Central Asia Metals plc (CAML) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Nigel, thank you for joining us today in Cape Town.

Now your production results came out relatively recently. Tell us more about them.

Yes. We put out our production results for 2023 in early January, good results for the year. So copper, we were in line with our guidance -- towards the upper end of guidance, 13,800 tonnes. And in zinc and lead at the Sasa mine in North Macedonia, we're about mid-range guidance, something of about 20,400 for zinc and 27,800 tonnes of lead, both in concentrates, obviously. And this year, we're producing -- what we're guiding to the market is effectively we'll be producing similar quantities of copper, zinc and lead.

Now business development is obviously one of your key elements. And that's part of the reason being in Cape Town.

Yes, one of the big reasons for us to be here in Cape Town is to look for other opportunities, talk to people in the market. The market congregates as we all now at a nice time of the year in Cape Town. And we're here to talk to people, be it financiers, bankers or people who have got opportunities for us to look at other projects. As you know, our strategy is really to grow the business on these 2 very good assets that we've got in Kounrad and Macedonia, but we do recognize that growth is a big challenge for us. Two aspects to our growth: one is bigger transactions, strategic growth up to increase our market capitalization. So a bigger transaction, a bit like a Sasa transaction potentially. And then further down the spectrum, increase our exposure to a little bit of exploration in the areas in which we operate where we can use our balance sheet strength of cash in the balance sheet to actually finance manageable amounts of cash into these exploration, early-stage projects effectively.

A beautiful segue to talk about Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan. Yes, as you know, we've had a very successful project. We're comfortable operating in Kazakhstan. Have been there, producing now for over 11 years. What we'd like to do is find another project, either similar to what we've got or early-stage exploration, as I say. And what we've done though is teamed up with a group of very experienced geologists who are used to exploring in these vast countries to try and find the next prospective opportunity. We've got some very good systems in place. We've got some good historical data. We've teamed up with them to apply for licenses. And then what we'll do is farm those licenses into a joint venture company that we set up called [ CAML Ex ], which is listed or so, which is actually based in the Astana Financial Center. To list those -- to put those opportunities into that vehicle and then develop them through early-stage exploration.

So Nigel, what's your key message for investors?

The key message really is that we've got a very good business. We've got very strong cash flow generation from our 2 operations at the moment. We paid historically very good dividends. So the future set fair really for those 2 assets. But what we need to do is grow the business and we're in a good position financially of our own balance sheet, debt capacity, good shareholder support, actually to do another acquisition, not in a rush to do that, and we'll make sure that we get the right acquisition to add value for our shareholders into the future.

Nigel. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you.