Aura Minerals (NASDAQ: AUGO, B3: AURA33) is a mid-tier gold and copper producer focused on the Americas, with six operating mines and three growth projects, being two in development and one exploration project. The Company has recently announced the beginning of Borborema Mine commercial production, its fifth operation online constructed on time and on budget, also the purchase of MSG Mine and the construction license and commencement of early works at the Era Dorada Project (in Guatemala), marking an important milestone in Aura’s growth trajectory, positioning Aura to produce +600k GEO annually in the coming years.
Dual-listed in US and Brazil, Aura is the only company to rank #1 on the Toronto Stock Exchange for two consecutive years (2021 & 2022) and remains the only publicly listed gold miner in Brazil.
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you He's just. OK good. Sounds good. Thank you. Thanks everyone. We'll continue the session here. today we welcome Clever, CFO of OA Minerals. so without further ado, I'll turn the mic off to you, Clever, and then afterwards we'll see if there's any questions coming from the audience. OK, thank you. Good morning, everyone. thanks for having me here. Claver Cardoso, CFO with, OA Minerals, now a little bit more than, 7 years with the company. So I'm gonna present about Aura. We are, a growing gold and copper producer focused on the Americas, especially Latin America, and listed on NASDAQ and the, Brazilian Stock Exchange. So, as, as an introduction about Ora, so we're, we're a growing company. We have, through acquiring new assets and building new projects doubled our, our, the size of our company in the last, 5-6 years in terms of gold equivalent production. In what we have in-house and now we have 6 minings in production. Two projects under development and the expansion potential in all our assets, we expected to double again in the next couple of years. So we are a growth story in the middle of the growth curve, I would say. we, we have been generating, strong cash flows, in, the next, in the last few years. We are a player in the 2nd quartile of the owing sustained cash cost curve. I'm gonna show you more detail our projects. They generate a high internal rate of return. Then with these cash flows we have been able both to finance this growth, but we also pay substantial dividends. We approved in the end of 2020, dividend policy. In which we pay at least 20% of our ABA minus recurring CE. Since then, I think we have, with one or two exceptions paid above our dividend policies since then, since 2021, and we have a very substantial dividend yields. Our dividend yield has been ranging from minimum 6% in a given year to a maximum 13.5%, in, in one year. So besides being a growth story, we also are a dividend story. and we have been able to both grow the company pay dividends without putting, pressure or a balance sheet. We remain pretty much on leverage. Our net debt overbi die is 0.3 times only, which, allows us to keep it growing, paying dividends as we have more projects, going forward. And we have a very strong internal culture which we call our 360 in which we put people first. So in terms of safety of our employees is our top priority. We finalize the 2024, 2025 with zero loss in time incidents across all projects, and, operating, although we're building mines, operating different mines in different different jurisdictions. we have, a strong focus on, community environment that are also some, some interesting cases. I'm gonna go over here and, in terms of the company we have an incentive system in which from the sea level until the people who are running the mine is they're incentivized to focus on working on reducing waste sustaining cash cash costs and maximizing, the returns of the project so. we, we are kind of aligned between the shareholders and management of the company. So at a glance is where we are, as I said, we have a focus on, Latin America. We have now 6 assets in production, 4 gold mines in Brazil. Apoena has been in production for a while. In the last four years, we built two mines, in Brazil. One is called Almas. We built in 22, 23, and the other one, our newest mine, is Burborema. We built in 2024, Richard Corporation production in September, 2025. The two projects we're proud to say we build, on time on budget, which then, gives us the confidence that, as we continue growing and we're gonna continue growing by building new projects we have, a team that, has experience and a good track record in delivering this, these, these projects. in December last year we acquired also a new mine, we call, Minera Sosarengi, we call MSAG. It was part of the, AngloGold Ashanti portfolio. we closed in December. It's a mine that, we bring into our portfolio. It's gonna be a turnaround case. It comes with, a high cash owing sustained cash cost compared to our average about $3000 per ounce. And then in the next few years where we, we have a plan to push that down. Internal resources with experienced it to in that kind of mind, it should bring it down to closer to our, our numbers. Other than Brazil have open pit mining in, Honduras called Minosa in Mexico, is, the only asset in production that we have that copper is our main project at Arrenzozo is a copper, gold, silver concentrate mine. together they generate in 2025 with 280,000 ounces of gold equivalents. Now in 20206 we already have a, a guidance to produce between 340 and 390. So the growth that I mentioned that we're gonna double again, the first step is already happening now in 2026 we are gonna increase our production between 20 minimum and maximum 40% compared to 2025 basically because, Burborema, which you. The project we built came in production in Q4 in acquisition of MSCG. and then going forward, the next one is gonna be Eradorada project in Guatemala. We announced last night that we have, our board approval to go ahead and and build this project should come in production by the first semester of 2028, and we have another also project in Brazil ready to build, called Matupa that should come next when all, of all these projects are in production plus some additional expanding capacities., expanding capacity opportunities, we, we should more than double the 2025 production. Looking a little bit about the past, our track records, as I mentioned, we more than doubled, our production, in the chart since, 2018. Our, owing sustaining cash costs, we are, I mean, the second solid second quartile, in, in our industry. We do see some increase from 24, 25. That's mainly because of this newmi that we're adding the end of the year in, in conversion between cooperate to goods. Other, on, on comparative basis we have been flat 23, 24, 25, so pretty much competitive. Then in combination of growing production, more favorable metal prices in cash and costs under controls we see not only our revenues increasing but our bidda, increase, 25 times in this, periods, very strong EIDA margins, close to 6%, last year. in, with strong, conversion of EBIDA to cash flows, about 67% of this EBIDA has been generating cash flows, which is what is allowing us, to, to grow our production, to make acquisitions, to pay dividends without stressing our balance sheets, One thing that's important to mention about our investments that when we look deeply into our our operations, our mines, they're not the largest ones. The 6 mines now we have in production. All of them produce less than 100,000 ounces per year. But they are, in general, very profitable. They, they yield usually very high internal rate of return when making, a decision to make an acquisition of assets or building a new project. We don't focus on, on the size. We focus on, the expected, financial returns, internal rate of return, payback, and, and then NPV. our board, looks for at least usually a 20% internal internal rate of return and leverage based on consensus gold price, which is a very high hurdle rate, and, as you're gonna see, we have been able to deliver some of the projects with much higher internal rate of return which allows us then to reinvest, recycle quickly the, the capital, pay dividends, grow the company without putting our balance sheets under, under pressure. going forward, this strategy in the next 4 or 5 years is to do kind of the same that we have been doing, doing in the past, is keeping growing the company by investing in this high, return in projects. we have, some examples of, two projects in that we, we just, built and delivered, for example. Almas that we built in 2223 had a 64% expected return rate of return based on less than $2000 gold prices, so the return is now you might imagine might. Are are substantially above that. Robodema, the, the project we just delivered, had, over 80% internal rate of return, considering, 2600 gold prices in Matua. One of the projects that we have in our, our, pipeline has, to build in the next few years a 36% internal rate of return expected considering 1900 gold price, which means that's very. Like again, all these projects are small but very high return projects. The second, the leverage to, to keep increasing, the value of the company to keep increasing the investments in reserves and resource that has been one of the bottlenecks in the past. we do have a substantial, pipeline of mineral rights. We have almost 600,000 hectares of mineral rights which. Is, we, we don't know, very well. We, we, we know geologically speaking roughly 10%. So over the last 3 or 4 years we have been investing, to get to know more, the potential of these properties. It's been working. We, we doubled, the reserves in the last 6 years. We increased by 70% in the last 3 or 4 years. So, it's working now. We have a consolidated life of mine for the company of 12 years, but we're in the middle of this story, such as, with the growth in production, we still have a lot to invest in reserves and resources and creeping, increasing, increasing the value of the company. And we have been working also to increase the market for multiples. Last year we, worked and we were very successful increasing the, the daily trading volume of the company that in the past was an issue. Now we're trading over $100 million a day, so it's no longer an issue. And as we increase the, the, the size of the company, we see that larger companies, they trade, they. They trade at a multiple in terms of valuation compared to medium and smaller companies, so we expect that benefit to come in as well in the future. our growth, plan, that we put last year, we, are already executing, in 2025 we announced this plan to exceed 600,000 ounces in production. the first two steps that were already, implemented and being, in ramp up our stabilization phase is the robot MMSEG. Eradorada, the next project that I, I mentioned is gonna add another 110,000 ounces. Matupa another 55,000 ounces, and expansion in existing projects such as Berborema Almas. We're gonna be producing over 600,000 ounces in the next few years, more than doubling again our, our, our production, which the first step is already been given now in, 2026. the new project Terradorada, it's, that, that we, we, we announced, last night, we, we released a feasibility, we acquired this project in January, 2025. We spend 1000 hours, in, round tables with the communities. there was an issue with, social license. We have been able to turn around, those issues. we've got all the permits, and the last one was obtained a few months ago. Now we have the permits to build the project. It's a very high grade project. It's an underground project with 6 g per ton, and it's going for 17 years life of mine producing 110,000 ounces per year. you can see again in terms of returns, an internal rate of return expected 35% considering, 3200 gold prices then with, with opportunities not to be much higher than that. and it also is gonna be, a very strong case in terms of ESEG in terms of, when, by talking to the community one of the concerns we learned the community was with, the water because of the NGOs. Kept telling them that any mining company pollutes the water, this kind of stuff, so we, we approved in our CE a solution to treat 100% of the water that's gonna come from the mine and make it potable and drinkable. So we're gonna have like drinkable water at the end of the process. It's gonna be the first municipality in Guatemala with that kind of clean water. And also we have a geothermical project, so 100% of the energy is gonna be clean as well. So it's gonna be a stronger case in terms of ESCG, and it's coming online in early 2028. So just in number summary of what I mentioned here, so we have been investing to grow the company. We put a significant amount of capex in making acquisitions and building new projects and investing, in geology to increase the reserves and resource. The pro the production we saw the, the has been increasing. The, the reserves and resources also. increasing year after year, the dividends, we have been paying dividends, consistently, in the last, few years since 2021. and our net debt over BDA has remained low and never exceeded one time, and now it's, very low, close to zero, which allows us to keep implementing our strategy to keep it growing with this high, returning projects that we have in our portfolio. OK, and we're not gonna go into the appendix. Thank you. Thanks, clever. Any questions coming from the audience? If not, I'll get it started. Clever, as you mentioned, some of your assets are not the largest, but they're profitable. but I guess my question is, is there an opportunity with some of these assets to grow in size? Because I know you've talked about the portfolio, you'll grow through development, but in terms of your current operations, are there opportunities to kind of tweak it to make them slightly larger, slightly more. in terms of lower cost due to, greater economies of scale. Yes, and it's happening. so, pretty much our mindset when we have, for example, a new project is, like I said, you know, to, build it as fast as possible, minimize the capex, get quickly the payback, and then working, to expand and, and achieve the upsides. one example was the Almas project that we built in 20223. Our goal was to minimize the capex. We built it with $75 million. I, I, I haven't seen any project with such a low capex. with, to put in production, a mine with 1.3 million tons capacity at the plant. And at the time we had 17 years with life of mine based on reserves, with, potential to expand. So, the idea was to build fast. We're building 16 months, so 16, so very quickly. when, when, once we put in production, we generate started generating cash flow and reinvesting to expand. So since then we expanded from 1.3 million tons, installed the capacity to 2.2 million tons, and now we're going to 26 we announced to expand to 3 million tons. So we're, we're more than doubling in almost, looking out for the upsides with Berbore is the same. Berborema we started. Smaller, with potential now we're generating cash flows and in 2026 we are all announced that we are doing studies to expand production capacity. So I think in most of our assets we have this mindset. Let's start small. Let's the risk because Capex up front of CapEx is risk you know, let's the risk. Let's get the payback quickly and then reinvest, expands, and look for the upsides. Great, and then may be one other question as we've seen, from your map, the center of gravity is certainly Brazil. You are now also in Guatemala and Honduras, but looking into the future, is Brazil gonna continue to be your, center of gravity? not necessarily. we, we are America's player. Pretty much focus as we've shown in Latin America which we understand is a region has its challenge, so it's, we wouldn't go outside Latin America because we don't know other regions, but the entire management that we have is from the region, so we see there are good opportunities not only in Brazil in the entire Latin America. Most of the projects are in Brazil because Brazil is such a large country, you know, with many opportunities, but, the next growth could be in in any place. In Latin America or North America, great. That's all the time we have. Thanks once again, collaborator, thank you. Next up, we have Martin, CFO of I A Gold. Martin.
Recorded at Mining Forum Europe 2026, Park Hyatt Zürich, Zürich. Prepared for information only; it is not investment advice or a recommendation. Statements are those of the presenting company as at the date of the presentation. Market figures in US dollars, not as at the date of the forum.