Earnings Labs

Newmont Corporation (NEM)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 21, 2008

$110.16

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Fourth Quarter and Year-end 2007 Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation we will conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. This conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would like to turn the call over to Mr. John Seaberg. You may begin.

John Seaberg - Investor Relations

Analyst

Thank you operator. Welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and 2007 earnings conference call. I'd like to introduce Dick O'Brien, who will be leading our presentation today. Thank you.

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

Thanks, John. Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us today in our fourth quarter 2007 earnings conference call. Before we get started, I just want to remind you that we'll be discussing forward-looking information involving a number of risks, certain of which are unique to our industry as described in our SEC filings. I also want to acknowledge that a number of analysts on this call have already had a full day of earnings reports and conference calls and we appreciate the time you take to set aside to participate in our call. So, thank you for that. As many of you are aware, we recently held an Analyst Day where we discussed in detail the results of operations for the fourth quarter and for the year, our reserves at the end of 2007, and our guidance for 2008. Because that information is available for you on our web site at www.newmont.com, today's call will be relatively short. So we will focus largely on our financial performance for the fourth quarter, which we didn't talk about at the Analyst Meeting, and for the year. We will also briefly recap what we accomplished in 2007 and we accomplished a lot to refocus our company on our core gold business and review our outlook for 2008. We will give you a brief update on Hope Bay and how we are integrating that asset and the Hope Bay team into our portfolio organization. Finally we will give you an update brief on the divestiture situation in Indonesia. Before we get started, another quick update. Some of you maybe aware there was an earthquake near Elko, Nevada early this morning. Brant Hinze called me very early this morning. His time indicated that they were checking to see what damage and we are pleased to report…

Russel Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks Dick and let me firstly apologize for the non-accountants that spent [inaudible] this morning at least working their way through our numbers. I will say that despite the red ink, you see in the table up there, we actually had an extremely strong fourth quarter and I will explain why in some detail. Looking at the table, equity gold sales as Dick said right on line at about 5.3 for the year. We did as Dick said made conscious decision not to push our operations right to the limit. And in fact ended up sitting on about 80,000 equity ounces and 19 million equity pounds of copper at year-end in order to affect what Dick has talked to about a level or more consistent, if you want, production profile and not always having the back-end loading. And again that gives us more confidence going into 2008. The realized gold prices you see, strong fourth quarter at 785 and around 700 for the year, but clearly a long way off the roughly $949, $950 that we are sitting at today. So to Dick's point, the company is focused on delivering the numbers that I'll point out in our 2008 outlook. And if you do that we should see significant margin expansions and significantly improve bottom line. The cost applicable to sales, again a strong fourth quarter, we were at 384 and for the year around 406. As we spoke to the analysts a couple of weeks ago we mad a conscious decision not to hedge the Aussie dollar and that cost us $9 or $10. If you subtract that, we would have been roughly… we would have been at the higher end of our original guidance back in January this year. We do have an ongoing program to hedge some…

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

Thanks, Russel. Moving to the next slide, I'd like to welcome the former Miramar employees to Newmont, if they are listening on the call. We appreciate your success as to date at Hope Bay and look forward to your contributions in the future as we develop this world-class gold deposit. In addition, they are now controlling one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world with Miramar having already identified over 10 million ounces of gold resources at Hope Bay. We've also added significant strength to our Newmont team. As we proceed with evaluating the development options available, the integration of the personnel continues to progress as planned with the cross-functional team now in place. Guy Lansdown, our Senior Vice President, Safety Project Development and Technical Services will provide project development executive oversight. Steve Enders, Senior Vice President, Exploration will provide exploration executive oversight and Brant Hinze, our Regional Vice President for North America will provide regional executive oversight as the Hope Bay operations team will ultimately become part of the North American regional team. For this acquisition, again building on the successes we had in 2007, another indication of momentum, buying an asset that we had initially invested in, we understood very well, able to do clean due diligence on, understood what was moving forward with the asset in development, district scale asset provides opportunities for sustainable, lower cost production in future high-grade reserve replacement. This is the value of thinking and investing strategically. We must get our execution of the operating assets right and we will and we've told you that we must also build for the future. So, we are doing both. And we'll update you as we determine how we are going to maximize the value of the Hope Bay asset for Newmont, our shareholders,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from John Tumazos of John Tumazos Independent.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Independent

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

Good afternoon. In terms of the monies you are spending for the Hope Bay drilling this year, how much would be step-out or new exploration as opposed to infill drilling and testing the data from Miramar?

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

John, it's Dick. This is an advanced exploration project. As you know, there are some areas where we are going to be doing some infill drilling, but we believe that this has substantial long-term value. We will be doing some step-out drilling as well. We haven't given the precise figure for what our budgets are for this year. Suffice it to say that our exploration budget is up to about… given the numbers it’s up about $40 million, part of that's inflation, but a big part of it is Miramar. We will be spending money on significant drilling activities up at Miramar.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

And John, Russ, just adding to that, we should be careful in not expecting reserve additions instantly. We have put the project into a stage-gate process. The way we look at is we will see significant or potentially significant NRM in additions in 2008 and into 2009 and 10 on the reserve side. So, again, we have a program, but we have just inherited the assets and the exploration folks are working with, most of the Miramar team that came over to really determine where we want to put those dollars. It's still very early in the process, as you know we just essentially acquired the asset.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Independent

Analyst · John Tumazos Independent

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from John Hill of Citi.

John Hill - Citi

Analyst · Citi

Thank you very much and thanks for a very forthright presentation following up on a lot of operations at Investors Day a few weeks ago. Dick, I was just wondering when you think about funding the company's cash flow deficit for 2008, including acquisitions and such of course, will you might commit to filling this cash deficit without further equity dilution?

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Citi

Will we commit? No, we will tell you that we will make sure that we utilize our equity judiciously, that we will value it appropriately, but will I commit to not issuing equity, no, I don't know exactly what we are going to do John. But I will tell you we will do everything we can to make sure that we ensure shareholder value. At this point we have a cash flow deficit for the year, which we plan on funding through a combination of balance sheet sources that we have today, some additional borrowings. Do I see anything and that normal environment would require the issuance of equity, no. But would we over time consider if we saw something else, we might.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · Citi

And John, Russ, I'll just add to that for those who haven’t had a chance to look at our 10-K, we moved our investment in Canadian Oil Sands Trust from a current liability to a long-term liability... long-term assets, sorry, based on... it's been a long couple of days, based on our intension or discussions amongst management that we see no likelihood of selling that asset in the next 12 months basically [ph] part on the IPO, the significantly higher proceeds we received, the strong operating cash flow from the fourth quarter and current metal prices, which at 900 turns that deficit into a surplus.

John Hill - Citi

Analyst · Citi

Great. But just for clarification as we ranked the various alternatives for funding that cash deficit everything from perhaps examining the treatment of byproduct revenue streams and such or asset sales, do you regard equity dilution to be high on the priority list or rock bottom at the lower end of the priority list?

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Citi

Clearly John, equity is at the bottom, it's not our first... it's not the first arrow we're going to pull out of the quiver. I believe that with additional strength in gold prices, margin expansion, we have other opportunities before we need to dive into the equity portfolio.

John Hill - Citi

Analyst · Citi

Great. Just putting in a plug for per share reserves, per share production and per share earnings and cash flow. Thank you.

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Citi

Interesting that you choose to apply that to us and how many other companies have acquired reserves and production over the years. I would like to see somebody do that analysis. Good question.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Victor Flores of HSBC.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

Yes. Thanks. Good afternoon. Russ, I did say you could drive yourself nuts but I can assure you that I am completely saint.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · HSBC

We never questioned that Victor.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

Listen, just sort of following on, on the discussion on Hope Bay, when do you think you will be in a position to share with the market what do you think the likely development plan would be for that asset? The Miramar guys had put out some various scenarios looking at how to potentially tackle the various deposits that are up there. When do you think you'll be in a position to say here's Newmont's vision for this asset?

Guy Lansdown - Senior Vice President, Project Development and Operations Services

Analyst · HSBC

Victor, this is Guy Lansdown. Victor, as Russel said it's currently in our stage-gate process and the plan is to go through the current phase through the end of this year, beginning of next year. So that's the kind of timeframe we are looking at.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

Basically, another say year to year-and-a-half of really wrapping your arms around it?

Guy Lansdown - Senior Vice President, Project Development and Operations Services

Analyst · HSBC

Yeah. I'm sorry, you had a question about the permits.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

No, I am just saying you might want to mention it.

Guy Lansdown - Senior Vice President, Project Development and Operations Services

Analyst · HSBC

Yeah, we are waiting permits on those north and we will continue to be doing engineering and the work required to put the reminder of our permits in place.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

Okay. Great. Thank you. And then just following on two other projects, can you give us update on what your current thought process is on both Akyem and Conga?

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · HSBC

Both projects are up for review this year. We haven't given a precise time frame, but we continue to optimize those projects and should bring them forward to our Board for consideration this year.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

So, you mean... sorry, so when you mean that you are assessing them, it's not an assessment of we might keep it, we might not. It's an assessment of how best to proceed with them.

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · HSBC

Well, this is an assessment with their current environment of construction and projects and the way we are addressing capital factored at Newmont, we've taken both projects Conga and Akyem, put them in our stage-gate process, we are fully evaluating the feasibility and economics. And as we continue to optimize that, we're just trying to decide how best to bring the projects forward and we will bring those forward for Board consideration this year.

Victor Flores - HSBC

Analyst · HSBC

Okay. Fair enough. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from David Haughton of BMO Capital Markets.

David Haughton - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Good afternoon, and thank you. Russell, a question for you, I know that when you went through slide 5, you'd identified some of the issues that had taxed attached to it and though it didn't, just as a simple summary, for those items that are abnormal, as you've identified them in slide 5 what's the tax payable or tax effect in the P&L?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Hi Dave, good question. The numbers that you see here reflect after-tax, the write-down on the market of securities, which are held up in Canada, the long-term tax rate is 18%, the rates are essentially tax effective at 35%. The merchant banking, goodwill and the exploration goodwill have no tax impact. So the pre and post-tax numbers are the same.

David Haughton - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Okay. All I am trying to do here is to get an idea of what's your adjusted net profit after-tax compared to flushing all these things through. That's what I'm trying to get to. Thank you.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

I'd say going back to the royalty portfolio, we... what you see on the income statement is net of the tax rate, 35%. However, through some good and effective tax planning, we have reduced that to somewhere between 10% and 15% on an actual cash flow basis. So while we've taken the full 35 to the income statement, because there's some tax attributes, we had some tax planning, that was put into place, in fact related to the Miramar acquisition, we were able to reduce the leakage to about 10% to 15%.

David Haughton - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

All right. Thank you for that. The other question I have, having a look at the cash flow statement, lots of big numbers going in and out. Can you just confirm that the Franco numbers are in and the cash going out to Miramar is out in 2007 period, it all happened during the last couple of days of the year?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

So Dave, what we did is we took the royalty portfolio, the income from the royalty portfolio and showed that in cash flow from discontinued operations. So that's effectively below the line. Again what we're trying to show is what's indicative going forward, we have to say it will on be the plight next year. So we went back to '06 and '05 and did the same treatment and took those cash flows related to that royalty portfolio and put it down into discontinued operations.

David Haughton - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

All right. Thank you very much, Russell.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Thanks, Dave.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Mark Smith of Dundee Securities.

Mark Smith - Dundee Securities

Analyst · Dundee Securities

Yeah, just a very, very quick question. Just as you... if you are to deliver additional interest in Batu Hijau to the Indonesian government or locals at what point in the ownership structure, do you start to equity account it rather than consolidate it?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · Dundee Securities

Yeah David. That's an interesting question. Where we are is we end up consolidating because of the post Enron, if you want, special purpose entities we have a 45% economic interest in PTNNT. We do consolidate because of our disproportionate share in the economic benefits of the partnership that sits above that. While it's not an exact science and it's a function of the deals we structure, whether these deals are carried interest or whether we actually collect cash. I'd say that just as a best-case estimate, probably the '09 timeframe, we would end up deconsolidating if we carry the interest, if we sell it for cash that might happen sooner. But again it's a function of these deals and the transactions we enter into. So it's hard to give you an exact date. It will be a function of, as Dick says, how the negotiations progress and where we end up on providing financing or not providing financing. As part of that November 30 offer to the local governments we did provide what we believe to be a very attractive financing scheme that would encourage them to take ownership under our financing, because quite frankly we would like them as long-term partners with us on the Batu Hijau project.

Mark Smith - Dundee Securities

Analyst · Dundee Securities

All right. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Terry Ortslan of TSO & Associates. Terry Ortslan - TSO & Associates: Thanks. Russel, the Miramar Hope Bay numbers are in the... on slide 6, advanced project numbers?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · TSO & Associates

Yes. Some of it’s in advanced projects and some of it's in exploration. That's about 30 in each, 30 of it in the advanced projects and about 30 in exploration. Terry Ortslan - TSO & Associates: Okay. On the CapEx numbers, what's the sustaining capital component of that $1.8 billion to $2 billion number that you have for this year?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · TSO & Associates

Now, $1 billion to $1.1 billion of the three big projects that 600, 650 being Boddington, 200 on the power plant and roughly the same down in Peru just for round numbers. And the balance being sustaining and other in the operations. So, when we look at it, it's roughly 50%, 55% those three big projects and the balance right evenly across the portfolio. Terry Ortslan - TSO & Associates: Right. And you also gave us the assumption for the, for the cost by I think $70 or $80 barrels of oil, is that?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · TSO & Associates

Yes, $80. Terry Ortslan - TSO & Associates: And what's the sensitivity for each 10 bugs or so.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · TSO & Associates

We run about 3 million barrels a year. Terry Ortslan - TSO & Associates: Okay. Fair enough. All right great, thank you.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · TSO & Associates

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question needs from Damon Wells of Damon Wells Interests.

Damon Wells - Damon Wells Interests

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

Good afternoon. Could you give us some idea of these higher than nature of your extensive landholdings of which, and those part of that might one day be perspective I understand the acreage of the square miles is quite huge but could you quantify and describe that please?

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

Could I quantify, probably If have the 10-K in front of me, I could give you the hectares that we own. But, I would tell you we have substantial land positions in Nevada where we are behind the U.S. Government, the largest landholder in Nevada. Some areas highly prospective, some areas we are already operating on and others where we have attended facilities like our power plant. So, we have many usages of the assets that we have in Nevada, still some exploration opportunity there. In addition we've properties in Peru, where we think the Conga District and around Yanacocha continues to be prospective for us. So, we still have opportunities there and of course Canada we have Hope Bay highly prospective area, a big green stone belt, which as just a small part of it has been explored to date. And then finally, we still have some areas in Indonesia, under our contract of work and do we also have some properties still near, some of our underground in Australia. And in Ghana of course we have the half of north projects still developing along that strike. We still have exploratory work going on. So, we continue to feel good about the project around half.

Damon Wells - Damon Wells Interests

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

Well, that's good...

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

Actually I don't have the exact numbers, but again, we think there is a good option to be had in Newmont with respect to our ongoing ability to deliver to exploration and the numbers are in the 10-K for our land holdings.

Damon Wells - Damon Wells Interests

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

That's very encouraging. Thank you for answering the question.

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · Damon Wells Interests

You're welcome. Thank you for your question.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our next question comes from Brian MacArthur of UBS Securities.

Brian MacArthur - UBS Securities

Analyst · UBS Securities

Good afternoon. I was wondering if you can give me any guidance on the 2% that you proposed to, sell to the other partner, was that based on the 2006 valuation, 2007 valuation or can you give me any guidance whatsoever?

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · UBS Securities

Yes Brian, again as I said we have two valuations, we gave you the numbers for the interest but on 100% basis the '06 was $3.6 billion, the '07 was $4 billion. I will say that as we work through the valuation that was required at the end of '07 we expect it to be significantly higher than that but again we are still working through that evaluation. The offer we made to the local government in order to encourage them to participate in the project was for the '07 share at the '06 price. So, it was based of the 3.6, valuation of 3.6 billion on a 100% and it was carried interest. So they had accepted the financing offer we provided.

Brian MacArthur - UBS Securities

Analyst · UBS Securities

And sorry, the other 2% that one, under the same deal.

Russell Ball - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst · UBS Securities

That is just the only 2% with carriers that we have completed Brian.

Brian MacArthur - UBS Securities

Analyst · UBS Securities

Okay. So that was done under those terms okay. Thank you.

Richard T. O'Brien - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst · UBS Securities

All right. Thank you very much everyone for your attendance and your questions today, we know a number of you have a lot of work to do so we're going to let you get back to it and we have a lot of work to do, we are going go back to running our gold company to deliver maximum value to shareholders. Thanks.