First Majestic Silver Corp. (AG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Well, welcome, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join me in this corporate update. I see some familiar faces in the audience this morning. So when it comes to silver, First Majestic and silver go hand in hand. We are the purest silver company of our size. We published our financials for 2025 not so long ago, and we average about 60% of our revenue coming from silver, 30% is gold, and the balance is lead and zinc. We've had a dividend policy for a number of years, and we've just updated that. So we're quite excited about the update that I will be touching base on that. Historically, we've had a very correlated beta to silver, 2x to 3x. So we're quite leveraged to the commodity. And we're the only mining company that owns and operates the mint. And it's been quite exciting, and I look forward to give you an update on that. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about the macro, but the supply deficit is real, and it's been the case for a number of years. We've learned recently, this -- one of the key takeaway here is the recent deficit is 150 million ounces of silver. To put that in perspective, that's about 10 First Majestics. And I just told you, we spent 23 years putting this company together. We know there's no significant silver coming -- and that def is going to prevail for quite some time. There are new industries that are coming in the market that's not being talked about. We just came from a recent conference, and there's discussion about the AI data centers. On average, a data center consumes 6.6 tonnes of silver. And that's a significant number that's not being replaced by any new supply hitting the market. From a company perspective, so we are a silver company. Like I mentioned, we're focused on silver. We own and operate 4 underground mines in Mexico. We also have a gold asset in Nevada in a Tier 1 jurisdiction that I'll be touching base on in a bit. And we have a significant land package around these assets, and that's a key component that gives us the ability to expand and extend these mine lives of these assets. We put out our production updates a few weeks ago, and we've just reported in Q1. We're tracking quite nice against this. We're guiding for about 13 million to just under 15 million ounces of pure silver, 110,000 to 130,000 ounces of gold. And as I mentioned, the balance is lead and zinc. The cost portfolio is quite healthy and robust. So you can imagine the margins that we're generating at these prices. Our capital spend, we're targeting again between $200 million to $235 million, $236 million. This excludes a $75 million announcement that we just made right now for our gold asset in Nevada. But nevertheless, for the operating sites, the key takeaway from here is we're investing a lot back in the business. We're putting a lot of money back in exploration, over 266 kilometers of drilling across the portfolio. And we're expanding our operations. Santa Elena, we're expanding the plant. Los Gatos. We're also expanding the mine from there. So this gives us a lot -- the cash flow, the free cash flow that we're generating, we're putting a decent chunk of that back in the business to ensure the future stability and the growth of these operations. Some of the highlights for Q1. We -- Q1, we guided for it to be our softest quarter. We came in nice and hot off the gates. We're tracking above the -- from silver, over 25% achieved so far for gold, just under 30%. So that gives us a lot of comfort and confidence in the trajectory of the year, a lot more excitement going on. I mentioned the expansion that's coming in, in the second half of the year at both Gatos and Santa Elena. Exploration kicked off heavily as well at the start of the year and on track to achieve or probably do a bit more drilling in some of these areas. And the key highlight as well is we put out a reserve and resource update. And our strategy generally is to replace depletion. We've done that and then some, which is quite nice to see. And with these improved metal prices, we're able to expand our resource base across all operations, but mostly at our Jerritt Canyon operation. And we also, with that, with the metal prices with the new resource, we announced the restart of Jerritt Canyon, which I know we've been getting a lot of questions over time. So we're quite excited to be putting that out there at these gold prices and in a Tier 1 jurisdiction, it puts a very compelling story and for us. The assets are all spread around in Mexico. There -- we have -- I mentioned 4 assets. They're in 4 adjacent states in Mexico. So we're in Sonora, we're in Coahuila, we're in Durango and in Chihuahua. This gives us a lot of hidden synergies. We're able to move people around. We're able to move equipment around. So that gives us a bit of an edge as well compared to our peers. In Nevada is where we have Jerritt Canyon, and we also have First Mint, the minting facility that we inaugurated about 18 months ago. And head office is in Vancouver, Canada. Getting into the operations. So Gatos is, we closed this asset in January of last year, and this was the real deal. When the process was run, there's about 13 companies that was involved, very heavily competitive, very exciting assets. And we're pleased to have obviously have been the winning bids. When we did the analysis on this asset, we used $23.50 silver and it was accretive at that front. So you can only imagine what this asset is doing. It's pretty much on track to pay back in the next 18 months or so, what we paid for it 18 months ago. What we like about this asset is what it is right now has a 10-year life of mine, but the exploration upside here. This comes with 103,000 hectares. This is what we call a world-class district scale asset. I don't think I have a laser here, but the 10-year life of mine is really just that tiny box in the map that you see where it says CLG. That's the only exploration that's been done. That was a discovery hole and all the drilling has been done surrounding it. There is virtually 0 exploration done across this -- so over time, we'll take our time drilling and expanding. We're already expanding this operation. It's currently doing about 3,500 tonnes per day. We plan on taking it to 4,000. We are on track for that. We plan on getting there in June, July of this year. So look for more updates on this. But this asset is here for decades to go. The mill, if you go back here, this mill right here is one of the most modern mills in Mexico, arguably overbuilt. It was designed for 2,500 tonnes per day. We've been able to debottleneck this. We've tested it at 4,100 tonnes per day. So again, plenty of upside and plenty of opportunities for growth in the future. Our next asset is Santa Elena. This asset is really an example of what First Majestic can do to these assets. We bought this 10 years ago. It was producing about 1/3 of what it's currently doing, and it had a 6.5 life of mine 10 years ago. Today, it's producing 3x the production profile, and it has 11-year life of mine. What we love about Gatos is pretty much what we love about Santa Elena, land package. This is 102,000 hectares. And really, the only exploration that's been done is around the middle of the map where we see that red thing. We've done -- we've been able to find 4 or 5 different discoveries since acquisition. You see them laid out on the map right there. Our 2 most recent discoveries are Navidad and Santo Niño -- and these have proven to be the largest discoveries made in this district. We just updated the resource base for those 2, and we're sitting at over 90 million ounces silver equivalent resource. So part of the 2026 program is continue converting resource into reserve here. But we are quite excited about the results that we're seeing. We're currently mining from Ermitaño. So that's the pink crosscut rate here. Navidad is just a little bit deeper, but the hole -- the drill holes that you see right here are quite substantial, higher on gold, higher on silver, but most importantly, higher on metallurgical recovery, which also helps improve the cost of this production going in when it comes online. We're expecting to get into Navidad in about 3, 4 years from now. So we've just opened up the portal. So we're starting the ramp development. That's part of the 2026 and 2027 CapEx. We're also expanding the operation here. So the mill was designed for 3,100 tonnes per day. We're on track to take it to 3,500 tonnes per day. That's also the plan for H2 of this year. Similarly, to Gatos, we do have further expansion programs here depending on how large really those deposits are and really how many more deposits we'll be able to find in this ramp profile. We know Coeur Mining, Chispas mine is just up there. There's clearly mineralization in that area, but we've done virtual discovery or virtual exploration surrounding that black box. So plenty of time. We're in no rush, but we'll take our time doing that. San Dimas is probably one of the most known assets in Mexico. It's been in the portfolio since 2018. It's a doré producer, 50% gold, 50% silver. And this has been a robust producer for us. It is our largest mine. But with this mine, we see the biggest potential, a big land package as well, 72,000 hectares. We think this mine is probably about 30% to 40% upside that's going to come down from the drill bit. We've been able to increase throughput over the last 18 months. So 2025 was really a turnaround year for this asset. We're putting a lot of exploration meters and dollars back into this operation, about 117 kilometers. So that's pretty serious meters going into one of the most prolific part of Mexico. So look for updates on this. We've done some updates in 2025, obviously, but a lot more coming in, in this year. La Encantada is our smallest mine, but arguably the most improved mine so far in the portfolio. In Q4, we've done almost 1 million ounces from this operation. It's a pure silver play, which is rare. You don't really see any byproduct coming in here. Doré producer, and we've had some water issues about a couple of years ago. Over time, we've been able to resolve that. So you see throughput has normalized, and we're back at or above budgeted rates. We're also internalizing haulage over here. So that's going to help improve our cost going forward and improve optimization. That's on track right now. Our last truck was delivered a few weeks ago. So look for further updates and improvement performance over the next couple of quarters. Jerritt Canyon, so over time, we have been getting a lot of questions. We did suspend operations here in '23 for a number of reasons. But mostly, we've always known that this asset needed to be capitalized appropriately and also needed to be a self-perform operation versus the third-party contractor that was operating it. So we took our time getting there. We got distracted, obviously, with Gatos in '24 and '25. But now we'll shift the focus back on it. Timing worked out quite well. When we shut it down, gold was at $1,600, $1,700. At today's prices. It's a game changer. The new resource that we put up here a few weeks ago gives us 7.8 million ounces -- that's not even taking in the 2025 drilling program. So more updates will be coming into the resource base. The focus here is converting resource into reserve. We've committed $75 million for this year. A lot of that money will go to equipment purchases, plant updates or upgrades to make sure that it can withstand winter in Northern Nevada, it's pretty severe, but quite exciting option for us to have right now. So we'll be providing updates throughout the year. And our minting facility, it's quite unique. It's quite exciting part of the business. As I mentioned, we are the only mining company that does this. This really started off as a marketing gimmick about maybe 10 or 15 years ago. We give our coins in these conferences. And over time, our shareholders, mostly who are the customers started requesting purchasing our silver. This is our own silver. So we started selling it online on our website. Over time, demand grew, and we've not been able to get the supply from the third-party mints. So we decided to go full on vertical integration, build our own facility, state-of-the-art in Vegas, and it's done remarkably. So it's nice to go from a cost center to a profit center. It's contributed meaningly or meaningfully. With a facility like this, we're able -- in Q4, we diverted about 12% of our silver production through this. In Q4, the COMEX average for silver was $55. This facility captured just under $70 -- so imagine the additional margin that's going directly to the bottom line with something like this. So we're quite excited. We do have room and plans to grow this. But if anyone is ever in Vegas and want to check this out, do let us know, happy to do tours. Probably similar to most of the other mining companies here, it's wonderful seeing these prices, and it's reflecting in our balance sheet. The balance sheet has never been stronger. Our treasury has never been bigger than what it is right now. It's obviously giving us a lot of comfort in capital allocation. We're putting a lot of money back in the business, as I mentioned. We have increased our dividends, and we've been active on the share buyback recently. So do look for further updates on this. We're putting out our financial statements in a few weeks on May 12. So you can see what Q1 looks like with obviously much improved silver and gold prices. Our capital structure, I think one of the key takeaways here is how liquid First Majestic stock is. We're averaging about $400 million to $500 million a day. 100% of the float is traded every month. And that's a great attribute that a lot of institutions, a lot of ETFs love about First Majestic is, easy to come in, build a position. So we're quite proud of that, a list of our top shareholders. We do have a number of passive investors, but you can see some sticky institutions are starting to get into the stock, which is great to see. And our analyst coverage, most of them right now have a buy rating on the company, which is great to see. It tells you that there's plenty of upside in the stock going forward with all the catalysts that I've touched on and we're targeting over the next 18 to 20 months. Speaking of the catalysts, we're obviously focusing on Jerritt Canyon right now. It is pretty key to us. So all the focus is going there. A robust exploration program across the board, about 260 kilometers in Mexico. But just as important in Jerritt Canyon, we're putting 42,000 kilometers or 42,000 meters. So over 300 kilometers of drilling is a pretty serious substantial program across the portfolio and further updates of results of this program. So Keith will be providing more exploration updates and keep paying attention to the balance sheet and the financial statements which hopefully will keep improving quarter-over-quarter. And that pretty much wraps up my presentation for today. I figure we'll leave a couple of minutes for any questions if anyone might have some.

Yes, exactly. Mani, we do have one at the back.

Two questions. Are you utilizing your roaster, the only one, I think, in the area? I mean this project has been a dog for 30 years, has gone bankrupt. I don't know how many times.

Four times.

Four times. Okay. What was the great game changer? Just the change of the underlying product price? Or did one find significant more ore?

Yes, it's a good question. Thanks for that. When we shut down Jerritt Canyon, the biggest issue there was managing the plant. So it was -- basically, the mine was farmed out to a third-party contractor that with a pretty one-sided contract that we couldn't really get out of. So when we -- and we've always known that there was a heavy profit margin that was built in there, which made the cost quite high. So when we shut it down, our goal was always to turn it back on with self-perform mining. And that was really the case. That was going to be a big solver or a big key in unlocking the value there as well as we did get hit with a winter storm that really crippled the plant. So we knew that the plants needed to be modernized a little bit and winterized properly. So those 2 things had to come together. Now it took us longer to get there. The upside with that is the metal price has improved. So the metal price improving has opened up a much larger resource base, mainly on the open pit segment. So Jerritt Canyon has been for the last couple of decades, underground. They used to be open pit, but changed underground. Now our view is it will be a combination of open pit and underground, reducing the cost quite a bit and allowing us to really get bulk production into the roaster. So the roaster will be utilized. In fact, we're also getting a lot of calls from neighboring mines because a lot of that mine area is double refractory, and they would need a roaster. Jerritt Canyon is the only idle roaster that has capacity in the region. There's 3 roasters in the states, 2 of which are owned by Nevada Gold Mines. So that puts Jerritt in a pretty strategic and quite interesting position right now.

Please join me in thanking Mani for his presentation.

Thank you.