Goldplat PLC (GDP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to Flagstaff TV. Today, we are joined by Werner Klingenberg, CEO of Goldplat. Werner, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Catherine, and thank you to the listeners.

Werner, you recently declared another dividend and stated your aim to establish a regular return to shareholders. What has occurred to make this possible? And how are you planning to implement this measure?

Well, Catherine, if we look at the quarterly announcement, obviously, we've had another good quarter and returning from the operational entities over GBP 2 million of operating profits in pounds. And obviously, that's been supported by good sources. We'll talk about that. But also the gold price has assisted us. And we've always indicated to the market that once we find more visibility and sustainability, and we've got more certainty of cash flow. We do want to look at returning value to shareholders. And it's now the second quarter that we've declared dividends. We've indicated that in the future, we'll see how we declare that value, whether it's through dividends or share buybacks. But the focus is definitely to look at returning value on a regular basis.

And Werner, how do you plan to build performance and increase shareholder value?

Well, I mean, it's just building on what we've had. I think, I mean, the gold price has been quite beneficial to us lately. But that's really not where the focus is. And I think if you go through the announcement, it's quite clear that we're looking at sustainability, sustainability through diversity, whether that is through looking in diversifying into PGMs, whether that is looking at diversifying into new markets like Brazil as well as looking at being more efficient in terms of how we currently process the material that we have. So we are focusing on the same things that we have over the last couple of years. Some of it is starting to bearing fruit. Obviously, trying to increase market share in South Africa as well is quite key for us. And we're seeing some good sort of returns on that, but also some positive future developments. Hopefully, that will come through.

And can you tell us how your new plant in Brazil is progressing? Are you still on track to complete in December, do you think?

Well, I mean, Catherine, obviously, in Brazil, we're starting up with quite a small facility. We've been quite active as we told the market over the last 7 years in South America, actually a little bit longer in terms of sourcing material, and we're still getting good supply out of South America being processed at our other facilities in Africa. And I think what we want to do is to be able to start processing some of that material locally. So we're limiting the amount of investment we're putting in there. We're planning to be completed by December. But if there's any material that we can't handle there, we'll still have the other facilities to treat that material. But, yes, I think, I mean, for me, it's extremely good progress from the team in terms of being able to look at, again, being able to handle a different type of material in Brazil or in South America going forward because that material doesn't need to be transported all the way across the Atlantic.

Werner, finally, for today, do you have any other updates that you would like to share with us?

Yes. I think I mean the one important thing is, and that's obviously quite important specifically for the long-term shareholders is our tailings facility in South Africa. We do have a dual-compliant resource as we've told the market, many a times that was done in 2016, where we've got 82,000 ounces of gold in the dump. Since then, we have added a lot of tonnes to that facility. However, we're currently not in the position to declare obviously how much ounces we really added to that facility just because we don't have additional JORC that has been completed. But the management team has done a lot of work on that facility. We do have a good understanding of what is possible through processing that facility. But it has been obviously quite a long and delayed process in terms of getting all necessary licenses and conditions in place to reprocess that facility. The good news is we still have the support from DRD Gold in terms of processing that material potentially through the plant in the future. And all we're looking for now is to obviously finalize our water use license around the pipeline to their facility. That's the one point. And on finalization of that, we can look at finalizing the commercial. So there is a lot of value sitting there for the shareholders. And hopefully, in the future, we can give them slightly more information to -- for their own understanding.

Werner, thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you, Catherine, and it was good to have a talk.

And thank you also for watching Flagstaff TV.