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

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the First Majestic Silver Q3 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Keith Neumeyer, Chief Executive Officer of First Majestic Silver. Keith, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to everyone who's dialed in and for those of you who will be listening to this podcast or conference call over our website. Before I begin, I would like to just introduce the people in the room that are with me today here in our new time zone of British Columbia. Mani Alkhafaji, our President and Chief Corporate Development Officer; our CFO, Neil Beaumont; our Chief Operating Officer, Dave Howe; and Samir Patel, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Darrell Rae and Joel Faltinsky from Investor Relations; and Darren Fernandez from our financial team. Before I get into our presentation today, I'd like to introduce Samir to discuss the disclaimer.

Thanks, Keith. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind you that we will be referring to certain non-IFRS measures and making certain statements regarding First Majestic Silver and its operations that constitute forward-looking statements in accordance with applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, such as statements regarding future estimates and plans or expectations of future performance constitute forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to future events. These statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political, social uncertainties and contingencies. We encourage you to refer to the cautionary language included in our news release that was disseminated earlier this morning and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures in our most recently filed management's discussion and analysis as well as the risk factors set out in our most recently filed annual information. As a reminder, these documents, along with all of our continuous disclosure documents are available on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty or reliance on any forward-looking statements made during today's call, and the company does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements or information other than as required by law. With that, I will turn the call back to Keith.

Thanks, Samir. For those of you who would like to see the presentation, it's on our website, hopefully, you had a chance to review it. The corporate website or the corporate presentation is also there, so don't get confused between the 2. So getting into the highlights. Revenues for the quarter were $394 million, up 38% year-over-year. And revenues to date for the first 3 quarters of 2026 came in at $1.286 billion, $1.2 billion in revenues, up 62% compared to last year. Our silver production was robust at 3.4 million ounces. Gold production was again on budget, 30,000 ounces of gold. Our average selling price for silver for the quarter was $61.52; year-to-date $70.22. Our earnings or EBITDA for the quarter was $228 million, up 78% compared to a year ago. And cash flows $0.43 a share. Exploration remains very aggressive. We drilled 78,000 meters in the quarter over the 4 assets, including Jerritt Canyon. We're making some good progress on the Mexican tax issue. We did come out with a news release during the quarter regarding us dropping the NAFTA case against Mexico. So that should tell our shareholders that we actually are making progress, and we hope to have updates over the next few weeks or few months on that particular issue. We announced our dividend as well, which is our record dividend, which will be payable in the next couple of months. And our share buyback program was active in the quarter. To date, we've bought 1.3 million shares back out of the market. Our liquidity remains robust with about $1.2 billion in the bank. $3 billion in the bank, a breakdown on liquidity on this slide. So moving forward to Slide 4. We have all-in sustaining cost impact for the year. We are, of course, seeing inflation like the rest of the industry that's laid out here. One of the bigger drivers to cost is the fact that we made a conscious effort a year ago to start lowering our cutoff grades. That was something that can be reversed if metal prices do underperform. But it's a great strategy right now. It's -- despite the lower head grades hitting the mill, throughputs continue to be very good. And -- but it does have an impact on cost because you are moving more rock for less metal, and it is highly economic to do that, and it's paying off well for the business. Going to our costs on a per tonne basis, you can see on this chart, it's been pretty stable for the last couple of years at about $105, $110 cost per tonne. So that shows you that we're managing our costs quite well. Some of the other costs like bonuses and PTUs and things like that, of course, do fluctuate positively in the favor of our employees as the metal price does go up. So it's a great benefit for them. Of course, the company is benefiting as well. So going to the next slide, Slide 5, we'll get into our cash flows for the year. It's very, very much price -- metal price driven. The business is running quite well. But of course, we are impacted by the silver and gold prices declining throughout the year, but still very robust cash flows at the current levels. Our capital expenditures are on target. We spent $42 million on Jerritt this past quarter. So we're making great inroads there at Jerritt. It's coming along quite nicely and on budget and on time. Jumping to our next slide, just really getting into some of the initiatives that we've been working on for most of the year. The plant expansion at Santa Elena to 3,500 tonnes a day is going well. And we have actually exceeded that number a few times during the quarter, but we're looking at maintaining that level on a daily basis for most of the balance of the year. Our Santo Nino portal, and I would suggest people go to our website and have a look at this photograph or a series of photographs because that portal, not only was it permitted 18 months ahead of schedule, we hadn't expected to start developing into Santo Niño Navidad until mid-2027, but the permits came in, in August of this year, and we're able to get that development going. So we're very happy that we're well advanced into Santo Nino and ore should be hitting the mill at the end of 2027. We'll give further guidance as we get closer. Navidad portal is in the early stage of construction. Q4, we'll see a similar progress at Navidad, as you can see on this photograph regarding Santo Nino. So Los Gatos, we're pushing to get to 4,000 tonnes a day again. We have achieved that number a few times. So we're really looking to debottleneck the mine. The mine is the hindrance right now. And we're doing a number of things underground and within that operation to get that ore out of the mill and -- out of the mine and get it into the mill through different mining methods. San Dimas, we had a very, very good first half of the year. Unfortunately, we did get a labor disruption in mid-September. We did have 12 days of loss of production in Q3. The labor disruption continues today. There was a hearing yesterday, and it's a very active process, as you can imagine, there's discussions going on every day, and we're looking to get that operation back up and running as soon as we can. Santa Elena continues to outperform the budget due to grades and ore flow to the mill. So I know there's lots of questions about Jerritt Canyon. So we do have a slide dedicated just to Jerritt Canyon, but the hiring is going well. We started hiring 6 months ago, and we're about 70%, 80% of the key hires now complete. And as I said earlier, there's tons of activity on site. The underground fleet has now been ordered -- fully ordered and deliveries will start happening in Q1. Underground development has been going on for the last several months and it continues today. All major components for the mill refurbishment have also been ordered and will be arriving in Q1 and Q2. So there's some more details on this slide for people to review. And if you have any further questions, you're welcome to ask them. We are coming out with an exploration update in the next couple of weeks. There's been some pretty interesting results coming out from drilling there throughout the year. So we're anxious to get those results out to the market. So look for that in the coming weeks. So just going to the next slide. And on the last slide, this is future catalysts. We continue to really plow money back into the business. This year is our highest capital investments throughout the business in the company's history. With the profits that the company is currently making, we've made a conscious effort to reinvest in a variety of areas of the business to improve the business going forward. So we're pretty excited about the work that's currently happening. And that's really it for the presentation. I'll pass it on to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question will come from Wayne Lamb with TD Securities.

Just wanted to understand on the ongoing labor dispute at San Dimas. Just trying to understand why the decision or resolution is guided to the back half of November. Can you give us a bit more detail on the nature of the hearings that have taken place and what means of recourse the company has even if it is deemed as illegal? Just trying to understand if you're currently just had an impact or what avenues are to kind of prompt any movement towards a resolution.

Well, it's a very active file, right? When these kinds of things happen, we have people in place that deal with the different issues that are coming up. A lot of the headline stuff really comes down to income taxes. San Dimas historically under old ownership has periodically or often paid all or a part of the income taxes to the workers. So basically, they pay the worker a bonus, they true up for taxes. And we've been consciously trying to avoid that over the last few years because as profitability increases, of course, that amount increases substantially. So the bonus that has been earned by the employees or the union employees at the site are actually the highest bonuses that will ever be paid to the workers in the history of the mine, all related to profitability. So it's great news for the workers. But unfortunately, the union did go through a vote this summer, every 2 years, they go -- they do go in new leadership. The individuals that have been put into the leadership role this past summer, taking the position that they want 100% of the income taxes trued up or paid by the company. And we've said no, and we're firm on that point. So we're going through the court system right now, and we've included the government in the process. And without -- I can't really get into further details on that. It's just -- it's an active process that is going on daily.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just on the ongoing ramp-up at Gatos and Santa Elena. At Gatos, it's nice to see improvement in the development meters. And just wondering what the limiting factors are to getting to 4,000 tonnes per day.

Let me pass that on to Dave Howe, COO.

Yes, I mean, we had a pretty good ore processed to mined in Q3. I mean we're accessing and developing ramps and accessing defining and drilling stopes right to get our inventory and production up. As you saw, we had some sequencing changes during the quarter due to a few ground control issues we control, but that's normal operations. So we've pushed some high grade into Q4. That's what we're milling now. So in terms of just pushing forward, it's yes, advancing our development, and we've made some improvements, for example, in better development cycling, making a little bit faster pace improvements and better equipment availability too has helped. So that's it.

Is that okay, does that answer the question?

Yes. That's great. And then maybe just last one on the potential tax settlement. Obviously, a big step forward in the suspension of the arbitration. Just wondering if you could give us an idea of how we should think about the proposed settlement relative to the $133.4 million held in restricted cash towards the dispute. And then just on the framework of that agreement, are there any details outside of the actual payment that we should be thinking about?

Well, there won't be one payment. There will be a number of payments over several months, but we're not certain when the first payment will be made. There's a couple of steps that need to be taken prior to actual payments being made. It's a very detailed step process that both parties have to follow. If I was to give you a step number, we're likely on step 5 or 6 out of a 30-step process. So this will take some time, but it's obviously good news for the company.

Okay. Sorry. So when you say step 5 or 6 out of 30, I mean, we're a lot further along than that on a potential settlement though, right?

Well, the settlement requires all steps to be completed in its entirety.