Vault Minerals Limited (GMD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

July 14, 2026

ASX AU Materials Metals and Mining m_and_a 47 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

William T. Irvin

executive
#1

Good morning, and thanks for dialing into this teleconference to discuss the strategic $12.6 billion Genesis and Vault merger. In the room today, we have Raleigh Finlayson, Executive Chair; Matt Nixon, Chief Executive Officer; and Morgan Ball, Chief Financial Officer. As Raleigh will outline shortly, this is a rare organic deal that simply makes sense. We have real synergies, the lion's share of which are unique to this combination due to our respective operations being up the road from each other in Leonora. And by creating a top 20 global gold miner, shareholders of both companies will benefit from increased scale, liquidity and financial capacity. During today's call, the team will reference the presentation released on the ASX platform earlier this morning. When we get to Q&A, I ask that all questions are directed to Raleigh in the first instance. Thank you. Over to the Executive Chair.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#2

Thank you, Troy, and thank you all for joining us. So I'm going to start on Slide 7. So this is a logical combination of complementary assets where essentially long ore meets long milling. We are creating a globally relevant vehicle. I refer to one of the key tenets of Agnico Eagle strategy, where they build regional focus hubs, a hub-and-spoke model where they consolidate assets within 100-kilometer radius to build a centralized operation. I refer you to the map and inset box 1, where we have the potential to grow this centralized operation into a 700,000 ounce per annum center, which I'll step you through in a minute. We have a $12.6 billion pro forma market cap, which puts us in the top 3 miner in Australia and top 20 globally. The merged business will have a pro forma cash and bullion position of over $600 million with $1.4 billion in pro forma liquidity, noting that both companies in recent times have been producing over $200 million per quarter of underlying cash flow. We'll have an immediate 600,000 to 700,000 ounce per annum production center, all in Western Australia and 100% owned. There will be 9.4 million ounces in gold reserves, 86% of which will be in the Leonora-Laverton district, which provides 15 years of reserve life at circa 650,000 ounces per annum. This will be a globally relevant scale and liquidity sought by global investors, including potential index inclusions and upweighting. But to be clear, this is an outcome, potential reward for shareholders, not a reason for doing the deal. As far as the transaction summary, Vault shareholders will receive Genesis script and cash under a mix and match facility, implying a value of $5.27 per Vault share. Upon implementation, Genesis shareholders will own 59.8% of the merged group and Vault shareholders will own 40.2%. The transaction is targeted to be implemented by November 2026. On the transaction rationale, the why, if you like. I'll provide more details on each of the 4 points below in the body of the presentation. Number one, immediate creation of an Australian gold major with 600,000 to 700,000 ounces per annum, put us in the top 3 in Australia and top 20 globally. There will be $2 billion worth of synergies, rare savings of CapEx and OpEx unique to this transaction due to not only the location but the timing of this deal. With both rolling off peak capital and plateauing production into the future, for Genesis, calm capital and growth, making it a perfect pairing. We have enhanced flexibility, optimization and future-proofing opportunities across the portfolio, and it has sector-leading combination of scale, liquidity, leadership, flexibility, cash flow and organic growth. The Merged Group Board, management and governance. The Board of 7, 4 Genesis, 3 Vault is in line with the ownership ratio. I'll be transitioning to Managing Director of the group, focusing on the integration and conducting a strategic review of the entire business. We welcome Russell Clark to Non-Executive Chair of the group and also welcome Kelvin and Rebecca subject to completion. Tony Kiernan will step into the role of Non-Executive Deputy Chair of the Merged Group. Matt Nixon will continue running the day-to-day business in the role of CEO. Likewise, Morgan Ball as CFO. Subject to completion, we welcome Lenny Eldridge to the role of Corporate Development Officer, heading up our business development activities and Troy will continue with Investor Relations and Strategy. Genesis will seek to retain Vault key management personnel to ensure the merged group can continue to deliver strong results. This extends to the entire Vault team. We hold them in high regard for both their technical and operational excellence and an exceptional track record. To be clear, this merger is not a fix it job. All mines across both portfolios are running well. We want people to continue the safe delivery as we ramp up Tower Hill and introduce it to the King of the Hills plant. With regard to vision and values, we'll be developing these again under our new set of visions and values, very much a bottom-up approach. This will be drawn up from the front line, not from the boardroom. Ultimately, we want to get buy-in from the entire workforce, and we want people to own this business to take it forward. A very similar process we conducted in 2023 when Genesis took hold of the Leonora assets. I draw your attention initially to the Vault strategic pillars, the top one a diversified immediate gold business today, underpinned by strategic long-life assets in the prolific Leonora District. As I mentioned earlier, this is a perfect pairing that peak production profile at the completion of the transaction as the King of the Hills plant is expanding to 8 million tonnes per annum. And it's perfectly paired with Genesis with leading -- sector-leading compound annual growth rate right next door. On the Genesis side, the vision and values, I draw your attention to the vision. A trusted Australian gold miner, progressive, high-quality, plus 500,000 ounces per annum, which obviously be updated in due course. I also draw your attention to the core values and specifically people first. We're very driven about career development within Genesis, and we feel this transaction creates multiple career opportunities for all personnel on both sides with the merged entity. We're also very big on our people thinking and act like owners. In moments like we feel at the moment with gold price coming off and cost inflation, we feel it's really important to have our workforce thinking like owners because they are owners. And we have various mechanisms we want to put in place to make sure we have all of our people being owners of the business as well. Me personally spent a lot of time in the last week working through the combination of this business with the market. From the end of this call onwards, we'll be focusing heavily on integration and getting buy-in on both sets of teams to drive this business forward. This transaction delivers a valuable gold endowment to both sets of shareholders with 34 million ounces in resource, the second largest in Australia for 25 million ounces in the prolific Leonora-Laverton district. We'll have over 9 million ounces in reserve at circa 15 years of reserve life with over 8 million ounces in the Leonora-Laverton district. FY '26 production of 622,000 ounces will rise to 685,000 ounces by FY '28, putting us third on the ASX. All of these with a modest market cap of $12.5 billion and an EV of under $12 billion. This is one of the important slides in the deck. I'll spend a bit more time talking through this. It's essentially where long ore meets long milling with 8.1 million ounces in reserve in the Leonora-Laverton district coupled perfectly with 12.4 million tonnes of installed milling capacity by the time this deal completes. That equals long life of 17 years at current production rates in reserve. I mentioned earlier about the potential to expand this hub into a potential 700,000 ounce center. That still gives over 10 years at 700,000 ounce production rate. We also get to unlock significant synergies, most of which come from this district as we move into a capital-light business with regard to infrastructure. This is really important considering the current volatility we're seeing in the gold price and cost escalation across the entire sector, protect us on the downside via cost savings, makes us more robust and essentially built a moat. But importantly, it doesn't cap our upside. In fact, it enhances it. Back in 2013, when I was CEO of Saracen, presentation at Diggers and Dealers was titled as Pick a Gold Price, Saracen Has a Strategy. This is a very similar set of circumstances now where a lower gold price environment, we have a lot of upfront cost savings synergies that will come through immediately to make us more robust in a declining gold price environment. But also we have the second largest resource position in Australia with unlimited upside as far as organic growth opportunities within the portfolio. Coupled with that a strong balance sheet, strong free cash flow, material upfront synergies plus the numerous organic growth levers that all could be fast tracked, including areas like Laverton. Just on the map, I'll draw your attention to Genesis tenure in the blue, Vault tenure in the orange. On the left-hand side, the West with Tower Hill coming into development and into production. So very quickly, this center can turn into a 500,000 ounce operating center with the visibility of these high-grade assets come from Genesis being able to access the high tonnage low-cost mill at King of the Hills. The snowball effect of that is on the eastern side, the West -- sorry the eastern side the Laverton assets. With being able to put all of the Leonora mines through the King of the Hills plant, we're able to fast track the grade delivery to the existing Laverton plant with circa 100,000 ounces of current production being able to ramp up to around 150,000 ounces on grade delivery and potential scope to be in excess of 200,000 ounces with future mill expansions, taking this dot on the map to potentially in excess of 700,000 ounces per annum plus 10 years of reserve life. Laverton at circa 110,000 ounces, as I mentioned, has a capacity to increase up to 150,000 ounces simply by adding the better grade profiles coming out of Beasley Creek and Lady Julie, which I'll step you through in a minute. That's all utilized in the existing 3 million tonnes of milling capacity at Laverton. This has a potential to step change in excess of 200,000 ounces with increased capacity, particularly coming from being able to fast track this asset with strong free cash flows coming out of the portfolio, enhanced by the synergies and cost savings from the combined entity. Leonora circa 350,000 ounces will increase to circa 450,000 to 500,000 ounces particularly as we unconstrain the development of the Tower Hill open pit at 2 grams per tonne, displacing [ only 0.3 grams ] per tonne of open pit low grade from FY '29. The combined Leonora-Laverton potential regional focus hub to 700,000 ounces all within 100-kilometer radius. Even Leonora stand-alone is a 500,000 ounce center will be second only to Boddington, all underpinned by one of the newest and lowest cost mills in Australia. I'll now step you through the producing assets in Western Australia with 32 million ounces in the Goldfields region. Firstly, Leonora, it's long milling, coupled with long-life bulk open pit and some high-grade sweeteners of Gwalia, Ulysses and Tower Hill has the potential to ramp up production in this region to 500,000 ounces per annum. Laverton, circa 100,000 ounces moving to 150,000 ounces and potentially north of 200,000 ounces as we prioritize grade and margin, defer high-cost assets and high strip assets like Westralia, all on the back of being able to fast-track exploration and expansion opportunities. In Kalgoorlie, we had some hidden synergies. With the Genesis Bardoc assets previously having 1 million ounces in reserve and 3 million ounces in resource being able to coupled with the Mount Monger processing facility. And at Deflector, an asset that keeps on keeping on. Excellent drilling, providing mine life extensions, recent successful transition from contract to owner-operator underground mining and significant exploration potential in the area. With regards to synergies, we have $2 billion of undiscounted post-tax synergies, a rare $1.5 billion in cost savings unique to this deal, both as a combination of location and timing, particularly relevant under current gold price and cost regime, providing downside protection and making us a more robust business. The synergies are a combination of CapEx, OpEx, corporate net of transaction costs and unlocking cash flow from project Bardoc. Our reversion to more bullish conditions has a potential for further NPV enhancements with the likes of fast tracking the Laverton operations. Some other potential synergies and operational flexibilities, noting it's hard to claim or quantify synergies on assets we didn't own when we released these synergy numbers a week ago. A couple of examples include mine optimization, not just at King of the Hills open pit stages 2 to 5, but also including the development of the Tower Hill project. Optimization, both looking at staging, utilization of fleet and the scheduling, all about driving the highest value for the combined portfolio. Deferral of high strip ratio Westralia open pit to 23:1 strip ratio, being able to access lower strip ratio and higher grade assets like Beasley Creek and Lady Julie. Material increased production from King of the Hills providing significant economies of scale and water flexibility across Leonora with adjoining tenure and access to water from the recently awarded Tower Hill project. Again, this is a really important slide. I'll spend a bit of time on to explain one of the key thesis as to why now. The KOTH open pit reserve circa 110 million tonnes at 0.6 gram, the 2.2 million ounces from an open pit, above 0.23 grams per tonne cut-off. Genesis has done extensive due diligence on this asset over numerous years. And our [ diluted ] high-grade streaming, taking into account actual performance over that due diligence period, has roughly half of that tonnage at an average grade of 0.9 gram per tonne and a bit over 1.5 million ounces in that category. So roughly 50% of the tonnage and over 70% of the metal in the high-grade streaming of the open pit. The low grade 55 million tonnes at 0.3 gram circa 0.5 million ounces, which is 50% of the tonnes and around 28% of the metal. The image on the left-hand side there shows you the split between the high grade in the pink, which is above 0.5 grams per tonne cut-off and has an average grade just below 0.9 of a gram. The [ green ] materials of low grade that will continue to be streamed to the stockpile. The reconciliation data was released by Vault in the month of June is a really important catalyst just to answer the question as to why now. The Vault and KOTH personnel have done a tremendous job on firstly delineating this by grade control and obviously, the actual performance of actual versus reserve start to really flow through over the last 4 quarters. As I mentioned, this is a critical to the ability for us to be able to stream off the low grade to enable Tower Hill to be able to enter the mill at around 2 grams per tonne at the loss of [ 0.3 gram ] per tonne material. This has the potential for KOTH to become a 300,000 ounce per annum operation with Tower Hill totaling 500,000 ounces when we add Gwalia back into the mix. With the potential of Tower Hill to displace 2 million tonnes of low-grade ore, so 2 grams per tonne versus 0.3. Important to note in last Friday, we updated to the market a pre-release of our quarter, we showed some updates about development of Tower Hill open pit, clearly ahead of schedule, but reasonably constrained on a stand-alone basis on the basis that we still need to build the mill ahead of the mining of that ore body. What we've always articulated is first ore to be delivered from Tower Hill in early FY '28 with processing to start at the back end of FY '28. So at the very least, even without fast tracking, we're going to build up circa 1 year's worth of supply of feed for the Tower Hill mill ahead of processing acknowledge a 3.5 million tonne plant to feed from FY '29. This transaction enables us to bring ore into the KOTH plant sooner and obviously reduces our stockpile and working capital requirements. Tower Hill has the potential to add 100,000 ounces per annum from the same amount of material processed. We also get significant optionality in future proofing with a 0.6 million ounce low-grade stockpile being built up over the course of the life of the mine plan. They can either be treated end of life or potentially further growth and potentially bring some of that production forward. To show all that graphically on the left hand side, King of the Hills standalone on a tonnage fee basis, you can see the Darlot and KOTH underground and KOTH open pit high grade. While this product has been pre-expense and been running around 5.5 million tonnes per annum, they have been the ore sources. The expansion to 8 million tonnes per annum would have seen KOTH open pit low grade added to the blend up to 8 million tonnes per annum. The philosophy we'll have as a merged entities displace that low-grade material by adding in Tower Hill open pit grade at 2 grams per tonne. What that does, it takes a meaningful jump in the production profile from circa 200,000 to 230,000 ounces per annum up to 300,000 to 330,000 ounces per annum from the King of the Hills plant. Add back in the Gwalia mill, which will be processed in the Gwalia underground and Ulysses projects, and that's how we arrive at potentially 500,000 ounces of production profile out of the Leonora District. One of the other synergies within the deck is about Monger unlocks Bardoc free-milling ore at circa 1.3 million ounces of free milling resource within the Bardoc Tenure. There is optionality to unlock the permitted Zoroastrian underground mine, 3.8 grams per tonne reserve grade to supplement feed into the Mount Monger processing plant. This asset is ready to go. It's fully permitted and actually already had 35 meters development put into under St. Barbara. Before we owned this asset, was going to truck this ore 185 kilometers to the north of Leonora. It can now head south 125 kilometers and start providing feed into Mount Monger as required potentially with the completion of Daisy Milano, if that asset ever ends, and again, fantastic effort from the exploration team and geology team to continue to find extensions at mine life there, along with [indiscernible] open pit, which is also looking very attractive near term. From a pro forma production point of view to the, it's an immediate 600,000 to 700,000 ounce producer, all in WA based on existing guidance numbers. This is a preoptimized sum of the parts and pre-synergy set of numbers. We'll work through much of the right ores are hitting the right mills. So production upside through portfolio optimization is obviously Tower Hill coming into the KOTH plant, I just talked through. acceleration of development of the Laverton assets, particularly on the back of stronger free cash flows, particularly in light of CapEx savings to fast-track exploration and obviously accessing Bardoc through Mount Monger mill and a significant amount of resource to reserve conversion that I'll step you through now. So with a strong balance sheet to fund significant growth opportunities, there's 25 million ounces of conversion opportunities in resource, but not yet in reserve, the absolute definition of long ore. Merged group has 3 plus 1 million-ounce plus 1 gram per tonne of open pits at Tower Hill, Lady Julie and Karridale, now perfectly paired with long milling with 12.4 million tonnes of installed capacity and significant organic growth upside. This does not include the high-grade sweeteners, not yet in a resource, let alone reserve. As a bunch of examples, I'll now step you through quickly to give you a flavor of what they look like. First cab off the rank is Lady Julie, a shiny new toy in the portfolio, unmined and constrained by the tenement boundary until now. Now all under the same ownership pairing focus with the magnetic acquisition, which just completed. Inaugural Genesis drilling program over the fence is underway with the first hole within the unconstrained pit optimization shell, you can see on the image at the bottom, underway. Access to the existing Laverton 3 million tonne per annum mill could be fast tracked, particularly in the context of the access to the King of the Hills mill on the Leonora side, meaning mines like Admiral and Bruno Lewis, have optionality to which mill they go to. This also enables the deferral of the high strip ratio Westralia open pit, I mentioned earlier. At Beasley Creek, an inaugural Genesis drilling program is ongoing. The first results released in June. The Lady Julie to Beasley Creek is a 12-kilometer terrain of highly prospective underdrilled tenure. With a strong balance sheet, strong free cash flow generation, this will enable more exploration and sooner. The Beasley Creek, Lady Julie potential has a potential to unlock for a new standalone milling facility or at least expanding of the existing facility to deliver in excess of 200,000 ounces from the Laverton district. Moving over to the Leonora side and the forgotten Gwalia Uppers have been delivering exceptional high-grade results. 27 meters at 17, 8 meters at 43, 36 meters at 7, 25 meters at 7, 20 meters at 8 from a combination of remnants and unmined lodes. Again, a stronger balance sheet and free cash flow generation enables potential development and mining of these areas into an expanded drilling facilities in the district. At King of the Hills underground, there are multiple reserve conversion, resource definition and exploration opportunities with an unconstrained budget to extend mine life visibility right adjacent to an 8 million tonne per annum processing facility. Darlot is another example of an underground mine that keeps on keeping on. It's had a rolling 3 years reserve for as long as I've been in the industry. There are multiple zones and new mining fronts that can be explored, expanded and obviously delivering into an expanded mill at King of the Hills. Speaking of high-grade sweeteners, sugar zone has progressed substantially over the past 12 months, a credit to the Vault team. Drilling has continued to extend the lodes, life of mine and obviously the new Sugar South. Underground development has officially restarted in the first of July, a significant milestone for this team. Permitting has progressed materially, giving visibility on the pathway to the recommencement of operations. Summarized, the merger will create a new and unique top 3 Australian gold miner. The new group will clearly fill the vacuum between the Aussie leaders and the rest of the pack, which both Genesis and Vault have come from. This will provide a new vehicle for investors and particularly generalists to get Aussie gold exposure. The combined group will have significant liquidity, circa $70 million average daily volume. We'll have 17 brokers with coverage, keeping the market very well informed. This transaction is a genuine win-win for all shareholders with benefits to both sets of shareholders by the creation of an immediate 600,000 to 700,000 ounce producer, top 3 in Australia, a market capitalization of $12.6 billion, 34 million ounces in resource and over 9 million ounces in reserve. There's $2 billion worth of synergies to be unlocked. The combined entity has a cash balance of net cash in excess of $600 million and strong cash flow generation to fund the growth opportunities and shareholder returns. Increased scale, index weighting, liquidity and cash flows, which are sought after by global investors. Again, this is an outcome, not a reason for the transaction. Benefits simply to Genesis shareholders are access to a large, low-cost milling facility at KOTH and a strong balance sheet and cash flow generation, noting Vault recent cash flow generation of circa $200 million underlying cash flow last quarter -- last 2 quarters. Benefits to Vault shareholders an immediate premium plus exposure to merged group assets and access to higher grade and lower-cost ore sources to make the business more robust through the cycles. And finally, we'll be rebuilding our foundations. And we'll provide the launch. We've informed the market of our strategic plan in the June half 2027 and between now and then, it will be optimizing and conducting a strategic review of the merged group asset portfolio as a priority. So on that note, I'll hand back to Darcy to open the floor for Q&A.

Operator

operator
#3

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Hugo Nicolaci with Goldman Sachs.

Hugo Nicolaci

analyst
#4

Congrats on the deal. First one, just a bit of a clarification. Now that the multiyear outlook, assuming the deal goes ahead probably moving to sort of March or so next year, should we still expect FY '27 or maybe first half guidance for both companies in the coming weeks and particularly around costs? And in that vein, is there any CapEx from either side you previously talked to for FY '27 that you'd now potentially look to defer as you're completing that strategic review?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#5

Yes. So definitely, Hugo, certainly, I can only speak from our upside, obviously, until deal completes in November. But certainly from our perspective, FY '27 guidance and including all-in sustaining costs and growth capital, which you're correct, there will be some growth capital coming up, particularly around the Tower Hill mill. That will be provided with our quarterly on the 20th of July.

Hugo Nicolaci

analyst
#6

Got it. That's helpful. And then second, Raleigh, just noting the announcement from your contractor this morning around looking to optimize the outcomes on the work to date and the long lead items already ordered for the Tower Hill mill. Given you've currently got a slot in an otherwise busy WA build pipeline, can you redeploy that build to Laverton to support the acceleration of Lady Julie and the Focus assets? Or is there a bit of a bottleneck in terms of permitting in your ability to do that?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#7

Yes, fantastic question. Probably the first point I'd make is the deal is obviously not done yet. So there's a vote coming up. So one of the key conversations with Tony is if the vote doesn't go through, we obviously want to make sure that we can proceed with the Tower Hill build. So we'll keep everything on until at least that date, so normally November. A really good point around the Laverton side. So that's obviously one of the key considerations here: being able to potentially fast track expansion on the Laverton side and potentially a new milling facility. Having said that, we've only just completed obviously Lady Julie and we just started drilling out the Focus asset. So the first step is actually probably 12 months worth of drilling. So yes, we'll try and keep that slot warm, so to speak, but the exact timing of that will obviously depend on how quickly we can get those results coming in to make sure we make the right decision vis-a-vis a new facility or expansion of the existing Laverton mill.

Hugo Nicolaci

analyst
#8

Got it. I'm probably a bit cheeky, squeeze in my third, but given the floor already. The Vault already have their capital management program in place. You've noted the additional balance sheet strength, obviously, gold price and CapEx outlooks vary. But do you see room for ongoing capital management near term with the combined business potentially supported by divestments? Or do you prefer to keep a bit of optionality given the number of growth options you've outlined.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#9

No. Again, really good question. Obviously, that will come out with the full [ summer ] time. Obviously, new board coming together and we're very big on getting buy from the shop floor, I won't sort of speak on behalf of the company yet. But I think one of the key observations, we obviously put $500 million on the table as a mix or match facility to Vault shareholders. I think that indicates that we're very comfortable with our $600 million bank balance, post completion. So on that basis, I think we can actually allocate to growth, fast-tracking exploration, potentially fast tracking the Laverton side but also shareholder returns. So we'll update our capital management policy with that launch in the second half of FY '27.

Operator

operator
#10

Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Bank of America.

Kate McCutcheon

analyst
#11

If I think about you have 5 million tonnes of mill capacity.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#12

I can't hear anything.

Kate McCutcheon

analyst
#13

Okay. Is it better?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#14

Slightly.

Kate McCutcheon

analyst
#15

Okay. If I think about Leonora-Laverton. You have 12.5 million tonnes versus the prior standalone plan of buying from Genesis or pro forma 17? So essentially, there's gold that's displaced from the system versus a stand-alone Genesis plan. I guess what is the trend here? Why you're not building your current mill, a better kind of option?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#16

Very hard to hear, guys. Are you referring on the Leonora side or Laverton side or both?

Kate McCutcheon

analyst
#17

On the Leonora side, Raleigh. Well, so I guess stand-alone -- well, stand-alone, you were going to to to 9 million tonnes at Laverton and Leonora [indiscernible].

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#18

So I think, as I mentioned, I think the benefit of this transaction is on the Laverton and I'll start with that. The ability to have the CapEx savings and obviously stronger balance sheet and free cash flow generation enables us to actually fast track exploration and all of our development plans on the Laverton side. So I think actually in a stronger position to actually potentially bring that forward sublet to drilling, obviously. So I think that's a pretty clear part of our strategic planning that we'll be doing in the next 6 months. On the Leonora side, it really depends as I went through on that slide talking about the King of the Hills displacement. At the end of the day, we can continue to feed all our best available ore through both KOTH mill at 8 million tonnes and obviously existing Laverton plant at 1.4. So what it means is under all scenarios, we're basically only displacing 0.3 gram material now. It obviously becomes an economic conditions question if gold price continues to run up, all of a sudden, that 600,000 ounce stockpile build at the low grade becomes highly valuable, and there's obviously optionality in that stage to put more milling capacity in to take advantage of that. But the environment got at the moment, to be blunt, pretty happy to be in a capital-light infrastructure business because gold price keeps peeling off, obviously, to have that savings on CapEx in this environment, obviously, pretty important. So we'll just have to wait and see how the plant commissions, which will be about the same time the deal goes through in November and then we can obviously keep an eye on that option as well.

Kate McCutcheon

analyst
#19

Okay. That's helpful. And then in terms of more color on the plans, what's core, what's not the medium-term production, you've said that strategic plan, you'll come to the market in 1H CY '27. I know that you don't have the keys yet, but you've obviously done DD. Why the 12-month wait there. What are the key things to kind of work through?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#20

Yes. Probably not quite 12 months. The deal will complete in November and we're talking about second half FY '27. So it will be months later. And not too dissimilar when we brought the Leonora assets in -- from St Barbara, we completed that in July, and we came out with a plan in March, so 9 months later. So it's actually going to be a bit quicker than that. We are cognizant that we've delayed this a couple of times with acquisitions. So I know the market is very keen to see what that plan looks like. It obviously enables us to do that review. And like I said, at this stage, I think you observed, we don't have keys yet. And also we want to spend a bit of time on the ground to be blunt, getting to know the people, getting to know the assets and that's going to be the priority from this day forward. So at the end of the day, we'll obviously work throughout that and come out with plan early next calender year when we can articulate exactly how that looks.

Operator

operator
#21

Your next question comes from David Radclyffe with Global Mining Research.

David Radclyffe

analyst
#22

So in terms of Tower Hill, obviously, there's a great advantage that can be 90,000 to 100,000 ounces. You've got lower processing costs, partly offset by trucking costs. However, there's also a sizable strip difference between Tower Hill and KOTH. So I'm just wondering to what extent does the strip difference offset most of that lower processing cost advantage? Just wondering how you're treating that in the synergy calculation? That's the first question.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#23

Yes. I suppose Tower Hill, on our current assumptions, there's no change at all to our mining schedule at Tower Hill. Yes, there could be. I'll come back to that in a second. But at the moment, there's no synergy gain or loss because we're keeping the Tower Hill mining schedule exactly the same. And frankly, we're keeping the King of the Hills mining schedule exactly the same. The observation I made as far as unquantifiable synergies will be obviously putting the 2 together. The best way I can think about it is we've got our Genesis Mining Services fleet being deployed in about March next year to do the mining of Tower Hill. That's a 600-tonne bigger and 240-tonne truck loss that we articulated in our update last Friday. And King of the Hills is moving to owner-operator as well early next calender year as well. So what we can do is obviously look at all that fleet, optimize the utilization of that. I sort of look at it as a fixed cost, and then we can work out not only with staging of the pits, both pits, but also the scheduling to optimize that outcome. So I think this is actually a base case. I think there's far more optionality and improvements to come to that schedule. So we'll still utilize all the equipment, just trying to make sure we get best bang for buck and bring NPV forward.

David Radclyffe

analyst
#24

Okay. And that kind of leads into the next one then. So in terms of what you've just outlined today in terms of the ability to -- or the goal there to stream higher open pit grade from KOTH, how should we think about how that could work in terms of the mining volumes from the pit? So how much does that grade streaming the additional Tower Hill material means that you slow the KOTH open pit mining? I mean, I think they were looking at 30 million to 40 million tonnes a year total material movement and building stockpiles. But obviously, that's going to change. So can you give us some color on how that might look now?

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#25

Yes. So look, obviously, I mean, we'll obviously bring both schedule together. I mean King of the Hills and Tower Hill, put them together and obviously work out how we best utilize that fleet. It could well be slowing up at the mining rate at King of the Hills, acknowledging we're around -- we're obviously building up stocks. But the other option is looking at ways we can fast track Tower Hill. As I mentioned in the presentation, we do build up a sizable stockpile during FY '28 at Tower Hill because obviously, we need to make sure we've got enough ore to feed into the plant when we turned it on under the base plan. Basically, what happens now is every truckload that comes out of Tower Hill post completion has the ability to go straight to the King of the Hills plant. So we can certainly optimize that. We haven't done that work yet, but that's something we can do is optimizing between those 2 assets. Just the other point I'd like to make is that fleet that we ordered for Tower Hill is larger than we originally contemplated in the 2024 plan. That was actually predicated on being able to see longevity for that bigger pre-strip fleet to go across the Lady Julie. It also can go across the Beasley Creek, but obviously now it's got the benefit of going into Tower Hill -- into King of the Hills, particularly stages 4 and 5. So we can actually hook into that pre-strip, get that unit cost a bit lower. That's another benefit of a synergy we haven't quantified yet.

Operator

operator
#26

Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

Daniel Morgan

analyst
#27

Just a couple of questions. Maybe starting with the King of the Hills plant. And I'm going to presume that you've done due diligence last year. Let me know if that's an incorrect assumption. But on the King of the Hills plant, any modifications needed to optimize or change it to account for Tower Hill ore coming into the mill? Would you have to change grind sizes or anything at all to bring this in.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#28

Yes, fabulous question. So if you go back to the existing plant, it has a large SAG mill, which meant that the King of the Hills is always not grind sensitive, again fantastic recoveries at quite a coarse grind of 200 micron. So what the expansion stage 1 is obviously being built and commissioned very well on the [ GRs ]. That's all underway. Stage 2 will be complete by the December quarter. One of the key step changes with Stage 2 is the addition of a ball mill. That was a really important step and again, another part of the reasons to why now prior to that good point, if we had to put Tower Hill to any other resources in the Leonora area through that plant at that course of grind, we would have had recovery loss, which would have been too great. But obviously, having that ball mill being installed there, it does enable us to maintain that grind at Tower Hill to get not only the benefit of the larger plants and lower cost, but also not have recovery losses. So the good thing about all is timing. I mentioned timing being one of the key reasons of synergies. Deal completes in November. It's about the same time the Stage 2 will be up and running, commissioned. And not far after that, we'll be having Tower Hill potentially available. So all of a sudden, they're all coming together nicely on timing.

Daniel Morgan

analyst
#29

And then just on the assumption that you have conducted due diligence last year. Are there any thoughts you could share on the life extension potential at various parts of the Vault portfolio, which is viewed, I guess, by the market as relatively shorter life. So here, I'm talking about King of the Hills underground, Darlot underground, Deflector. Any thoughts on potential life extension of these ore bodies.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#30

Yes. Look, your assumption is probably a fair one. Probably argue the same for every other year prior to that as well. But one of the things I'd just highlight, if you go back to have a look at the reserve life, I suppose, 3, 4 years ago on these things, and they're very much the same. They tend to be rolling on a sort of a rolling 3-year reserve life, as I mentioned, at Darlot. One of the things I think Bob has done very well over the last 12 months is starting to increase our exploration spend on the back of that strong free cash flow generation. And that's really started to lead to good visibility on some of those assets, not necessarily converted all the way through to reserve yet. Certainly on a resource and an inventory point of view, we can see we can see that starting to come through. On the most information we saw starting to see some visibility on that. So as I mentioned before, some of the portfolios to benefit from the cost savings upfront and obviously, the stronger portfolio free cash flow generation will be on the [indiscernible] side. So Lady Julie and Beasley went through the Gwalia Uppers, which showed again some nice numbers, but being able to fund the development and mining of those would be something else that we prioritize. And of course, the other ones would be particularly Darlot, King of the Hills underground and Deflector, all of which have had this sort of rolling short life. Again, [indiscernible] a really good team, a pretty good job starting to identify some of those opportunities and those results are starting to come through. So obviously, keen to keep that work going, if not fast track some of that to get that visibility.

Operator

operator
#31

Your next question comes from Paul Hissey with Moelis.

Paul Hissey

analyst
#32

I hope Morgan is on the call. I had a couple of boring financial questions. Just quickly, on the basis that you guys booked something like $220 million or $230 million in stamp duty for the Gwalia acquisition. Wondering what kind of placeholder you might have in your sort of forward-looking estimates for this deal?

Morgan Ball

executive
#33

Obviously, when the deal completes or as we lead up to completion, we'll do a bunch of work because it's not a simple calculation, but a good rule of thumb is about 5.5% of EV, so circa $230 million stamp duty.

Paul Hissey

analyst
#34

Right. And second and last question. Just what does the consolidated sort of tax loss position looks like, again, I'm sure there'll be amount of work that goes behind this, but on a pro forma basis for those of us on the outside, what does that look like post deal completion?

Morgan Ball

executive
#35

Yes, that's what we need to work on. Obviously, that will come out with scheme book -- in the section of scheme book on the pro forma. Clearly, we've referred to the tax uplift that would happen when the purchase price we're paying for these assets on the Vault side uplift to sort of that circa $4.5 billion and then we can clearly depreciate that over time as we mine and then 30% of that sort of gets you to the $1.2 billion tax benefit initially. And then from that, we've subtracted the stamp duty and the Regis break fee and also acknowledge that because we will have these synergies and operating cost savings through that reduces the tax benefit a bit as well. That sort of gets to the $500 million tax benefit we referred to. The actual losses themselves, that as I say, let's have a look at the consolidated accounts in the scheme book.

Paul Hissey

analyst
#36

Yes, yes. Okay. So a bit more to unpack there. So should we assume some kind of cash tax holiday upon formation of the new business or can't say?

Morgan Ball

executive
#37

Too early to say. I will say both ourselves and Vault have generated pretty decent profits in FY '25, '26. So certainly from the Genesis side, our losses are used up. And we've mentioned to the market, we're now paying incremental -- paying monthly tax installments on the back of that. Vault, I think, are in a similar position. I haven't seen the latest details. As mentioned, last time we looked in detail at this was previous year. But I think you'll find they pretty much used up their tax losses as well. So the benefit will be in that additional depreciation charge on the uplifted assets.

Operator

operator
#38

There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Raleigh Finlayson for closing remarks.

Raleigh Finlayson

executive
#39

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. And as much as I enjoyed running around last week on the integrity tour and a bunch of phone calls, I would just like to everyone, Troy is back from holidays in Africa. So I encourage everyone to start calling Troy again. And as I mentioned, we'll be immediately focusing on people from here on forward. So looking forward to updates in due course. Thank you very much.

Operator

operator
#40

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Read the full transcript via the API

You're viewing the first half of this call. Get the complete Vault Minerals Limited transcript — plus 246,000+ transcripts from 12,000+ companies, speaker segments, AI summaries and full-text search — through the EarningsCalls.dev API.

Get the API View API docs →

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to Vault Minerals Limited earnings transcripts and 246,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.