Coeur Mining, Inc. ($CDE)

Good day, and welcome to the Coeur Mining Update Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitch Krebs, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Okay. Good morning, and thanks for joining the call to discuss the release we issued this morning. Before I kick off, I just want to quickly point out our cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements shown on Slide 2 in the deck and refer you to our SEC filings on our website. Starting on Slide 3, there's no doubt that Friday's closing of the New Gold acquisition marked a watershed event in Coeur's history. With our recent successful investments in exploration and expansions at our existing operations, our acquisition of SilverCrest last year and now this transformative transaction, we are emerging as the industry's only all North American senior precious metals producer while retaining our dominant position in the silver sector. Our larger scale, metals mix, lower costs and higher margins, strong free cash flow profile and leading trading liquidity on the NYSE and now on the TSX represent clear differentiators compared to peers. This strong position affords us a unique opportunity to fund a pipeline of high-quality gold and silver projects, build out a top-tier balance sheet that sets us up to not just survive but thrive across the commodity cycles and begin returning excess capital back to our shareholders. On Slide 4, we've highlighted the 3 key topics from today's release, our updated 2026 guidance, year-end 2025 reserves and resources for New Afton and Rainy River and our updated financial policy and return of capital strategy. Starting with our updated guidance, which is laid out on Slides 5, 6 and 11. Based on 9 months of production from Rainy River and New Afton and taking the midpoint of guidance, we expect to produce approximately 750,000 ounces of gold, over 20 million ounces of silver and nearly 60 million pounds of copper in 2026. The 2 new Canadian operations are driving an expected 80% increase in our 2026 gold production and also add copper production to go along with our status as a top 5 global silver producer. Based on recent prices, gold is expected to contribute approximately 65% of our revenue this year, with silver contributing nearly 30% and copper making up the remaining 5%. We anticipate 70% of our revenue this year to be generated equally between the U.S. and Canada, with the remaining 30% to come from our 2 Mexican mines. Importantly, based on recent prices, this new 7-asset North American platform is expected to generate more than the full year estimates of $3 billion of EBITDA and $2 billion of free cash flow that we highlighted when we announced the transaction last November, even with only 9 months of contributions from New Afton and Rainy River. Turning to the New Afton and Rainy River technical reports and year-end reserves and resources shown on Slides 8 and 9. It was great to see Rainy River add 2 years to its reserve-based mine life out to 2035. At New Afton, the current reserves-only mine life has been extended into 2032 with a strong performance from B-Zone and C-Zone begins ramping up this year. An important highlight at New Afton is the initial K-Zone resource, which is a key driver of the mine's long-term potential. The initial M&I resource of 48 million tonnes plus another 6 million tonnes of inferred resource is a tremendous starting point. In the context of New Afton's current reserves of 36 million tonnes and annual design throughput rate of almost 6 million tonnes, this resource represents a major opportunity for substantial future mine life extensions. There's obviously a lot of work to do before K-Zone becomes part of New Afton's mine plan, including approximately 36,000 meters of planned exploration drilling over the balance of 2026 and the kickoff of a feasibility study in the second half of the year. Just a couple of comments from me regarding our updated financial policy and return of capital strategy before I turn it over to Tom. It's especially gratifying to be in a position of returning capital to shareholders after several years of heavy investment to extend mine lives and expand existing operations. On the back of these investments and our 2 recent acquisitions, combined with higher prices, we've created a cash flow machine that will allow us to reinvest in our assets, bolster our liquidity position and start returning capital back to shareholders in a robust, responsible and flexible way. Tom, over to you.

Thanks, Mitch. On the guidance, I wanted to draw attention to the following key items. Commensurate with the close last Friday, we are busy completing a March 20 close of the New Gold books. For simplicity, we have guided based on 9-month production from April 1 to December 31, 2026, as detailed on Slides 5 and 6. Of note, the 2026 guidance remains generally in line with New Gold's previous 3-year guidance and New Afton guidance is based on payable production to align with the way we report. New Afton is expected to deliver gold and copper production from its newly completed C-Zone cave. Our 9-month 2026 production guidance totals 60,000 to 80,000 ounces of gold and 50 million to 65 million pounds of copper with the C-Zone ramp-up expected to drive sequential quarterly production increases throughout 2026. Rainy River is positioned to deliver its highest ever annual production in its history. Our 9-month gold production guidance of 230,000 to 275,000 ounces includes production from both the open pit and underground operations. Continued progress on underground mining development rates will be a key factor to ensuring a successful 2026 at Rainy River. Based on our budget prices, Rainy River and New Afton are expected to be Coeur's 2 largest free cash flow contributors even with just 9 months of contribution. There are a few important nuances to highlight from the CAS guidance on Slide 11. Rainy River's CAS guidance is influenced by 3 accounting-related factors that collectively totaled just over $1,000 per ounce. The first is the noncash purchase price adjustment related to the fair value uplift of the in-process inventory and short-term stockpile. Some of you may recall, we had a similar impact last year with Las Chispas. The noncash impact on Rainy River is estimated to be $180 million in 2026 or $675 per ounce. Under U.S. GAAP, deferred stripping costs of approximately $40 million or $155 per ounce are required to be expensed versus IFRS where these costs were capitalized. Also under U.S. GAAP, the accounting for the Royal Gold stream at Rainy River increases our CAS by approximately $90 million or just under $240 per ounce. Two items to highlight for New Afton CAS. Costs are reported on a co-product basis, consistent with our methodology of reporting costs. There's also a noncash fair value uplift impact of its acquired inventory of $20 million or $134 per ounce of gold and $0.15 per pound of copper. These amounts may change slightly as we complete our opening balance sheet work, but we wanted to highlight these preliminary estimates as everyone begins to update their valuation models. Enough pointy headed accounting and on to our updated financial policy. We have been itching to reveal our updated financial policy since we announced the New Gold acquisition. This updated financial policy was the result of months of discussions with our investors and our Board, along with detailed benchmarking versus our larger peer group. Our revised long-term financial policy pillars are as follows: First, we will continue to invest in growth projects and exploration to deliver peer-leading return on invested capital, which was 26% in 2025. Second, we will build up our liquidity levels to be consistent with our larger peer group with a commitment of always remaining in a net cash position. And third, we will have a prudent return of capital strategy comprised of a buyback program and a sustainable base dividend with an overall preference for buybacks. The strategy has been designed to allow us to maintain financial flexibility to pursue growth initiatives while maintaining a robust level of capital returns. Coeur's Board of Directors has authorized an expanded $750 million buyback program. This program will consist of both a programmatic component, which allows -- which will allow for the possibility of continuous activity even during blackout periods as well as a discretionary component to allow us to execute repurchases opportunistically based on our underlying share price and valuation. We will be able to begin executing the program after we report our Q1 2026 earnings in early May. Coeur's Board has also approved an inaugural dividend policy of $0.02 per share semiannually with payments expected in the second and fourth quarters. This amount was selected to ensure the dividend is sustainable for the long run even under extreme low case pricing scenarios and allows for potential dividend growth over time. Three final items for me before turning it back to Mitch. We have entered into a new modernized and materially upsized revolving credit facility, increasing capacity from $400 million to $1 billion. We want to thank our long-standing partners, including National Bank, our new lead syndicate bank, BMO, RBC, BAML, ING, Desjardins and Goldman Sachs for their continuing support. We are excited to add TD, CIBC, Scotia and Citi to our list of important relationships. Second, we launched an obligor exchange related to New Gold's 2032 bonds this morning. This innovative transaction should allow us to novate the vast majority of the outstanding New Gold bonds to become Coeur bonds. While the interest rate and maturity will not change, all other key covenants would align with Coeur's 2029 bonds. The benefits of the transaction would include no restrictions on our ability to return capital, additional U.S. tax shield and lower filing and compliance costs. And third, as of last week, as we promised, we completed a TSX listing prior to the closing of the transaction. This means investors can now buy our shares on either the New York Stock Exchange or the TSX, both under the symbol of CDE. With that, I'll pass the call back to Mitch.

Thanks, Tom. In closing, I want to thank the Coeur and New Gold teams who have worked incredibly hard over the past few months preparing for this combination. Our focus now turns to executing a smooth integration and working to unlock the incredible potential of this exciting new company. With that, let's go ahead and open it up for any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first is from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Congrats on completing the acquisition of New Gold. Maybe my first question is on these New Gold assets here. In terms of New Afton, Mitch, as you mentioned, the K-Zone, great to see an inaugural resource for the K-Zone and a feasibility study that's coming up in the second half of 2026. Maybe too early to ask, but any other details they can provide to us at this point in time in terms of, say, time line, potential CapEx, potential size? And if you cannot give us concrete sort of numbers at this point in time, could you maybe talk about some of the trade-off studies that you're looking at and how that might differ from how New Gold had looked at it previously, at least for the K-Zone?

Yes. No, good question. I'll start. And Mick, if there's anything I don't mention that you feel like I should have, feel free to chime in. It is basically too early, right? We haven't even started a feasibility study, and this was just obviously the initial maiden resource. But if you think about the C-Zone, which is now just ramping up and the reserve-based mine life built off of the C-Zone going out now to 2032, you kind of have to think about the K-Zone being ready to go around that 2032 time frame. And so if you think about the timing of capital, the 2 or 3 years leading up to 2032 would probably be when the capital would be elevated to develop the K-Zone to have it ready to go. As far as what the capital will be, we'll let the studies drive all that. I think the C-Zone, which is now just ramping up, was a capital investment somewhere around $600 million. Not that, that is what the K-Zone is likely to be, but that's one indicator of the approximate capital range to think about for the K-Zone. So if you spread that out over a few years leading up to 2032, that's probably not a bad way to think about it. But a lot of work, a lot of drilling, a lot of study work to do between now and then. Mick, anything that you want to add?

Yes. Just briefly, during the due diligence, we looked a lot at the K-Zone, and it's all playing out the way we thought it would. The New Gold team are a super team very technical and had worked the front-end loading far enough to get us to a maiden resource. And now we'll follow a rigorous study program to get through that FS and see what the final size and capital and process looks like for that K-Zone. But for the moment, we have time to do that study work well.

Perfect. And maybe honing in a little bit on the K-Zone in terms of grade. I noticed that the grade is slightly lower than the C-Zone. So how should we look at that in terms of grade, K-Zone versus C-Zone? And I would imagine not much mining dilution has been factored into the K-Zone resource grade at this point in time. Could you remind us how much mining dilution is in the sort of C-Zone reserve grade? And can we use that in any way to kind of estimate or guesstimate what might be needed for K-Zone?

Yes, I'll start. And then Aoife, you're on the call, you can chime in, Mick, as well on the dilution question, if that's something that we can answer now. But I'd say just, again, Cosmos, early days with the K-Zone with this initial resource. There's a lot of drilling to do. I think we alluded to the number of meters still to do this year. The vast majority of the budget this year for exploration at New Afton will be to expand, try and expand and then start infilling that K-Zone. So we'll see how that goes over the next few years as far as what that does to the overall grade profile. But Aoife, Mick, do you want to add anything?

Sure. Yes. I mean we have -- yes, sorry, Mick, I'll go first on the exploration and upside and then hand it back to you for more on the dilution in the mining. Yes. On the exploration side, we -- there's of $80 million of drilling at New Afton this year, 16 of them are dedicated to infill and expansion on K-Zone. There's opportunity along strike and at depth on K-Zone. For the moment, for this year, the priority really is on the lateral potential for growth, in particular, back towards D-Zone, we're drilling the gap between D and K-Zone, and that's about 100 meters along strike and there's a potential -- and we're looking at an area to the other side of K-Zone with about the same strike length. And just to put that into context in terms of potential growth, the K-Zone itself, the current resource shape is between -- varies between about 300 and 400 meters along strike. So we're doing a lot of drilling in that space, and we're seeing some very good early results with similar grades to what we've seen. So we're quite optimistic for growth on K-Zone this year.

Mick, do you want to add?

Yes. From a development perspective, of course, as Aoife said, we're looking to try and grow that resource. And as we start infilling it, then really we'll determine those factors, Cosmos. We'll get down to that technical data as we get into the FS. So we should have a better view of that through next year.

Great. Maybe switching gears a little bit. I saw that in terms of guidance, the cost guidance, the headline number for Rainy River and New Afton were both higher than, say, last year. However, Tom, I think you did a good job in terms of explaining there's a number of factors such as PPA adjustments that need to be backed out or that are now included in this new number. But I guess my question is, what is sort of onetime? The PPA due to inventory is clearly a onetime. But how about some of the stripping costs? Would that kind of carry forward into future years? Just it's an accounting treatment. And so would that carry through? And the way that you account for the Royal Gold stream as well, would that kind of carry through into future years? And is that why we're seeing sustaining CapEx? I believe your number is slightly lower than what I had expected in sustaining capital. I think you're saying $84 million to $98 million previously new goal for the full year at $140 million to $160 million. Is it a recast of CapEx into some of these CAS? Two parts of my question.

Tom, I'll just kick it right -- go ahead.

Yes. No, you nailed it. So the fair value uplift, so we have to mark-to-market the inventory particularly the stockpile material that we planned to mine in the next year. And so again, that's like $180 million, almost $700 an ounce right there. That's onetime. There is -- there are a couple of years of stripping, as you'll see in the technical report. That's just geography. It goes from CapEx under IFRS to U.S. expense under U.S. GAAP. The stream will carry on. Again, just there's a completely different treatment under U.S. GAAP versus IFRS. And then yes, you nailed it on the sustaining, it's lower because we expense it. So -- and then there's probably a little nuance. There's only 9 months versus 12 months. So again, we've done our best to make it as simple as possible using that April 1 to December 31. As we close the books, though, we might see some tweaks about spending that happened that had been planned and the build didn't come in, et cetera, et cetera. So no rest for the wicked, the team in Toronto are busy closing the books. Thank you, team, and they'll have to close them again on March 31. And if there's anything that needs to be tweaked, we'll be clear about that when we report Q1.

I'd like to if you pass this accounting question right after time. So I would do the same as well. In terms of -- sorry, Mitch. And then in terms of one last question, if I may. The credit facility, the $1 billion credit facility, could you maybe talk about the terms behind it? I think in part, it's the interest rate is going to be dependent on your credit rating. And could you remind us where your credit rating is right now? And could this transaction improve your credit rating into the future? Could it even be potentially investment grade one day? And is that something that you strive for?

I'll go right away.

Sure. Go ahead.

Yes. So again, the revolving credit facility is absolutely modernized sort of the best terms that you would expect given the high-quality company that we've been able to create here over the last couple of years. And so standby charges on $1 billion would have been the same annual fee as we would have paid for the $400 million facility, just to give you a flavor on that front. So -- and as part of the obliger exchange transaction that I referred to, we had to reach out to both S&P and Moody's, who will be coming out shortly with an update on our view on our overall ratings. But absolutely, we're -- we think we're on our way to creating an investment-grade balance sheet. The rating agencies are take their time to move and catch up with exactly where we're at, but you should hear something here shortly from both S&P and Moody's on our updated ratings. And obviously, it will be an improvement.

[Operator Instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mitch Krebs for any closing remarks.

Okay. Well, look, we appreciate everybody's time this morning on such short notice to dial in and hear our update, get a few more details from us now that the New Gold transaction is closed. And we look forward to talking to you again on our first quarter earnings call in early May. Thanks again. Have a great week.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.