First Majestic Silver Corp. (AG)

[goforthebet]

Earnings Call Transcript Q2: 07-30-17 Earnings Summary

First Majestic Silver Corp. (NYSE:AG)

Q2 2017 Results Earnings Conference Call

August 04, 2017 01:00 PM ET

Executives

Keith Neumeyer - President and CEO

Ray Polman - CFO

Connie Lillico - Corporate Secretary

Analysts

Heiko Ihle - Rodman & Renshaw

Matthew O’Keefe - Echelon Wealth Partners

Chris Thompson - Raymond James

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is conference operator. Welcome to the First Majestic Silver Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Keith Neumeyer, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Keith Neumeyer

Thank you. And welcome everyone to today’s conference call on our Q2 financial results released yesterday after the close. In the room with me I have Ray Polman, the Company’s CFO; I’ve also got Todd Anthony, VP of Investor Relations; Andrew Poon, VP of Finance, and Connie Lillico, Corporate Secretary. I’ll pass the call to Connie, just for a brief disclaimer.

Connie Lillico

Thanks, Keith. Prior to us beginning today, I’ll read our disclaimer and forward-looking statement. Certain statements contained in this conference call regarding the Company and its operations constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Section 21A of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. All statements that are not historical fact including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, assumptions or expectations of future performance constitute forward-looking statements. We caution you that such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Such risks and uncertainties include fluctuations in precious metal prices, unpredictable results of exploration activities; uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; fluctuations in the cost of goods and services; problems associated with exploration and mining operations; changes in legal, social or political conditions in the jurisdictions where the Company operates; lack of appropriate funding and other such risk factors as discussed in the Company’s filings with the Canadian Securities regulatory agencies. Resources and production goals and forecasts may be based on data insufficient to support them. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Back to you, Keith.

Keith Neumeyer

Thanks Connie.

So, I am not going to get into a huge amount of detail on the financials. I am sure, everyone on the call has read the Company’s news release. I’ll cover some highlights.

Revenue for the quarter was $60.1 million, mine operating earnings of $1.12 million, net earnings after taxes of $1.4 million, small loss of $0.02 per share that’s adjusted earnings; on an earnings basis we’re actually positive by $0.01, decent operating cash flows of $80 million, cash flow per share $0.11, healthy working capital $130.9 million with a $126.9 million in the bank. The realized selling price for silver in the quarter was $17.17 that’s slightly reduced from the first quarter, which was $17.55. Our cash costs for the quarter was $7.41 and our all-in sustaining costs were $14.58.

Couple of highlights for the first six months of the year, obviously the strengthening peso. The peso’s gone up around 11% since the beginning of the year. With most of our revenues coming from Mexico, obviously we’re impacted by the strengthening peso. Approximately 80% of our costs are in pesos. And also we did have some work stoppages in the quarter which we’ve talked about publicly a couple of times already, so it shouldn’t be new news to anyone. Most of those events are behind us. But, as I commented in my previous statement in the news release when we announced the production numbers, I did say that there is unusual activity by the workforces in Mexico, as result of some, what I call possibly unhappy Mexicans due to the political environment that’s currently in Mexico, which is obviously unfortunate. But, nevertheless, we’re getting through it and we have come to some very good resolutions with two unions that we work with. And we’re very, very happy that the resolutions that we actually agreed to which should have positive impacts on our profitability going forward at five of our mines, which is obviously very positive thing.

So, I’m going to open this up now to questions. Please go ahead and queue up for questions.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Heiko Ihle with Rodman & Renshaw. Please go ahead.

Heiko Ihle

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question.

Keith Neumeyer

Thanks, Heiko. Read your research this morning. Thanks for your comments.

Heiko Ihle

Always, gladly. So, you had a $8.5 million decrease in mine operating earnings as a result of those stoppages. You mentioned that La Encantada will be back on track in the third quarter, which is great. Should we see any more cost impact or any expenditure impact from this? I assume the answer is no, but I just want to double check, especially given that you said you are going to recuperate some of the loss tonnage over the remainder of the year, please.

Keith Neumeyer

Yes. At La Encantada during the 42-day work stoppage that was there, that was a negotiated work stoppage and several things came out of that, which included a reduced workforce. And we rehired for a part of the workforce and put them through training. And that’s what the delay was. There was about two to three-week training program, depending on the skill set that we put the workforce through. And then, during that period of time, we actually had a contractor on site doing mining activities. So, we were stockpiling ore during that period. So, what expect to see in Q2 and Q3 is actually increased productivity through higher grades and improved productivity due to reduced workforce. So, we are actually pretty positive with what’s going to come out of La Encantada over the next couple of quarters. And then, of course, we have got the roasting system as well that’s going to be turned on in Q1.

Heiko Ihle

I think it’s a great asset that I was purely curious as to the financial impact. Speaking of -- in the all-in sustaining cost, you got workers participation costs of about a quarter, you got total cash costs about 7.5 something like that. Given the issues that we faced in Q2, are there any longer term impacts that we should see on sustaining costs, given what you have to -- given the renegotiations with the unions of labor force?

Keith Neumeyer

Well, the impact in all-in sustaining costs is really the increase in development, good development. Most of the development does get added to the all-in sustaining cost. It’s a bit of a short-term phenomenon, because it gives you play catch-up, because the mines have lacked investment so long, [technical difficulty] entire mining sector. So, there is a period of time when you need investments [technical difficulty] impacting these all-in cost. If you look at the numbers and compare them to our guidance in January, Santa Elena is actually flat from our earlier guidance, Del Toro and San Martin are actually lower all-in sustaining costs going forward than it was in our guidance -- the previous guidance which came on January, as I just said. So, mines are being impacted -- La Parrilla [ph] of course. And that’s short-term because that’s rate related. La Guitarra, which is -- that higher cost there is completely due to development investment.

Operator

The next question comes from Matthew O’Keefe with Echelon Wealth Partners. Please go ahead.

Matthew O’Keefe

Just wanted to probe a little bit on to the CapEx. You mentioned that you prudently reduced CapEx a little bit for this year. I guess it’s around $17.5 million lower CapEx. I’m just wondering if you could give us a bit of detail as to where that’s coming from, what the impact would be, and then, if that will be made up in 2018 or that’s yet to be decided?

Keith Neumeyer

We just started the 2018 budgeting. And I think one thing we have proven to the market is that we can be very nimble and we can move very quickly. And the whole purpose of the change is due to the lower metal prices, which are resulting in lower cash flows than we had hoped for, coming into 2018. So I think it’s very prudent step. And I think shareholders should give us some credit for being able to act so quickly and make these types of decisions. And knocking $17.5 million of our capital investment, in a low metal price environment as we are experiencing, I think it’s very prudent move. We have reduced our -- just giving you some numbers, our expansionary projects from $60.9 million to $45.6 million and that’s spread over development and exploration and property, plant and equipment.

Matthew O’Keefe

As far as -- specifically, like there is no impact to Encantada plan, is that from the other mines or some -- it’s mostly a development capital, not sustaining, right?

Keith Neumeyer

We classify some of the development as sustaining, even though you may think it’s expansionary. I’ll pass the question on to Ray because he is itching to answer that question.

Ray Polman

Yes. That’s fair. Most of the cutbacks were evenly distributed, and we’re in the nature of expansionary capital. The sustaining capital is pretty much sustained and as a result, it shouldn’t impact our ability to meet our production results as well as our budget in 2018.

Matthew O’Keefe

Okay. And Encantada that like you said before that’s not going to be impacted, the plans there?

Keith Neumeyer

No, the plans will pretty much be on course for La Encantada. The roaster will go into place and hopefully we’ll be producing with the assistance of the roaster beginning in Q1.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Chris Thompson with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Chris Thompson

Good morning, guys. Yes, I just want to commend guys just for your nimbleness. I think it’s a challenging time for all of us at the moment. Just a couple of quick questions, more detail related I guess. We’ll start off with Korea. Obviously, you saw the revised guidance. What’s your sense for as far as tons milled for the remaining half of the year?

Keith Neumeyer

I don’t have the tonnage in front of me, but -- just hold one sec, Chris. Just whilst they’re digging up the numbers here, the San Marcos area, which is the higher grade area, that’s oxides, is under development. And that area we’re looking to bring in early 2018 which will help on the grades and on the oxide circuit. So, that’s where a lot of the focus is right now. We have the dollars, Chris, but we don’t have the meters. It will be flat, so there is no change from H1 versus H2, about 500 tons through the oxides and about 1,000 through the sulphide circuit. But we can get back to you with the exact numbers.

Chris Thompson

All right, thanks. And then just the second or final question, I guess just a little bit of detail as far as the Santa Elena, just give us a sense of the mix by way of underground tons milled versus the spend off from the heap -- old heap leach?

Keith Neumeyer

Yes, it’s about 60 from the mine and 40 from the heap leach.

Chris Thompson

Okay. And grades, are we anticipating any adjustments or related to Q2?

Keith Neumeyer

Well, the grade, Santa Elena was -- went down slightly due to the vein, Alejandra that pinches as well, right. So it’s going through a period right now of pinching. And then it’s a very, very long structure which is under development. So, we don’t know if it’s going to slow again or what it’s going to do. So, that particular vein is extremely high grade and it’s been really helping the Santa Elena out in 2016. It actually ran above budget for most of 2016. In 2017, it just happens to be very close to budget, but that budget does include the lower grade because we couldn’t budget the higher grade material because it’s not known how that structure is going to act going forward.

Chris Thompson

Just final, I guess. Have you got a sense of the remaining mine life maintaining the split between spend or underground offered by the heap beach, I guess spent ore pad?

Keith Neumeyer

Well, mine life there is -- I don’t think it’s real issue. I think it’s about seven or eight years on paper but the exploration result has been very good, to pay attention to what’s been going on. In exploration at Santa Elena, I don’t think that -- I think that mill will be operating for several decades to come.

Keith Neumeyer

And I see that we’re pretty well done here. Couple of more comments. We do have the share buyback program in place. There would be pressure on the stock as a result of the silver price dropping today, fairly dramatically and obviously our news that came out at the same time, as having a bit of an impact. So, we are going to be looking at potentially getting into the market ourselves and executing some of our share buybacks.

And that’s it for the call. Thank you very much for coming on today. And I look forward to talking to all of you in the future.

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.


About this article:Expand

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4095137-first-majestic-silvers-ag-ceo-keith-neumeyer-q2-2017-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=4