Teck Resources Limited (TECKB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Good afternoon, and welcome to our Annual General Meeting of Teck Resources. My name is Sheila Murray, I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors of Teck Resources Limited. I want to welcome all of you to this meeting. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations. Apologies to anyone for my pronunciation, I'll try and do better next year. It's so difficult. I'd like to introduce my fellow current directors and nominees in attendance today, and ask that they stand as their name is called. Arnaud Balhuizen; James Gowans; Norman Keevil III; Una Power; Paul Schiodtz; Tim Snider; Sarah Strunk; Yu Yamato; Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, who's joining us today for the first time. Sitting on stage with me today is Teck's Chief Executive Officer and my fellow director, Jonathan Price; Executive VP, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, Lyndon Arnall; and Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary, Amanda Robinson. We pay people by the number of names they have attached to their -- number of titles. When the formal business of the meeting is complete and the meeting has been adjourned, there will be a presentation by Jonathan. But first, let's get through the boring, ordinary course business of this meeting. At Teck, we begin each meeting with a safety message. I'd like to introduce our Director of Communications, Alana Duffy, to give a safety message.

Well, thank you very much, Sheila. For today's safety share, I'd like to review the venue's emergency procedures for those of you who are joining us in person today. Here at the Terminal City Club, there are 2 distinct alarm bell sounds. If you hear a slow bell, it will be accompanied by a clear announcement that will indicate that an alarm has been sounded. And in this case, please just wait until we receive further instructions. There is no need to evacuate in that case, unless we're specifically advised to do so. If you hear a fast bell, please proceed to the nearest exit by following the marked signs. And in the room, there's one at the back and one over here next to the wall. And then please exit. Once outside, the designated muster point is in the courtyard, which is on the west side of the building. Please wait there for further instructions. If there is a medical emergency, we do have Level 2 WorkSafeBC first aid certified staff on duty today. Additionally, we do have 2 defibrillators in the building. There's one by Member Services, which is just out at the front desk. There's a second one located in the fitness center on the third floor. So with that, I'll turn it back to Sheila.

Thank you very much, Alana. Before proceeding with the business of the meeting, I'd want to take a moment to recognize Ed Dowling. Please stand, Ed. Ed is not standing for reelection today, but he's been a trusted director for over 12 years. We are going to miss you and your contributions that you've made to this company. I want to thank you, Ed, for the 12 years of service and the valuable contributions you've made. You will be missed. The meeting will now come to order. I'm going to chair the meeting, and I'm going to ask Teck's Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary, Amanda Robinson, to act as Secretary of the Meeting. Pursuant to the authority granted to me by Teck's bylaws, I appoint Renny Pacheco of TSX Trust Company to act as Scrutineer. Now I want to remind all of you in attendance in person here today that this meeting is also being virtually cast -- telecast. So there may be questions and other things that come virtually from the shareholders who are listening in. And so bear with us as we get through technological issues and try and make this all as seamless as possible for all of you. The Secretary has confirmed that the meeting materials were mailed to shareholders in accordance with applicable laws on March 24, 2025. I direct that a copy of the Declaration of Mailing be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. I'll now ask the Secretary to read the scrutineer's preliminary report on attendance.

I'm pleased to report that there are 41 shareholders, holding 636,054,800 Class A common shares; and 235 shareholders, holding 376,965,244 Class B subordinate voting shares, represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. This represents a total of 276 shareholders, holding 1,013,020,044 total votes. This represents 80.77% of the total issued and outstanding votes, including 76.28% of the Class B shares.

Thank you, Amanda. Having determined that a quorum is present, I declare the meeting is properly constituted for the transaction of business, and I direct that a copy of the final scrutineer's report on attendance be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. Voting today will be conducted by ballot for each resolution being considered. Registered shareholders who submitted a valid proxy in advance of the meeting do not need to vote again. If you're attending in person, voting will take place on ballots that were provided to you when you arrived. Please mark your ballots as the meeting progresses and scrutineers will collect them at the end of the meeting. If you're attending virtually, voting will be conducted via electronic ballot on each item of business. Polls will remain open on each item of business until, in my opinion as Chair, every registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder has had an opportunity to vote. Rather than hold up the business of the meeting for the final tabulation of votes, detailed voting results will be filed on SEDAR+ for those who are interested. Each Class A common share carries 100 votes per share, and each Class B subordinate voting share carries 1 vote, on all matters. Approval of all resolutions before this meeting requires affirmative vote of a majority of the votes cast by shareholders voting together as a single class, present in person or virtually or represented by proxy at the meeting. Questions will be accompanied -- sorry, questions will be accepted only from registered shareholders or proxy holders attending in person or through the online platform. Each shareholder or proxy holder is requested to limit their question to 2 minutes of speaking time. If you are attending the meeting in person and would like to ask a question, please raise your hand, and I will call on you at the designated time. Alana will bring you a microphone. When asking your question, please provide your name, the name of any entity that you represent, and confirm that you are a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder. If you're attending virtually, please submit your questions through the virtual meeting platform. To ensure fairness to all attendees, I will exercise my discretion as Chair to decide on the amount of time to be allocated to each question, and may limit or consolidate or decline questions. We're happy to engage with shareholders outside the formal meeting in accordance with our shareholder engagement policy which can be found on our website. The first item of business is the presentation of our audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2024, together with the auditor's report. The financial statements are contained in our 2025 Annual Report, which is available on Teck's website and under our profile on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR in the U.S. Are there any questions or comments regarding the matter of shareholders or proxy holders in the room, sorry, regarding these financial statements? I see none. Anything virtually?

There are no questions online.

Thank you. The second item of business is the election of directors. Eleven directors have been nominated for election in accordance with the provisions of General By-Law No. 1. I'm not going to ask you to stand up again, but they are Arnaud Balhuizen, James Gowans, Norm Keevil III, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, myself, Una Power, Jonathan Price, Paul Schiodtz, Tim Price (sic) [ Tim Snider ], Sarah Strunk and Yu Yamato. Based on the proxies that have been received by the Scrutineer in advance of the meeting, each director nominated has received votes in favor within a range of at least 96.8% to 99.8% of the votes cast, and will be elected based on those proxy results. Are there any questions or comments regarding this matter from shareholders or proxy holders in the room? Amanda, are there any questions or comments submitted in connection with the nomination of directors virtually?

There are no questions online.

Thank you. I'll now entertain a motion for those nominated to be elected as directors of the corporation. For efficiency, I've asked our Corporate Secretary, who's an appointed proxy holder, to move all of the motions today.

So moved.

Thank you, Amanda. Please mark your ballots now, including signing and printing your name on the ballot as noted. For those attending virtually, voting on this item of business will be open for a short period of time on the virtual media platform. I'd ask you to please submit your votes now. [Voting]

Okay. I'm going to move on to the third item on our agenda, which is the appointment of the auditor. Based on proxies received from the Scrutineer in advance of this meeting, the auditors have received votes in favor representing at least 96.2% of the votes cast. Are there any questions or comments in the room regarding the matter of appointment of auditors? Seeing none, Amanda, are there any questions virtually on this?

There are no questions online.

Thank you. I'll now entertain a motion to reappoint PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditors of Teck, and to authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration.

So moved.

Thank you, Amanda. Please mark your ballots now and vote online while voting remains open on this item of business. [Voting]

Okay. I don't see any ballots being completed in the room, so I'm going to move on to our fourth item. That item on the agenda is the advisory vote on Teck's approach to executive compensation. Consistent with past practice, the Board has asked shareholders to vote on an advisory Say-on-Pay resolution as described in the management proxy circular for this meeting. Based on proxies received by the Scrutineer in advance of the meeting, the Say-on-Pay advisory vote has received votes in favor representing at least 98.5% of the votes cast. Are there any questions or comments regarding this matter from shareholders in the room? Virtually?

There are no questions online.

Thank you so much. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation in the form set out in the management proxy circular.

So moved.

Thank you very much, Amanda. Please mark your ballots or vote online. We'll keep the online open for a few more minutes. [Voting]

Okay. Now that everyone has had an opportunity to vote on the items of business before the meeting, I declare the polls closed. I know. I'm going to report on the preliminary vote. Okay. Each of the 11 directors has received the majority of the votes cast in favor of their election and has therefore been elected. The reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor of Teck has been approved, and the directors are authorized to fix remuneration. The advisory resolution on Teck's approach to executive compensation has been approved. I direct that these final results of the vote on each matter before the meeting be included with the minutes of the meeting. We will issue a news release with the voting results in accordance with Toronto Stock Exchange rules. And detailed voting results will also be found on SEDAR+ as noted. We've now reached the end of the formal business of our meeting. I know you're relieved to hear that because you're not here for any of that. I know you're here to listen to Jonathan talk about the business of the company. So I'm delighted to now introduce Jonathan Price, our President and CEO, to provide you with an update on the business.

Thank you, Sheila, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today for Teck's 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, our first as a pure-play base metals company focused on providing metals essential for global development and the energy transition. 2024 was a historic year for Teck as we made significant advancements in our value creation strategy, and I'm excited to take you through our results and our strategy for future growth moving forward. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to the caution regarding forward-looking statements. This presentation contains forward-looking statements regarding our business. This slide describes the assumptions underlying those statements. Various risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. Teck does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement. I will also refer to various non-GAAP measures in these remarks. You can see how we define those measures and how they reconcile to our accounts in our most recent quarterly filings and in Teck's latest investor presentation in the Investors section of tech.com. So with that out of the way, let's look back at what was a remarkable year for tech. 2024 was highlighted by the completion of our transformation into a pure-play energy transition metals company as we closed the sale of the steelmaking coal business. The USD 8.6 billion in proceeds of that sale enabled us to do several important things on behalf of our shareholders. It allowed us to undertake the largest cash return to shareholders in our history. It put us in a resilient position with a strong balance sheet. And it is enabling us to advance our well-funded copper growth strategy. Also in 2024, we completed construction of Quebrada Blanca and have now successfully achieved all completion testing requirements. We set a new record for annual copper production with a 50% increase from the prior year, reaching 446,000 tonnes, all while remaining focused on health, safety and responsible mining. Our strategy moving forward now is simple: to drive value-accretive growth of our energy transition metals business, with a focus on building our industry-leading copper growth pipeline. And that strategy is built around 4 pillars. The first is to capitalize on the enormous growth in demand for critical minerals, particularly copper, that sit upstream of virtually every sector and are fundamental to global development as well as economic and energy security. Second, core excellence. Strengthening capabilities, processes and talent to drive results across our operations, projects and exploration, while maintaining our focus on social and environmental responsibility. Third, value-driven growth. We have a rigorous approach to our growth portfolio, prioritizing the development of near-term growth options located in stable jurisdictions and balanced with cash returns to shareholders. And fourth, resilience, which includes maintaining our strong balance sheet and being a partner of choice to ensure we stay strong and deliver returns through economic cycles. Turning now to health and safety performance, which is one of our core values. Our high-potential incident frequency rate remained low at 0.12 for the year, with a record 4 months free of high-potential incidents. And we started 2025 with a rate of 0.05 in the first quarter. While no fatalities occurred at Teck control sites, we were deeply saddened by 2 fatalities at our non-operated joint venture site, Antamina, 1 last year and the other occurring only this week. With any incident, 2 things are paramount. First, supporting the victims family and coworkers. And second, working to understand what happened and to take preventative measures moving forward. We worked closely with our partners to conduct a thorough investigation of the 2024 incident, which resulted in several important learnings to help prevent future incidents. And we will do the same for the most recent fatality. As ever, learnings will be shared broadly. So now turning to our financial results and returns to shareholders. As I mentioned, 2024 marked our single largest cash return to shareholders ever. We returned $1.8 billion through share buybacks and dividends, completing $1.25 billion of our $3.25 billion authorized share buyback program by December 31. In total, since 2020 Teck has returned $5.4 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Adjusted EBITDA was $2.9 billion for the year, driven by record copper production at Quebrada Blanca as it continued to ramp up. Adjusted profit from continuing operations attributable to shareholders was $605 million or $1.17 per share for the year. And our strong balance sheet is a key competitive advantage. It provides us with the resilience to navigate uncertain market conditions while allowing us to fund growth and returns to shareholders. We reduced our debt by $2.5 billion, while retaining funding for our near-term value-accretive growth projects. And we ended the year with a cash balance of $7.6 billion. As of December 31, we were in a net cash position of $2.1 billion with $11.9 billion in liquidity. And we have a very strong liquidity position of $10 billion as of April 23, 2025. Turning now to sustainability, which we see as an essential contributor to our ability to operate and grow. In 2024, we continued building on our environmental and social performance and third-party accreditation. In February, our Red Dog operations received the Zinc Mark in recognition of environmentally and socially responsible production practices, the first mining site to receive the stand-alone Zinc Mark. All of Teck's operating sites have now received certification under the Copper or Zinc Mark programs. We also released our first integrated Climate Change and Nature Report, in addition to our annual Sustainability Report, highlighting Teck's continued emphasis on strong environmental and social performance. Looking towards the future and our growth strategy, we've made significant progress on our near-term copper growth projects. Starting with our greenfield project at Zafranal in Peru, the environmental permit is in place and detailed engineering and execution planning are progressing well. At our other near-term greenfield project, San Nicolas in Mexico, the permit application process continues and the feasibility study and execution strategy are continuing to advance. Moving on to Quebrada Blanca. Our primary focus continues to be completing the QB ramp-up to steady state. As ramp-up work nears completion, our focus moving forward is on further optimization and debottlenecking of the operation to potentially increase throughput by a further 15% to 25%. And ending here in British Columbia, at Canada's largest copper mine, Highland Valley Copper, we're advancing a project to extend the life to the mid-2040s. We expect most project execution planning to be complete in the second quarter of 2025, and we are positioning the Highland Valley Copper mine life extension, Zafranal and San Nicolas to be on track for potential sanction decisions as early as later this year. Through the execution of these projects, we have a path to grow our copper production to approximately 800,000 tonnes per year before the end of the decade, nearly double what we achieved in 2024 and putting Teck on track to become a leading global copper producer. In summary, 2024 has been a historic and transformational year for Teck, evolving into a Canadian headquartered global critical minerals champion, and entering the second half of the 2020s poised for tremendous growth and opportunity for our people, our communities and our shareholders. So thank you for your attention. Now I'm happy to take your questions.

We received one question in advance of the meeting from a shareholder. What is the status of your Schaft Creek joint venture project with Copper Fox Metals? And when can we expect a progress update on that project?

So thank you for that question. As I outlined, our immediate focus at Teck is our near-term copper growth projects that we expect will grow our copper production to 800,000 tonnes per annum before the end of the decade, nearly double what we achieved in 2024. But in addition to these near-term growth projects, we continue to make prudent investments to advance our mid- to long-term growth portfolio, which includes Schaft Creek, as well as Galore Creek and NewRange and NuevaUnión. Schaft Creek is one of the largest undeveloped porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum-silver deposits in North America and remains a key part of our long-term growth pipeline. And we look forward to progressing development in the Golden Triangle here at British Columbia, where we believe that the opportunities for Schaft Creek and beyond are very exciting.

In the years past, we had assets in energy sectors. Do we have any currently? And also, if I may ask, the stability of the Peruvian country, Peru.

Yes, 2 very good questions. So on the first one, yes, in the past, we have held energy assets and participated with an energy business. We no longer operate any energy assets. Our portfolio and our strategy now is very much focused on metals for the energy transition, and our growth is particularly focused on copper. And that will remain the focus going forward because we think that is the path to generate the most value on behalf of our shareholders. To your second question on Peru, where we have both the Antamina joint venture as well as the Zafranal greenfield project that I referenced before. Our experience there has been very good. For example, with Zafranal, where we're successful in securing the environmental permit for that project in 2023, the process of securing that permit went very well. Our interactions with the regulatory bodies responsible for providing those permits was very constructive. And we see a very supportive environment for mining there. Peru is the world's third largest producer and exporter of copper in the world today. And hence, we believe it's a good country to invest in, and hence why we're pursuing the Zafranal project. Thank you for those questions.

I'm very new to this. I'm wondering, who are your customers? Do you have any in the United States? Do you sell to making batteries? Or what do people use copper for?

That's an excellent question. Copper is used in a range of applications, most of them, in fact, related to electrification. So any goods that we have in our houses, of course, that are electrically wired or contain electrical components are -- typically contain quite a good amount of copper. Copper is also used increasingly in things like electric vehicles. But probably one of the key uses of copper is for the grid. It's for moving electricity from one place to another. And all of that grid infrastructure we see around us tends to be a very significant consumer of copper. To your other question with respect to our customers, our customers are global. So we deal with customers in North America, in Asia and Europe and in other parts of the world as well. In North America, the majority of the sales that we have are from our Trail smelter here in British Columbia where we're selling metal into the U.S. Now, Trail produces predominantly zinc and lead along with other specialty metals, such as germanium, for example. They are the sales that we transact into the U.S. typically, and we have very long established relationships. Zinc, in particular, is typically used for galvanizing steel, so improving the corrosion resistance of steel so it can remain in service for longer. Now that is used in construction applications then or automotive applications. So the customers that we work with in the U.S. are typically using the metals that we provide for those purposes. Thank you for your question. If there are no further questions, thank you very much for your attention. Much appreciated.