Earnings Labs

Gold Resource Corporation (GORO)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, May 13, 2014

$1.47

+6.16%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.70%

1 Week

+4.67%

1 Month

+6.31%

vs S&P

+4.11%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining Gold Resource Corporation’s First Quarter Conference Call. Mr. Jason Reid, CEO, will be hosting today’s call. Following Mr. Reed’s opening remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today’s conference is being recorded. Please go ahead, Mr. Reid.

Jason Reid

CEO

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining Gold Resource Corporation’s 2014 first quarter conference call. I am very pleased and proud of our first quarter results and operating performance with regard to both increased production of precious metals while substantially lowering our production costs. As you will hear throughout this conference call, we delivered an excellent operating and financial quarter. I will go in the specific details of the quarter after a few brief housekeeping comments. Gold and silver prices continued to be volatile during the quarter with a bare market over the last two years holding its course. In the last two conference calls, I referenced our company’s plan to emerge from this market volatility as a leaner, stronger, efficient and more profitable company, well-positioned to generate cash at these current metal prices and an even stronger position to generate more when the metals market resume their longer term bull market trend. I'm pleased to report that during the first quarter of 2014, we delivered results in line with the plan being a leaner, stronger, more efficient and profitable company. And as a company, we remained focused on building shareholder value, return on capital and return on investment to include dividends as we grow the company not by growth for gross sake but smart growth for value creation. Today’s call will include a 2014 first quarter performance review, a review of our company's growth strategy along with an Arista mine development update and an exploration update. I will also comment on the recent trading pressure on the stock. Joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Mr. Joe Rodriguez, our Chief Financial Officer. Before going any further, let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and…

Joe Rodriguez

Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Jason. Operator, please take our first caller.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we will now take our first caller.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Hi. Good morning. It’s Josh Elving from Dougherty.

Jason Reid

CEO

Good morning, Josh. How are you?

Joe Rodriguez

Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Josh.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Doing well. Hey, couple of questions. First, congratulations on the improvement in the cost structure, specifically on the production cost line. One question I did have. I know that with the reserve report, some of the accounting changed. And I was trying to get a sense for, on an apples-to-apples basis, what was the construction of the development costs in the first quarter that was most likely capitalized? So, construction in the development was running at around $5 million a quarter. I know that was zero in the prior quarter. So was there a comparable amount and then where was that capitalized on the balance sheet?

Jason Reid

CEO

Yeah. It wasn’t a comparable amount. It was slightly lower than the $5 million we had in the prior period. I believe that came in at about a little under $4 million and that was capitalized on the balance sheet, so most of it was mine development costs. And we had a little bit of construction in progress related to some of our fixed assets.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Okay. And so is that similar levels expected throughout the course of 2014, or is that number going to continue to trend lower?

Jason Reid

CEO

No, I think at similar levels, as long as we continue with the current cost program we have and our CapEx remains the same. I’m anticipating it being the same.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Okay. And then I guess, still a question I had was just trying to understand the components of revenue a little bit better. My understanding was that primarily revenue was generated from gold and silver sales. But if I look at gold and silver sales, ounces and prices I get to around $26 million in revenue. And I know there is some kind of moving parts there. But I was just wondering if you could maybe add a little color there, can you bridge the difference between $26 million and $31 million that was reported?

Jason Reid

CEO

I think we also have to consider our base metal sales. They are included in there as well in the $31 million. So you can’t just only look at the gold and silver. You also have to include the base metal sales.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Has that always been the case because as soon as I recall, base metals were not included in previous quarters and is that true or not?

Jason Reid

CEO

No, that’s not true, that’s always been the case. We’ve always included our sales from all of our metals in the revenue.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Okay. Great. Well, congratulations. Thank you

Joe Rodriguez

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Josh, one of the questions you had or concerns you had in the last quarter that you brought up was the trend of decreasing treasury and we turned that pretty strong this quarter. So, I hope you noticed that.

Josh Elving - Dougherty

Management

Yeah. Thank you.

Jason Reid

CEO

Thanks, Josh.

Operator

Operator

And we’ll take our next question.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hi. This is [Chris Weatherglenn] (ph). I have a question about -- what’s the possibility perhaps you can discuss the possibility of gold repurchasing for those Hochschild shares that may become available?

Jason Reid

CEO

That’s a possibility. Keep in mind, for any buybacks from the company, we're in blackout periods most of the time, given the fact that we are sitting on certain press releases or for instance, right in front of the quarter. I would've loved to be buying back shares right and left at perhaps even these levels. But that’s a possibility. We are just going to see how it goes.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next questions.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Yeah. This is [Harvey Rollin] (ph).

Jason Reid

CEO

Hi, Harvey. How are you?

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Good. I have a question about the PR. Item 4 talks about the difference between production and sales and notes that part of the difference was due to the buyer processing deductions of approximately 2,123 gold equivalent ounces. That seems like a very high number for me. So, I wonder what the story is there.

Joe Rodriguez

Chief Financial Officer

I will go ahead and take that one, Jason. That typically is a payable metal deduction that we have to incur based on the negotiated contracts we have with our seller. It’s very typically in the industry to have a payable metal deduction on the one that delivers 100% and gets paid 100% of their metal. So that is the amount that we’ve negotiated and that’s what we pay in our contract.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

So you're saying each time that same -- that or similar deduction occurs?

Jason Reid

CEO

That’s correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Yes. Hi, Jason. This is [Chen Lin] (ph). How are you?

Jason Reid

CEO

Good. How are you, [Chin] (ph)? I believe I have -- I know you right?

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Yes.

Jason Reid

CEO

Long time ago.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

We talk like seven, eight years ago, yes. We met each other on many occasions.

Jason Reid

CEO

We were trying to give introduction the last time I spoke to you I think.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Yes, long time. So yes, congratulations for the great quarter. And we’re impressed with you’re able to ramp up the underground production. So what -- you didn’t -- and you mentioned you probably won’t fill the 1500 production -- tonne per day production this year. So, what’s your expectation to do the continue ramp up of the underground?

Jason Reid

CEO

Yes, I do. I am specifically camping down expectations so to speak. I’m not -- I’m going to limit the forecast. I want people to look at the quarter-on-quarter and how we performed. We won’t -- we know we won't hit the 1500, we don't expect to this year. I guess this is possible, but we don't expect to potentially next year. But the point I want everybody to focus on is that this is going to be a ramp up and it’s very much dependent on our ability to put on that underground and we have multiple veins, multiple working faces from which to do that. And we expect to ramp up over time. I just want to not be nailed to a certain timeframe on when we actually hit the 1500.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Great. Thank you, Jason. Great quarter. Just on the grade side, I see some fractuation, like last quarter actually it was a little bit lower than a quarter before. Do you see the grade may move up and down, more on the upside?

Jason Reid

CEO

Absolutely. Keep in mind, the deposit is not just homogenous uniform grade. You go through various areas of the deposit, different elevations, different veins, different bandwidths, etcetera that will have different grades associated to them. So yes, we will be see times in which our grade is higher and lower on a quarterly basis, but on average we expect it to come in close to the overall estimates.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Great. Thank you. Again congratulations.

Jason Reid

CEO

Thanks. Good to talk to you, [Chen] (ph).

Operator

Operator

Okay. And due to time constraints, we will take our final question.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hi, this is [Bill DiFonzo] (ph), Private Investor. How are you doing guys today?

Jason Reid

CEO

Fine, Bill. How are you?

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I am doing well. Thank you. And congratulations on just the terrific quarter. My question regard to dividend. And is the goal still to give back one-third of the net income and dividend, and if so, do you foresee over the next couple of quarters or so bumping that up a little bit from penny to say a couple cents?

Jason Reid

CEO

Bill, it’s a good question. This company was created to pay a dividend. So we take it very seriously and with 46 consecutive monthly dividends I think the market does to. As it relates to one-third, that is a goal, it’s a general goal, it’s very hard to know exactly how the numbers to play out. But when you look at our last full three years, we were just under a third the first full year, we are over third the second year, and we are well over the third last year. We have a new tax imposed on us by the Mexican government. It’s going to make it very hard for us to reach that exact one-third goal in the long term we sure want to try. This is not a guarantee. This is not a promise. I love when shareholders throw at my fact that you promise this, you promise that, this is not a promise, it is a goal. Our track record shows that we come close and we are going to continue to try, but it’s going to be much harder to do a third. To your point is, will they increase? And an ideal was, yes, I want them to increase, but I can’t guarantee anything. We would like to see some metal price movement upwards to give us a little more breathing room as well, but in the future, the goal would be to increase our dividend absolutely. The time and how much -- timeframe and how much, I don’t know, that’s the next factor. But let me tell you I am watching the majors and some recent news out even this morning where majors are lowering their dividend. So Gold Resource is a junior producer, I think our yield is going to shine better than coming up here against even the majors and that's something that I can underscore enough that differentiate gold resource from the rest of the pack. Me as a junior can pay a substantial monthly dividend where even the majors can't. So, good question on the dividend. I know I didn’t answered probably to your liking but I hope you get the point that its very much important to us and we’re going to try to come in close to I thought as we can. We may not make it with the new taxes, but at the end of the day we want to return as much back to the shareholders as soon as possible. Thank you very much. And since we are out of time, if there is any other questions please feel free to call into the office or myself. And thank you very much and let’s look forward to you next quarter. Thank you.