Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to Freeport-McMoRan Inc. 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Richard C. Adkerson, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Freeport-McMoRan. Mr. Adkerson, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Freeport-McMoRan. We appreciate your attendance, your interest and most importantly, your support for our company. I am Richard Adkerson, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer of the company and Chairman of this meeting. Before I call the meeting to order, I'd like to make a few opening remarks. Very pleased to be able to review with you the exciting progress our company has achieved over this past year, which certainly had its challenges as we worked our way through the uncertain business environment caused by COVID. The successes of our team globally resulted in Freeport having a very strong year in terms of the performance of our shares. We led that of our peer group, and in fact, we were the eighth best-performing stock in the S&P 500 during 2020 and in the top 10 performing stocks in the S&P 500 year-to-date in 2021. This is a special and invigorating time for all of us here at Freeport. Our global teams are working effectively and safely. We've been meeting the challenges posed by COVID. We remain diligent. Very happy with the progress in the United States, and we're working with our people and our communities internationally as we meet this challenge caused by the health issues associated with COVID. And -- but we're doing it in a way that is allowing us to successfully execute our operating plans. We are beginning work now on projects for our future growth, to capitalize on the bright outlook for copper and the really impressive and large set of undeveloped resources and reserves that we have, we are fortunate enough to have in our company today. I will now call the meeting to order. The meeting will follow the order of business and will be conducted in accordance with the rules of order, copies of which have been posted on the webcast screen. Stockholders of record who have joined the meeting today in accordance with the instructions set forth in our proxy materials may vote, view the list of stockholders of record and submit questions pertaining to the matters being addressed in this meeting. You may submit questions by clicking on the messages icon at the top of the webcast screen and typing your questions in the box and submitting them. These questions will not be visible to other meeting participants. Questions that are pertinent to meeting matters will be answered live during the question-and-answer period. When submitting questions, please provide your name and contact information in the event follow-up is necessary. You'll be identified before your question is answered. Any questions that cannot be answered due to time constraints or any questions on matters that are not pertinent to the business of this meeting can, of course, be submitted to Investor Relations as outlined in our proxy materials. We want to be responsible for all of your questions, but as a matter of protocol, questions for today's meeting will be limited to those pertaining to the business being raised during the meeting. As a reminder, if you've joined today's meeting as a guest, you will not be allowed to vote or submit questions during the meeting. Again, we want to be responsive to questions and our Investor Relations group, headed by David Joint, is available to be responsive. Austin will shift to Slide 3 for our online audience. Before I introduce my fellow directors, I would like to recognize Gerald Ford, Gerry Ford, who is retiring today from our Board of Directors. On behalf of our Board and our management team, we express deep appreciation to Gerry for his leadership, counsel and service over many years. Thank you so much, Gerry. You've been a great friend and Director of our company. As part of a previously announced transition in connection with Gerry's retirement, I have been appointed Chairman of the Board, and Dusty McCoy was appointed as our lead independent director. I will now introduce my fellow directors. I mentioned Dusty McCoy, our independent Lead Director. Dusty is a retired Chairman and CEO of Brunswick Corporation; David Abney is a new member of our Board. He's a retired Chairman of the Board and CEO of UPS. Robert "Bob" Dudley is also a new director. He is a retired Group Chief Executive of BP. Both of these new directors are international business leaders, and we very much appreciate their joining our Board. Lydia Kennard is President and CEO of KDG Construction Consulting. She is Chairman of our Governance Committee now. John Stephens is the retired Senior Executive VP and CFO of AT&T and Chairman of our Audit Committee. Fran Townsend is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Activision Blizzard, and she heads our Corporate Responsibility Committee. I would also like to introduce the following members of our management team participating in today's virtual meeting. I mentioned David Joint, Vice President, Head of our Investor Relations group. We also have with us Monique Cenac, our Assistant General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the company. She is also serving as Secretary of this meeting. Also in attendance today are Ron Butler and Chris Todaro, partners of Ernst & Young, our independent registered public accounting firm. Ron and Chris are available to respond to appropriate pertinent questions during the question-and-answer period. I will now turn the meeting over to Ms. Cenac, Secretary of the meeting.

Mr. Chairman, a complete list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting, arranged in alphabetical order with the address and number of shares of common stock held by each stockholder as of the close of business on April 12, 2021, the record date, is posted on the webcast screen and available for inspection by stockholders during this meeting. This list of stockholders has also been open for examination at the company's headquarters for any purpose relevant to this meeting during ordinary business hours for the past 10 days. I have been informed by the Inspector of Election that there are present in person, including by remote communication or by proxy, stockholders entitled to vote holding at least a majority of the outstanding shares of common stock on the record date. Accordingly, a quorum is present. We will file with the records of the meeting a signed affidavit evidencing that notice of the meeting, accompanied by either a notice of Internet availability of proxy materials or a proxy statement, a form of proxy and annual report have been duly mailed to each stockholder of record. Computershare will serve as Inspector of Election to tabulate the votes at the meeting. The Inspector of Election has taken and subscribed an oath which will be filed with the minutes. I will now turn the meeting back over to the Chairman to comment on our business. Before he begins, I would like to remind everyone that today's presentation and certain of our comments on this live audio webcast include forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially. I would like to refer everyone to the cautionary language included in our presentation materials and to the risk factors described in our 2020 Form 10-K. I will now turn the meeting back over to the Chairman.

Thank you, Monique. As shown on Slide 4, the theme of this year's annual report for our company is charging ahead, responsibly, reliably and relentlessly. This reflects where Freeport is currently positioned as a leading and growing responsible global copper producer. As I noted earlier, this has been a very active time for our company. Our teams are working safely, remaining diligent with our health protocols as we are continuing to successfully execute our operating plans. Significantly, our Grasberg underground ramp-up in Papua in Indonesia, by our affiliate, PT Freeport Indonesia, is proceeding on schedule, and we are developing plans in the Americas for future growth. We also remain focused on our sustainability initiatives. These have been and always will be key in managing our operations. In 2020, we announced our commitment to achieving the Copper Mark at all of our copper-producing site. The Copper Mark is an industry framework developed by the International Copper Association, to ensure responsible production consistent with UN Sustainable Development Goals. To date, we lead the copper industry with 6 of our operating sites have already been designated and awarded the Copper Mark. In April, we published our 20th Annual Sustainability Report. This is available on our website. In furtherance of our goals, we have added significant new resources to our Freeport management team in this important area, and we're expanding engagements with constituents, focused on our sustainability performance and initiatives. Slide 5 shows that the outlook for copper has never been better, in my view. Copper is essential for the transition of the global economy to a cleaner energy future. Roughly 70% of copper production is used to transmit or distribute electricity. As clean initiatives are implemented, and there is now a global consensus in this regard, copper intensity is expected to expand in a really significant way. This is a coming event that is just now emerging. Our company, Freeport, is notably well positioned to benefit from these fundamentals as a leading large-scale global producer, with near-term and longer-term growth embedded in our portfolio of our copper assets. The scarcity value of a portfolio like ours is unique. It is extremely valuable now, and I am confident it will become even more valuable as impending large market deficits emerge because of growing demand and the supply challenges that our industry faces. On Slide 6, we describe a new financial policy that our Board adopted in February. This policy is designed to support a strong balance sheet, increase cash returns to shareholders and to advance disciplined investments in future growth. In May, we paid our first quarterly dividend of $0.075 per share under this new policy. After reaching a net debt target in the $3 billion to $4 billion range, and at current prices and current conditions, we currently expect to reach this goal during the second half of this calendar year 2021. Under our new financial policy, we will then have the opportunity for our Board to undertake a performance-based payout framework for additional cash returns to shareholders through dividends and potentially share buybacks. Returns to shareholders will be determined by allocating up to 50% of available cash flow after planned capital spending and distributions to noncontrolling interest to shareholder returns, with the balance being available for future growth and further debt reduction. Our Board will assess these additional payouts opportunities on a regular basis, but at least annually. With the annual -- with the current level and outlook for copper and gold prices, we believe cash returns to shareholders could be large, with substantial resources available for investing in future growth. Slide 7 addresses our global team. I am very and extremely proud of the people of Freeport around the globe for their commitment, dedication and remarkable achievements over the past year. I'm personally proud to be part of this team. We look forward to building on these accomplishments with an increasingly bright future. Freeport is foremost in copper. Freeport is charging ahead responsibly, reliably and relentlessly. We will now turn to Slide 8. It is now in order to open the polls and commence the voting by stockholders. As set forth in the company's proxy statement, the stockholders will vote on 3 items. The first item is the election of 7 directors. The second item is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021. The third item is the approval, on an advisory basis, of the compensation of the company's named executive officers. There are no other proposals to be voted on at this meeting, since no other proposals were submitted in the manner prescribed by the company's bylaws or in a manner otherwise prescribed for or sanctioned by applicable law. Monique?

I certify that the 3 items you have announced are the only items of business to be properly voted on at the meeting pursuant to the company's bylaws. If you have already submitted your proxy, your vote has been counted, and no further action on your part is necessary. If you are a stockholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted, or if you want to change your previously cast vote, please do so now via the website used to access this meeting. The polls will remain open until the Chairman closes them.

Thank you. At this time, we will now address any stockholder questions related to any of the items being voted on at the meeting that have been submitted. In accordance with the rules of order, the entire question-and-answer period will be limited to a total of 20 minutes. I will turn it over to David Joint, our Vice President of Investor Relations, to read any questions we have received before I respond. We did have one shareholder question in advance of the meeting that I sought to address in the description of our new financial policy. If that shareholder has a follow-up to that matter, please contact Mr. Joint, and we will follow up with you. David?

Mr. Chairman, there are no further questions at this time.

Okay. Thank you, David. So this concludes the question-and-answer period. The polls are about to close. So if you have not yet voted, please do so now. [Voting]

The polls are now closed on all items of business. It is now 1:19 p.m. Eastern Time. I ask the Secretary to present to the meeting the preliminary voting results.

Any proxies submitted during the meeting will be included in the final results of the voting. Subject to a final tabulation, we report the following preliminary results provided by the Inspector of Election. With respect to the election of the 7 nominees for director, holders representing at least 87% of the votes cast have voted in favor of the election of each director. Holders representing 99% of the shares of common stock present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote on the matter have voted to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021. Less than 1% have voted against and less than 1% have abstained from voting. Holders representing 91% of the shares of common stock present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote on the matter have voted for approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers. 8% have voted against and less than 1% have abstained from voting.

I declare that the 7 persons nominated for election as directors have been duly elected. I declare that the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021 has been duly ratified. I declare that the stockholders have approved, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers.

Our current report on Form 8-K will be filed with the SEC within 4 business days, reporting the results of the voting at today's meeting, a copy of which will be available on the company's website.

All items of business have now been completed. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the meeting is now adjourned. Thank you for attending today's meeting. We look forward to the coming times for our company, which should be very exciting. Operator, we may now conclude the call.

Thank you. This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.