. Era Dorada, Matupa and potential new projects that we might acquire. Always optimizing the return, rates of return and payback, try to reduce the upfront capital that we put to minimize risk, then once the risk is reduced, look for the upsides. And this is just to close this chapter, just an overview of that first page that I was showing in terms of capital allocation, the shareholder return through dividends and the business expansion, how much we have invested in the last 5 years. So we paid in -- between dividends and buybacks since 2021, $300 million. We invest in expansion, building new projects, accelerating exploration program and acquisitions of over $600 million since 2021. So returning together more than $900 million in a few years. In what is very important without stressing the company with a healthy cash position in very healthy leverage net debt over EBITDA ratio, never reaching one time in the past, despite in the past in '20, '21, '22, gold prices were at much lower level.

[indiscernible]

Sorry?

[indiscernible]

Yes, yes. The $0.15. But then just to conclude, so the secret that we did in the past to paid substantial dividends and grow the company without stressing our balance sheet is investing in projects with quick payback, high internal rate of return so that -- when on projects, we have the returns, we can go to the next one, and we don't leverage our balance sheet. The next topic is about cost and the cost, we -- if you take the last couple of years, especially the last 2 years, we all saw, of course, gold prices going up very fastly. And when we see the margins generated by gold producers went up as well. But in general, if you take the industry average, not in the same proportion. What we are seeing is also increase across the board in cash costs for the industry. And this, we have been fighting very strongly to keep the our cash cost is in the same level or similar level so that this increase in gold price can go to the P&L. We have been successful in this period. Sorry, what did they do? Yes. So if you take a look again, last 2 years, and there's a lot of information here in this page. But here in the bottom, we have in red is good price quarter-by-quarter in the last 2 years. In gray, the cash costs, not only in the cash cost per ounce. And what we see is, of course, as we all know, gold price is increasing quarter after quarter, not in Q3, about $3,500, not $4,000 yet. In our cash costs pretty much in $1,000, $1,100 range. So we have been successful keeping the cash costs down. And then as a result, we see here on the bottom, we have the net revenues and the COGS, the total cost is much more stable or very encouraging to the production. So that we're benefiting from the increase in revenues going to the margins of the company. So it creates this what you call the alligator mouth effect. This look internally, when we look externally, we have a similar message. Here, we have a chart of the own sustaining cash cost curve of the gold mining sector. we see that Aura has been well position in the second quartile of the industry. If we take the same chart 3 or 4 years ago, we were in the third quartile and we have been working to push out to the second quartile. When we do a more selective per analysis comparing with other mid-tiers or large companies with significant operations in the Americas as well. We see we are among the lowest cost as well. And looking ahead, we have opportunities because we have a project like Borborema. Borborema is in production, but we had just -- we're going to have just 1 quarter of commercial production in '25. In '26, it's going to be full year production is in the first quartile. The new project, Era Dorada and Matupa, are also in the first quite of the cash cost curve. So as this new project comes, we are going to remain competitive. And here, it's an opportunity as well to touch on other pieces of our strategy. Our strategy has been to bring online this mine is with low cash cost profile or acquiring mines such as [ MSG ] that currently have a high cash cost profile, but making the acquisition at attractive levels good entry points and then working to reduce over the years the cash costs for more competitive levels as well. Okay. And then the third topic is our focus on increasing daily trading volume. This has direct relationship with the NASDAQ listing. So what was behind was mainly over the last couple of years, we have been meeting many investors or potential investors in Brazil, North America, Europe many global investors like our case, our approach to generate value, but we've got consistent feedback that our daily trade environment was too low for them to invest. And then we came up after studying, okay, how can we address this issue with the daily traded volume? And then the solution appeared okay. Maybe we should list in the U.S., which is considered in this stage of the company. The right time is, of course, by far the most liquid markets in the world, while the listing from TSX because 3 listings for us would be too much. and that was mainly, the main reason behind the NASDAQ listing. And as we can see, it was very successful. We are coming early this year with $2 million to $3 million trading a day. Now we have over 4 months trading over $20 million a day now in December already even exceeding $30 million a day. And with this new liquidity levels, we opened a door for many global investors, large managers and funds which could be investing Aura before when we had a lower liquidity. Now they can stay or they are getting comfortable to start adding Aura to their portfolio. And we say Capital World, BlackRock, Fidelity, TRS and others. This creates a positive effect because we have also an opportunity now being listed in the U.S. And with this liquidity to be added to many potential indexes, which were still not part of. So '26 is going to be a lot, our focus on being adding into many of these indexes, which is going to reinforce the cycle, being added to the index is going to keep our daily trading volume high and then it's going to open the door for more and more investors. And this is going to help is not going to be the only solution, but it's going to help also close the valuation gap that we have with our peers. Okay. So in short, yes, we just saw the -- our focus on capital allocation by returning substantial dividends and buybacks to our shareholders while investing in projects and acquisitions with high returns then we can pay the dividends without leveraging the company while keeping our costs at low levels with opportunities with new assets that are going to come online in the opportunities now with increasing daily trading volume to bring even more and more investors and help you to close the valuation gap we have so far. Okay. With this, I end my part, my session and call Isabela.

Thank you, Kleber. I am Isabela. I'm going to talk about our culture, our people and also sustainability actions. This is the last session before we move to Q&A. And I would like also to give some examples of how we make this happen in Aura. So how to balance this people for future with the high-performance future. The Mandala is the -- is how we drive our decisions. So we consider the impact in our employees, in the community, in the environment, in our partners and also the investors. And the accountability with autonomy is a great -- it's an important pillar from -- of these People First culture. So here are some examples to understand how it works in Aura. When you arrive in our offices, in our operations, there are no walls, no separate rooms, open space offices, the communication style and the decision-making is much faster and considers everybody. There is no hierarchical symbols in Aura. You can give -- you can see also the examples from operations and also the office in Miami and or Sao Paulo, they have the same layout. Another important action we have monthly, the senior manager has breakfast to talk with the frontline employees. He can listen, understand their issues, try to find solutions very close and trustable relation with the frontline employees. We also include families in our events because we know when an employee moves to a different city, the family also needs to adapt to that new city, and when we include the family in the actions is much easier. And we also reduced our turnover to 50% from last year to 25%, and this action was important to reduce this turnover. And also, we use the innovation is part of our DNA. And we bring everybody to participate using AI solutions and bring solutions for real problems. We had Hackathon sessions in our operations, and it makes it -- it's a symbol of how we use innovation in our routine. The People First culture considers also the transparency. The 360 feedback is a central process to make sure we are preparing the next leadership pipeline to support Aura's growth. And we are increasing, and it's a very major process. We have been increasing the number of people that are participating of this process. All the 100% of the leadership, 100% of specialists are evaluating and have their feedback to know how to grow and how to make sure they are making the right things to grow together with the company. As a result of this process, we have 80% of senior managers coming from internal promotions. And when we go to a level down, their leadership, we have 37% coming from internal promotions. We are working to increase this 37% number and we have two important initiatives. The first one is the mentoring program. We have senior leaders developing young future potential leaders. It's a mechanism who is growing, growing year by year. And we also have the training program who has been very mature also to prepare this new leadership for the future. The People First culture applies also for the communities we are working. Sorry. I want to talk about the compensation policy. We reward great performers. Everybody knows what are the tools with transparency. We have, of course, our core benefits, but we also have 2 important benefits and 2 important tools to recognize the great performance workers. The high-high bonus, the short-term bonus and the long-term bonus. And again, everybody knows how it works. So it's easy to understand how it can arrive in that top of the performing work. The community is also very important for us. We have more than 6,000 people working in our 6 operations currently. 65% of these people are local, were hired locally. And we in the 3 first quarters of this year, we have spent more than $127 million in the local with local partners. Of course, we are working to prepare better this community. We train year-by-year, the suppliers to make them become our partners, and we also train people from community to work within Aura. Sorry. there is something -- just a second. Sorry, there's just one slide missing, but no problem. Just wanted to close giving you 3 examples of how sustainability works in our routine. I wanted to talk about 3 different operations with 3 different times of life. The first one is Minosa in Honduras has been more than 50 years operating. And we are also thinking about how that community is going to be when we leave that community. So one day, the mine is going to close like the other mines in our company. And we are preparing the community testing grape seed plantation for the mine production. It's a totally new activity for that region, but it's a way to give to that community a different economic activity. To be clear, more than 90% of that operation has local people working in that operation. So the dependence level of this communities is so high. And we are really concerned about the -- how this community is going to develop when we will not be there anymore. So we are testing this new activity. We expect to have good results in the next -- the next year. And the second example, the second case I would like to bring is the Borborema. We have -- it's a super new operation. We just started to produce this year. We know the water is an issue for that region. The lack of water was a concern of the community. We are not -- we now have a solution. We use the gray water. We treat this gray water, and we not compete with the community. We use 0% of the water that the community is -- the water that is available for the community. In this way, we have water to produce, and the community also -- is not a problem for the community. And as the last case, Glauber also already said about the -- about Unity, that is Era Dorada, where we are going to produce in the next years, and we are already listening to that community we are expanding this People First culture not only for the employees but also for the community. To finish, I would like to show you a video that represents everything we have been talking about and I'll be happy to discuss with you all these matters. Thank you. [Presentation]

Well, very well. I think we are heading to the final part of the meeting. Just very quick final remarks and then, of course, open the floor here for Q&A questions. Just remind what we've been sharing and what we've been delivering to the market. This is one of the highest growth story in the market, number one. Number two, not only the highest growth story, but with probably the highest yield on the new project that we are developing. We saw the returns of Almas at Gold Price 1,600, we saw the returns of Borborema Gold Price 2,400, we just released Era Dorada also with a leveraged internal rate of return of 80%. We are not only delivering growth, we're not only delivering high-return projects, but we're also delivering highest dividend yield in the world. So highest growth, highest yield on the project, highest dividend yield. And all of that with the highest ESG standards, we've been recognized one of the most responsible companies operating in Mexico, operating in Honduras, operating in Brazil. I was also recently invited to talk in United Nations about human rights. Very, very few CEOs are invited to that forum that happened in Geneva 2 weeks ago, which is another recognition from United Nations that we are definitely moving to the right direction. And what I'd like to say is that we are just in the beginning. This is a company that started the story on -- 9 years ago with $20 million market cap. We are now $3.5 billion market cap and we are just in the beginning. The amount of value that we can continue to generate is extraordinary, and we'll do so with the highest ESG standards. For those that are good that like to do calculations, I just invite you just to do a quick calculation. Last quarter, gold price $2,400, 74,000 ounces of production, EBITDA, $152 million. Gold price today is $4,200. And Borborema was not fully operational in commercial. So if you add the new gold price, put the Borborema in full production, you see that we are a significant high than 152 per quart. But that's another thing that happened. We just acquired MSG that is already producing for us. We closed the transaction last week. We don't expect a very high production next year, but we will already generate interest in EBITDA and cash flows. But then you add Era Dorada then you add Matupa, then you add the expansion of Borborema then you add Almas and not including new M&A. So this is a unique opportunity of the company that reached just in the beginning of delivering extraordinary results to our shareholders. And we do so because of the team that you are meeting here as well, of course, that we have now with MSG, 6,000 employees, but the amount of results they deliver, it's impressive. This is, by far, the best team I've ever worked with. And still having new people still improving ourselves. We are not the best, but we want to be the best, and we are working hard for that. Thank you.

So thank you all for your attention. Now we are starting the Q&A section. I will invite all the management to join me in the -- here in the place, in the podium, and then you can receive the questions just waiting for the chairs.

The chair is good, but we can stand.

Yes. First one.

Edgard from Itau BBA. So maybe we can start with Era Dorada. We saw the updated feasibility study today. Very strong numbers above the PEA. I want to understand, Rodrigo. How significant is the updated feasibility study in terms of securing the final permits for the project? So -- you mentioned that the only pending permit is a municipal one. Have you already submitted the request there? And how are all the social permits that you need? And also, when is the deadline for you to decide whether to proceed with Matupa or Era Dorada? Because now you have Borborema completed, right, and probably 2026 will be a year we have new projects. So probably, you want to move further with any of those. So when is the deadline? And then I can do the second one.

Well, Era Dorada, we've been doing since early this year, a lot of social work -- on the framework for Guatemala country, it's already licensed, we need some -- need a local authorization to start which it's -- they're required to by law to grant to us, there's back and forth. We expect that it can happen anytime soon. Nevertheless, we continue to do social work and our decision will be equipped very much based on how we feel the communities are supporting us. So far, so good. I think we've made a significant progress. We had community leaders visiting our operations in Brazil. We had government officials also understanding more about Aura. So it's things are getting together, that we can make a decision anytime soon. Difficult to say when. If we feel we don't have the right environment to start the construction of Era Dorada in the next 2 or 3 months, we're going to do with Matupa, right? So we don't want to wait too much in order to make that decision.

Okay. And the second one, Rodrigo, given your final remarks, we know that you have been generating a lot of money, very strong free cash flow generation. Very strong growth potential, not only with the assets that you shared today, but also there are other assets within the company, Altamira, Serra de Estrela and so on and so forth. I want to understand, Rodrigo, you shared that Aura is still trading at a discount to the peers even to junior peers. So -- why do you think that? What could we be losing here? Why do you think that Aura is still at a discount? And what do you think we could do and you could do to improve further the valuation metrics here?

Yes, that's -- yes, it's a bit frustrating, of course, to be -- with the multiple behind our peers, and we are changing the peers which is a good opportunity for investors, right? It's not always that you can find those kind of situations. It's a mix of feeling why this is -- I think it's a new story. We've been growing so fast in the last year -- last couple of years. Sometimes investors say, well, but I lost the run, right? You already came from $700 million that was 3 years ago, now $3.5 billion, I lost the run. And then I tell you, listen, see what's happening with our cash flows. It's growing even faster, right? So it takes a while for investors to get more comfortable with those kinds of situations. There was a, I think, a variable that we had to address was a daily trading volume. It's very good, $1.5 million for small family offices and small funds but not enough for big guys and ETFs. Now we are in the radar. And we had no coverage also in the United States in terms of equity research. And now we are improving this also is here also is covering us. And I invite you all take a look on the reports and then you'll see the consistency of what we've been delivering. So down the road, I expect not only to close this gap of NAV, but we are changing the peers. So we still have a lot to do. And we talked about here 600,000 ounces that is already mapped or above. But we feel we can continue to grow with that high returns project and at least 1 million ounces. That's what we are going to pursue.

Lawson Winder here from Bank of America. Rodrigo and team, thank you for today. This has been a really, really helpful update. I think we've all learned a lot of insights about your company and how you guys operate. I wanted to ask about M&A. So congratulations on closing MSG. What is the company's desire to acquire further assets at this point going forward? And what opportunity sets do you see? Would you describe there as being a significant number of opportunities? And then just related to that, the hedging. So the hedging has resulted and fully acknowledging you've done it for very, very good reasons. But that with the gold price now $1,500 since the last time you put hedges in place or more. It's resulted in a drag on earnings. So with the current robust gold price environment, when you think of doing your next acquisition. Do you think using hedges again, will be part of that?

Okay. I'll answer the first one, and I'll let Kleber answer the second one. In terms of M&As, we are clearly America players, right, either Latin America, South America, North America. You should not expect Aura to go to Africa or Asia or Australia and others. We feel that we are -- we have the Latin America DNA or North America, right? I wouldn't expect North America any time soon because of these discount and multiples, assets here are worth more than the Latin America, which is fair. But yet the gap of the multiple is too big for us. It will be too dilutive to our shareholders. I think we have a homework to do in order to narrow this gap in order to go to North America. We are -- we like either assets that is very close to engineering level or feasibility study, as was Era Dorada with no geological risk. Our project that's already in operation. So a very good example of what we've done. The acquisition of Borborema, a project that was very close to feasibility study. We updated the feasibility study, we built and then we produce. And MSG is another good example. Mine that has been operating, and we saw room for significantly improved in results and reserves and also adding value by reducing the cost. So either we acquire something that's close to construction or something that it's already in production. Of course, as the higher -- the more we grow, the more you should see more larger and larger assets, right? We wouldn't enter in a project that we delivered now 40,000, 50,000 ounces, probably we're now going more 50,000 to 100,000 or even over 100,000 ounces. If we see a very good and interesting value creation to our shareholders, right? And we like both copper and gold, right? The fact is gold is way more fragmented. There's more -- there are more opportunities involved compared to copper. That's why in copper is higher prices, lower returns, less -- lower fewer projects. That's why there's a very few ones that we enter it -- in earlier stages Serra De Estrela, which we still have a few years to develop an exploration, but that's on copper and can be sizable. Kleber, I'll let you answer the other one.

Yes. On the hedges, just to put a context, so we don't do hedges on an ongoing basis of our business. At that time, when we did the decided to entering hedges for the Borborema project, at the time, our cash position, we're a smaller company, we had a smaller production, less mines, and our cash position was roughly $100 million, and we are making a CapEx decision of $190 million. So that was a big decision that if the gold prices have gone into the other direction, could have put the company at the risk. So it was the right decision for that time to protect the company. As both Aura grew and also gold prices at our new levels, we have more alternatives. So depending on the investments we're going to make. Maybe we don't need to do hedges because if things don't go the way we expect. We have a much more robust company with several operations we are a much more the diversified the company today than were in the past. We have also alternative instead of doing zero-cost collars or forwards, for example, we might analyze acquiring put options, for example, because now with gold prices over $4,000, so to protect a project. So taking as an example, Era Dorada that we released the feasibility study. So the only sustaining cash cost is below $1,200. And also to guarantee a payback, you don't need to have a floor that is too close to the current spot price. So we might analyze alternatives if we decide, okay, it's prudent to do a hedge for a new project. We may analyze buying put options, for example. So now I would say we have more alternatives and we've not necessarily are going to follow the same direction. Considering our preference is not to be hedged as long as then it doesn't put at risk Aura as a whole.

Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra. I have two questions. First, to Rodrigo. I agree that you guys should trade above NAV because you have more growth higher yields, higher returns and also your approach towards risks. And I think that balances that you don't have a flagship asset, but why not having both the returns, yields and also a flagship asset. So I wonder if you guys consider that. And I understand Canada and the U.S. are restricted in terms of valuation, but what about Mexico? A lot of things going well in the country, in the mining sector. So I wonder if you guys consider?

No, flagship asset normally costs a lot. If we find the flagship asset that the enterprise. It's good enough for us to have good returns. Of course, we're going to do it. What we don't want is to overpay for flagship assets. Then we can -- it all depends on how you generate value on those projects, right? If the flagship asset, you have good entry price or have good optionality, either to reduce the cost or to increase resources and reserves maybe will be considered. But normally, it's harder to find those, right? And we are a seeing it's in other projects have returned so high in other places that yet, we have not decided to that direction. . Second question, it was?

So the second question, I have not asked to Glauber or Pitágoras. You have success with your creative engineering such as the sewage water treatment. So I wonder if you guys came up with ideas on how to tackle the challenges in MSG or even Era Dorada that you could share with us?

Yes. In MSG, what we expected is much more from the operational side. So improved performance as a comment. So -- the main issue there is the bottleneck, the mine. In the presentation shows pretty much clear that the tonnes feed in the plant is dropping along the next few years. So it means that the spare capacity is still there. And what do we see with those conversion in the resources into more reserves with the same mine development that we have, we can assess more ore than actually they are accessing and have more ore available to feed the plant. Or if we do a roughly calculation, if we can increase the tonne that we will feed in the plant in 30%, 35%, that is the lag between what they are doing right now and they did in the past. We can increase significantly the production. Even we can see the a bit lower grade or something like that, but it's everything there. So it's just -- this is the main driving for our turnaround in MSG. For sure that structurally, the company is Anglo used to manage in a different way, a more robust infrastructure much more control as a big company more bureaucracy. That is in a different way that we operate, and we are pushing down everything to the sites that we believe, and it's proven in the operation that we are already running that we can speed up the process to take decisions with -- that can bring more efficient and the bottleneck will be better production with lower cost. Fewer people, yes. But in the management side a lot of things was done in the -- and we -- Anglo used to do in the corporate, and we are pushing to the operations. So from the support area and administrative mainly, we will increase that, but we can reduce in the other side in operation with better performance. So at the average, we should keep or reduce a little bit the headcount. But yes, the main driver will be increased performance.

Related to cash costs, what are the main levers you have in cash costs to be able to maintain your cash cost in the range that you're at now? And then secondly, in the 600,000 ounce production estimate for 2028, is it fair to assume cash costs in the range that you're at currently?

Yes. The way that we are being able to keep the cash cost in the level that it is right now is -- it's a lot of effort for sure that the main reason is the discipline that we are having. Keep things simple, and our strive for different alternatives. I showed here like in Aranzazu, for example, we are delivering results for the last 4 years. So even with that, the team is still looking at opportunities to improve performance, to reduce cost as the continued miners that I commented during the presentation. It means that though -- those kind of things in a daily basis like a negotiation with the contractor. We always bring them to the table to share the risks and to be something helping -- help for him, for them and help for us as well. So working in a partnership beside in other cases that you just hire the service and let them operate in, but we go into the day management system, we share things with them. So it's much more a partnership and we give to them some comfort that if something went bad, we can back to the table and discuss again. It's not something that one you signed the contract, for example, you need to live with that forever. So we are always negotiated with them. They need to get their margin, but we -- they can get their margin with lower cost as well. So it's the kind of the mentality that we use to share with them. And the new projects like Borborema is the lower or in sustaining cost and the lower cash cost that we have. And with the new project that is getting in as Kleber mentioned in their presentation. So we will have the new operation that has come we expect a lower cash cost and lower in sustaining costs than the operations that is running right now. Maybe MSG will be a little bit higher than our average right now. But Borborema fully with lower cash cost to also reduce the total cash cost per hour In Era Dorada, we expect a lower cash cost as well.

So -- yes, I was going to ask that question, but another question is just quickly on Almas specifically, is the idea there to double production or to take the production up to a proportionate increase in the amount of the throughput? Or would you be processing lower grades there with the higher throughput? That's just a quick question, right? Because right, you're planning on increasing the throughput to 2.5 million tonnes per year from like what is it, 1.75 or something now. So would the production go from the 55,000 to 75,000 ounces there when you do that?

Yes. We are continuously improving capacity in the plant because -- the reason that we -- when we changed the original feasibility that was in place when we acquired the project for 2 million tonnes. When we did the analysis, we were not -- we had some concern about the capacity of the mining to deliver enough ore in the plant. And to optimize that and also to reduce the initial CapEx, we decided to decrease 1.3. But right now, we are proving that we can go further. So we are running the mine with more than 2 million tonnes of ore per year, and we see capacity to go even further. So it's why we are confident that if you increase the plant capacity, we can increase production. Remember that the ore from the underground has higher grade. It means that with fewer tonnage, we can produce more ounces. And also the targets that we are exploring in the surrounding area or around the actual mine, we see potential to bring something with higher grades. So Almas is promising. So we understand that Almas potential should be big, and we can reduce even more the cash cost and the in sustaining costs.

Is there -- and just to kind of turn the question around because as a potential investor, these are -- they do seem kind of like average assets like you're saying with a lot of potential and have to figure that out. But is there one that you would say has the least potential of all of them. I mean that might be a -- because we hear about all of them have but is there one that might have that has like a short life, and you're getting ready to put it -- to go to the plant to do the grape seeds or that kind of thing.

I think where we see less upside potential today, it's in Honduras. Although we can extend life of mine a couple of years or we are doing re-leaching old pads, but compared to the upside we have in the other projects. I think is where we are a little bit more limited, although we continue to invest to understand the potential for. It's the same geology of Era Dourada. So we are now -- maybe there are some high grade, and we know that some high-grade veins. So we need to drill and see if there is potential for underground in that area. But it's so early stage that we don't like yet to communicate what the risk is super high of not having, right? Everything -- again, everything we laid out here today, it's tangible stuff that's already been studied analyzed with evidence that we can perform. What you're seeing that I haven't talked about the potential for underground in Honduras. We have not talked about Serra de Estrela, which can be an interesting mine. So everything that we are putting here is something that has very tangible and analysis behind with a very good evidence that it was going to be feasible.

Yes. If I can add something on that. So -- if you look today, so for example, Apoena we are producing 35,000, 40,000 ounces per year. So the management attention is the same or even higher than the other operations that is producing 80,000, 100,000. But when we do this analysis, we -- for sure that we cannot just look in the actual performance. When we see the potential that has in the area, for example, to increase reserves to -- to increase the reserves to increase the reserves, encourage us to keep the operation in this level that they are. And we know that in the next 2 or 3 years, we will get back to 50,000, 60,000 ounces. But there's still a lot of potential because it's a very prolific area. The artisanal miners that are in the region, not in our areas, but in that region, it's always the meaning that there is good grades in that zone, free gold that we didn't explore to say that there is no potential to bring Apoena for even the higher level of production that we have -- that we had in the past. So...

I have two questions. Of all your heap waste, what percentage do you think you could recover into gold now? The old heap dumps. Everybody has some.

Yes. We are investing in Minosa. Because Minosa, we have more than 50 years of operation there. They are piling in the same pad that we have -- that we are using today. An inventory that we did with the historical information is around 600,000 ounces there. We understand that thinking in 15%, 20% recovery of this ore can be recovered during the life of mine is there that we have more addressed that. The other operations like Aranzazu is more complicated to -- we try to study and analyze something, but we don't have too much successful on that yet. And the other operations are new operations. So there is not that much historic of tailings that was processed.

I thought I heard 15...

Yes. MSG, we are identified some old waste dump that have decent grade that can be feasible.

Is it also 15% or 20%? .

In MSG, no. in MSG, some -- we have some specific waste damp that we are evaluating and doing the estimation to understand how many gold we have. So...

Elsewhere is -- I didn't understand 15% or 20% elsewhere?

In Minosa, 15%, 20%. And in MSG...

10% or 15% or 20% of 60,000?

15%, 20% of 600,000.

120,000,000. Okay. I misunderstood. And do you know what the cost might be per ounce? No, not yet? Okay. Here's my second bigger question. This happened last week, so I want to know what's going to happen in Brazil. No, not if when. Zimbabwe increased the royalties from 5% to 10% and changed the taxable depreciation from 1 year to the life of mine. every government in the world, including Luda's government, Trump's government, Carney in Canada, Sheinbaum in Mexico want more money. Is there talk in Brazil yet of such a movement yet.

Well, all the government wants more money. And all of -- let's say that all leader, the administration of any business and government is a business needs to raise revenues and decrease the cost, right? Government sometimes doesn't like to reduce the cost, but also -- so this is to say that the government in Brazil is talking about raising royalties for over 20 years. That's not new, 20 -- over 20, 30 years. Every time there's a change in government, they're going to -- they talk about raising royalties. But if you look behind in the last 16 years, there was probably 2 or 3 rounds on the Senate on the House of voting. And in the end of the day, royalties was raised from 1% to 1.5% or 0.75% to 1.2%. So there has been some raises, but not significant. And in countries that's why we like some well-established democracy, it's not a government decision. It's not the President decision. It needs to go through the Senate and the House and the discussions happens and the all government then balance if you should raise are going to too much and the investments are going to be low. So the fact that this has been tried -- government has Brazil has tried many times and the result is, yes, some raise, but not significant, has not been significant raise, right? We're talking about 1.5% to 2% to 2.2%, 0.75% to 1%. So it's right? But you should expect those kind of initiatives in every country, every country.

Graham Tanaka, Tanaka Growth Fund. You sell -- your revenues are in hard currency dollars. What percent of your costs are in sort of a soft currency? And to what extent is that a benefit for you every year? And I was wondering what the inflation rate is much higher in Brazil, et cetera. So how does that balance out?

Yes. So depends on the jurisdiction, if you take Honduras and they have most fixed rate as well. Most of the cost is dollarized. In Mexico is about 50-50. No. And I think in Brazil is mostly in local currency, 75% to 80% is in Brazilian reals. And then outside of Brazil is more and more -- half and half or more in dollars.

So you have that in terms of cost pricing, you have that benefit every year of a cushion of some sort. Just wondering what the inflation rate is for labor, et cetera, in Brazil, et cetera. And to what extent do you have to overcome that to maintain all-in simple costs?

For good or for bad, right? If it valuates is good, if it devaluates, it's bad for us. But in the end of the day, if it happens, high inflation means that the currency is going to devaluate compared to the dollar. And the interesting thing that's happening now that I'm not sure if everybody is following, but with the devaluation of the dollar, well, the countries in developing countries has appreciated compared to the dollar. But that's because dollar devaluating and then the gold price is increasing. So overall, I think you cannot be more protected against any kind of inflation devaluation in local currencies by investing in gold.

Another question is, I'm just wondering, in general, you've got a lot of moving parts. But what the internal rates of return on prospectively for M&A versus internal projects like exploration?

Yes. So in general, we look for at least 20% internal rate of return in general for new projects. Of course, we adjust that depending on the risk. And this is looking usually long-term consensus prices, not a spot price. The higher the risk can be either in terms of okay, one acquisition that was going to require a significant turnaround or depends on the jurisdiction or if it's a greenfield that we have to build, the higher we try to push this 20%. So this 20%, I would say, is a minimum. But if you take the investments we did in the last 4 or 5 years, all of them were way beyond above the 20%. So again, I think it depends. Internal, usually, it seems, for example, if we're talking an internal, which is a greenfield project in a new jurisdiction, that's much riskier. If it's expansion of production capacity in Almas or Borborema is much lower risk. So it depends a lot internally, usually seems more comfortable. But if it's a greenfield in a new jurisdiction, not necessarily.

We take a very holistic approach on risk and return. We don't say 20% and above, right? It depends on risk assessment. Each project is individual. I think that's where you see our may be differentiated. And we know that some projects, you can accept lower returns, but others, you need to be higher returns.

Just going back to the hedging issue right? Today, my partner just priced it. You could lock in $3,000 minimum price and over the next 12 months and give up $50 if the price goes over $5,000, 0 cost. Now you have a low ASIC, $1,200. But if you look at $3,000, you have to understand, a year ago today, the price was $2,500. And we were never over $3,000 except for the last 9 months. So I don't think this is a bubble in the gold price. I think that the gold price doesn't go back to $3,000. But this sort of catastrophic insurance where you're giving up 1% or your policy is costing 1%. And if the price did fall say to $3,800 or $3,700 that some people think you could always sell that foot back for several hundred dollars, additional profit. Does that not make sense financially?

To acquire, let's say, an option for $3,000, for example, to hedge against downside risk. So we don't speculate on where gold price is going. And we -- like I said, we understand we should be exposed to the prices as much as possible because our investors when they -- many of them have a positive view or have like linear view on gold price. . And individually, each investor can -- the investor can itself like buy instruments, okay, to be long in the company shorts on the commodity. So we leave that option for the shareholders. And then we just like buy this kind of insurance because a derivative is an insurance and no one has a cost. So historically, we just have done when we have certifications to show, okay, this is a very big investment for the company. If you things go in the other way, it can put the company at risk, then in those situations, we do hedge. But other than that, we leave it for the investors then to hedge themselves if they -- if they have a similar view, for example.

If I could just wanted to ask one follow-up question and that is, as we approach year-end, you guys are doing a lot of work on your reserve and resource statement. We've seen one of your peers, Era Dourada. They increased their gold price assumption by 17%. Got a nice benefit from that on a couple of their assets, giving them the ability to extend those mine lives. Do you guys -- have you guys gotten to a point where you've made a decision on what your year-end gold price assumption would be? And are there any assets that might stand to benefit in terms of potential life extension from a higher gold price assumption?

No, he asked if we have extra room to increase resources and reserves by increasing the gold price in our projections and decreasing the cutoff, yes, that there are some interesting rooms depends on asset by asset. It's not -- they're not the same. It depends if the grades are very, very fast or has a more tail curve. But we do have room to increase resources and reserves by reducing the cutoff. I think Era Dourada is a very good example. What can happen, we come from 1 million ounces of reserves to 1.75 million ounces of reserves by doing not only this but also reworking on the mine plan. So yes, that will be -- but we do not manage on the yearly basis on the operations with that cutoff that is on the technical report, it's 2,200, 2,400. When we go to the mine, we know that the gold price is $30, $35. We already replan according to that. And then it's low grade, but still is viable, we put in an inventory. That's why you'll see inventory also growing up in Borborema. You saw that also in Almas is because we're reducing the cutoff, we have a lot of what was waste in the past, now it's not is an inventory of a low grade. So that's happening. Another effect that I would -- that might happen sometimes is in some depending on the mine, when you reduce the cutoff means that you increase resource and reserves. But at the same time, you reduce the average grade that will have an impact or negative impact on all-in sustaining cash costs, but that's because we chose, right? But we will try to keep unsustaining cash cost at the same level and then start bundling high grade with a lower grade in order not to dilute too much out the grade.

[indiscernible]

It's a good problem to have, right? It's a good problem. Now -- Well, very well. So again, thank you for being here, and thank you for the team for the great presentation. It's extraordinary what we've been achieving. And we are just in the beginning. Thank you.