Thanks Renju, and good morning everyone and thanks for joining us for the Regis Resources financial year 2025 full year financial results. I'm joined this morning by our CFO Anthony Rechichi, our COO Michael Holmes, and our Head of Investor Relations Jeff Sansom. On this call we will be referring to various slides in the pack that we released earlier this morning. This of course can be downloaded from our website or the ASX. It might be helpful if you've got that in front of you. With that in mind, referring to slide three. First off, I have a look at safety for the year and Regis continues to deliver safe and profitable answers. Our lost time injury frequency rate for FY 2025 was 0.4, well below the gold industry average, which I think the latest is around 1.6, reflecting our ongoing commitment to safe production across all our operations.
This year we also reported our first integrated annual and sustainability report which highlights not only our ESG achievements but also our progress on climate related reporting. Just a couple of key ESG highlights to include. We saw a 7.6% reduction in group scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Year on year we delivered more than 200 hectares of progressive rehabilitation across the Duketon site and our female representation increased to 23% across the workforce. We're also well advanced in aligning with mandatory climate related disclosures which will become part of our statutory reporting framework in FY 2026. Now turning to the financial results. Many of those numbers were foreshadowed of course in the quarterly release a month or so ago, but it's worth repeating because FY 2025 has been a record year for Regis.
I'll try not to steal all of Anthony's thunder, but there are some high level metrics that I would like to mention. Firstly, we delivered a record net profit after tax and I would point out that's not underlying, that is the actual net profit after tax of $254 million. That's a $440 million turnaround from last year's loss and Anthony will put a little bit more context around that shortly. Also, our record statutory cash flows from operating activities was $821 million. That's up 73% from the prior year. Importantly, after repaying our $300 million of corporate debt in January, we closed the year with $517 million of cash and bullion, strengthening our balance sheet and providing flexibility. Now, just to contextualize this, I think it's sometimes easy to talk about these things in terms of a net debt net cash position.
If we look at where we were 12 months ago, Regis was in a net debt position of $5 million. We were in debt to the June net of $5 million. Now, 12 months later, we sit at a net cash and bullion position of $517 million. Reflecting this strong profitability and cash generating capacity, the board has declared a fully franked final dividend of $0.05 per share. That's the equivalent of a distribution of about $38 million. With this dividend, Regis has now declared nearly $585 million in fully franked dividends since 2013. With that, I'll hand over to Anthony to step through the financial results in a little more detail.
Thanks Jim and good morning everyone. I'll turn you now to slide 5 of the presentation. This is a really impressive chart that demonstrates the cash generation capacity of Regis 's business. We started the year with $295 million of cash and bullion, which grew by $222 million- $517 million by 30 June 2025, as Jim was saying. Now, importantly, that includes the $300 million of debt we repaid in January. Before the debt repayment, cash and bullion effectively grew by $522 million. Looking to the income statement, now I'll get you to look at slide six. Gold sales were $1.65 billion, up 30% on FY 2024, driven by a 47% increase in realized gold prices. Costs of sales excluding depreciation and amortization were similar year- on- year.
Depreciation and amortization itself increased by 14%, largely due to the accelerated amortization of pre-strip at Ben Hur and the Tropicana open pits. We expect depreciation and amortization to be a little lower on a per ounce basis in FY 2026 versus FY 2025. You'll also note an exploration and evaluation expense of $11 million, which relates to the McPhillamys project. I would note that since last year's Section 10 declaration, for all of FY 2025 and until further notice, McPhillamys costs are being expensed directly through the profit and loss account. Another key item is tax. We recorded a tax expense of $109 million in FY 2025 and an estimated tax payable of just under $100 million. After several years of tax benefit positions, Regis will now move into a payable position again, a product of our high profitability.
As a result of the upcoming tax payable and the FY26 financial year, our $0.05 a share dividend will be 100% fully franked. All up, the results translated into a record net profit after tax of $254 million, a $440 million turnaround from last year's net loss, which was impacted by the McPhillamys write-off and the cost of closing out our hedging contracts. Now onto the statutory cash flows and balance sheet on slide 7. Statutory cash flows from operating activities was a record at $821 million, up 73% on last year, a stunning result for a business to be approaching a billion dollars in cash flows from operating activities. On cash flows from financing activities, the only major item was the repayment of our $300 million debt back in January.
At year end we had $517 million in cash and bullion and our $300 million revolving credit facility remains undrawn. Our balance sheet is in an excellent position and continues to strengthen. Overall, FY 2025 was a step change in the company's financial strength, positioning us well to pursue growth opportunities while continuing to generate meaningful shareholder returns. Thank you. Back to you, Jim.
Yeah, thanks, Anthony. To summarize what you've heard, FY 2025 has been a year of records for Regis . The team delivered consistent operating performance, which has translated into record financial outcomes, strengthened the balance sheet, and, pardon me, with that, we are returning $38 million in dividends to shareholders, along with their participation in the high capital growth that they've seen over the last 12 months, at least. As we've demonstrated over the years, our capital allocation remains disciplined. With our unhedged position, strong gold prices, and an ongoing delivery against plan, we're confident in sustaining this momentum into the current FY 2026 year and beyond. With debt repay, we are well positioned to fund growth internally, maintain financial flexibility, and to continue to build and return value to our shareholders. Thanks for your time this morning. I'll now open it for questions.
Thank you.
If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. The first question comes from the line of Andrew Bowler with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
G'day, Jim and Anthony. First one from me, just around dividends. I couldn't find a formal policy in the documents you provided today. I was just wondering if there is, you know, a want of the board to provide a formal policy in time or is it going to be, you know, ad hoc over the next little while?
Look, we don't currently have a formal policy, obviously these things are always discussed. Internally we consider a number of metrics but at this point in time the board doesn't have a stated or unstated policy that we apply. We just look at what the cash and profitability has been at the business and look at what we see our requirements might be going into the future and make a decision on that. You'd have to say in the current environment, it's a very strong one for gold producers and that's why the board elected to make the decision to award or pay a dividend.
No worries.
Maybe one for you, Anthony. Thanks for that additional color about that $100 million lumpy debt payment i n the third quarter of this year.
Beyond that, is it meant to be, is it likely to be a more normal PAYG installment process from then on, or is $100 million that we're expecting this year in terms of cash tax?
No, you're right, Andrew. O nce we true up.
The bill of around $100 million for the tax payable going forward, we will start to make monthly repayment, monthly tax payments again.
No worries. That's all from me. Thanks Jim and Anthony.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you.
Next question comes from the line of Ali Harvey with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning team. Just on inorganic growth, I know you obviously hosed down speculation of those talks on acquiring the other 70% of Tropicana. Appreciate it. Challenging to answer questions on the topic, but perhaps you could just help us frame your views on acquisitions in the context of your comments in the release earlier this week. I suppose as to exactly what a d eal would be that would align with y our strategic goals and what accretive to shareholders means to you in your view. I suppose long term NPV earnings accretion, steady production, just help us put some numbers around it.
I think you probably just answered your own question there, Nel. Our view on anything that we look at or consider in terms of inorganic growth has to be accretive for our shareholders. If it's not accretive for our shareholders, the fundamental question is why would you do it? The elements that we look at in that are as you just described them, on an earnings per share basis, on a NPV or NAV basis. We would look at all of those as we do, as we have done in the past and we'll probably continue to do in the future.
Any of those, Jim, rank higher in y ours or the board's view?
Look, I think you'd have to say that the fundamental analysis would have to be overall, does the asset give you, is it accretive from a NAV point of view? You might do something that looks great for one year on an earnings per share basis, but then it's value destructive in the medium to longer term. I'm not sure why you would consider something like that. There might alternatively be something that's got great long term value but might look a little bit not accretive in the short term. Every single scenario has to be considered on a case by case rather than putting in a single measure that it must do this and it must do that. I mean it's like everything, Ali.
You just got to look at them at the range of ways that you assess the project and look at it on a case by case.
Yep, makes sense, Jim.
I suppose just to follow up there.
How does the upcoming judicial review on McPhillamys and the growth that could introduce into the portfolio impact the way you're looking at inorganic opportunities?
It's definitely part of the equation. In the judicial review that is currently scheduled for December, regardless of the outcome there, as I think we've said in the past, the McPhillamys project is a fantastic project. It is really good to have in our portfolio. Probably the most frustrating part about it is the timing that we could bring it in. I mean, if that project was running now, on its average all-in sustaining costs and the spot price of today, if you look at the maths, I think it's an average production of 180,000 ounces a year. Average all-in sustaining costs last year were $1,600 an ounce. Add a bit of inflation onto that, you could do the math. This thing would be generating at least $1 million, $1.5 million in cash a day if it was operating at the moment pre-tax on average.
So, do we think it's a valuable project? Absolutely we do. Unfortunately, this review has, as we said at the time, created a delay for us and we will pursue the judicial review. At the same time, we'll look to try and see if there's an alternative way to be able to store the tails. As we said last year, that work could take us at least four or five years. It's just not that easy. It's worth enough to us that it sits in our portfolio. From a timing perspective, it's at least a couple of years out. Even if the judicial review is successful, by the time that all plays out, we're talking a timeframe here that's sort of well out in front of us.
From that point of view, we like to look and consider what we might be able to do for other organic or inorganic growth options.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question comes from the line of David Coates, Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Morning Jim, Anthony and the rest of the team. Congratulations on great looking set of numbers this morning. Nice price. You know, question on the divvy and I don't know how much color you can give us, but in terms of capital allocation priorities, debt's gone. Dividend buybacks just sort of, maybe just a bit more color on how the decision to sort of pay a dividend was arrived at and how it kind of got above, I guess, sort of other uses of capital.
Yeah, sure. You just reminded me at the start of this, I meant to go back and recount the old Paul Keating statement that these are a beautiful set of numbers. Thanks for reminding me that I should be giving it a superlative because they are pretty good. Your question on dividends is a good one probably. Maybe I'll give a little bit of context around it. As I said earlier, we don't have a specific policy so you need to take that into account when I make these comments. When we looked at FY 2025, we saw it as a bit of a year of two halves, right? The first half of the year we really built up our cash. We had no hedging.
We did a great job of delivering into our plans and effectively what we did there, which was as we described through the year, the first objective was to pay down our debt, which we did early in the new year, which then says, all right, the second half of the year we were debt free building cash and we got to the end of half two and we were very comfortable and liked the way that the business was running. Of course, who wouldn't, and elected to pay a dividend. Without specifically saying that we have a policy one way or the other, it was certainly a case of the first half of the year we spent putting our money into paying down the debt and the second half of the year we looked at building up our cash and returning some dividends based on second half performance.
That'll be the view that we take as we look forward as to how we might be thinking about dividends.
Does a little bit, yes. The quantum, I mean, $38 million is just sort of seen as a manageable or affordable amount to pay out, given other, I guess, the potential uses of capital in the next 12 months. Is that sort of reasonable to say that?
Yeah, that's right. We just think it was sensible, we just think that it was a sensible point to restart our dividend repayments. I wouldn't like to describe it as, I won't describe it as dipping our toe in, but clearly we're in a strong, we're in a good financial position. We also wanted to basically keep some of our powder dry for our capital growth options.
Jim, you know, I'm just getting pretty bored of asking questions on M&A, but I'll ask another one. The gold sector's obviously, you know, pretty densely combed over at the moment, but would you consider any other commodities?
Would we consider any other commodities?
Consider adding exposure to any other commodities.
I think, yes, our response to that is we'd certainly look to. At the moment, we would look to and consider other commodities if it was something that was in combination with gold. We're definitely not looking to create an iron ore arm or a diamonds arm or something like that. If we discovered in the Lachlan Fold Belt or if we found the right M&A opportunity that had copper and gold combination, that certainly wouldn't scare us at all. That would be something that probably would be welcomed in. Would we go off and look for some non-gold related commodity on a standalone basis? That's certainly not something we're contemplating at the moment.
Fair enough. Okay, thanks Jim. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Dave.
Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Beyer for closing remarks.
All right, look, we'll leave it at that. Thanks everybody for joining us. We realize it's a pretty busy time of the year. Thank you for your questions as well. If anybody's got any follow up, please give us a call. Jeff's standing by and we'll do our best to answer. Thanks very much and have a good day.
Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.