Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the African Rainbow Minerals interim results announcement for the six months ended the 31st December, 2021. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal for an operator by pressing star, then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Jongisa Magagula, the Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jongisa.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm gonna start off quickly by introducing the ARM team that is around the table. We have Mike Schmidt, the CEO with us today. Then we have Tsundzukani Mhlanga, or Tu, as we call her, who is the Finance Director of ARM. We also have our two Chief Executives, Thando Mkatshana, who's the CEO of ARM Platinum as well as coal business, and Andre Joubert who's joining us. He's the CEO of ARM Ferrous. Then Jay. We've also been joined today by Phillip Tobias, who's joined us as the Chief Operating Officer of ARM. I'm not sure that you've all met him, but I think with time, you definitely will. Then Jay and myself are joining from investor relations side.
I have no doubt that you've probably had a chance to go through our numbers, and some of you might have joined the webcast this afternoon. We want to try and use the call as much as possible for addressing some of the specific questions that you may have or being directed in terms of the focus areas that that you'd like us to to spend some time on. I will just hand over to Mike and Tu who will make some opening remarks on the overall performance for the six-month period, and then we will move straight into Q&A. Over to you, Mike.
Thanks, Jongisa. A warm welcome to all of you who have joined us online. We are obviously very pleased around our safety results. It is an endless struggle in our quest and drive towards zero harm. We have realized this quarter improvements on all our safety indicators in most of our operations. Pleasingly Black Rock, which I believe is an industry first for a single operation, has achieved 10 million fatality free shifts, and that's taken nothing less than 14 years. Currently, we have at least six operations which are millionaires, if not multimillionaires. That's very, very pleasing on our journey. Regretfully, we did have a fatal at Two Rivers, and our real sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Jacob Pule. It was a fall of ground accident at Two Rivers.
Our absolute commitment is to Zero Harm and to continue to work with all our employees and stakeholders to minimize the occurrence of disabling injuries and certainly the occurrence of fatalities and fatal hazards. We are still operationally on the domestic front still being impacted with our volumes on the infrastructure and logistics and water supply. As most people on the call will realize, our overall dependence on the state-owned enterprises in terms of us being able to deliver. It is one thing to produce. If you cannot get metal to the market, you pay the price in more ways than one. Certainly the cost positions, unit cost positions hugely impacted because of that. Obviously we are in very volatile times, but the market volatility also makes planning and forecasting quite challenging.
Pleasingly, it's in the right direction for now, but that doesn't mean that's the sustainable view. That being said, we do remain confident in the metals we mine and produce. Maybe just a word on the headline earnings. Predominantly, it was a marked drop in iron ore prices. The PGMs were affected by what we call the mark-to-market correction from what you realized as a revenue recognition and post the pipeline, which you actually declared it in the books. There was quite a nice simplified explanation, I think, on slide 32. That being said, the cash generation pleasingly remained really solid. Commodity prices remained robust. All of our operations margins are nice and solid. Maybe a closing comment, the outlook remains very positive for the business as we stand.
I would want to hand over to Tu to take us through some of the financial slides, two or three, and then, as Jongisa alluded, rather focus more time and effort on questions.
Thanks, Mike. As we have reported, our financial performance, our headline earnings in terms of group earnings, we're down 27%, that is, compared to the prior corresponding period. Our headline earnings, group headline earnings, decreased to ZAR 3.7 billion.
If we look at the performance of the different divisions on ferrous, the decrease was 18% to ZAR 2.4 billion. Obviously that came off of the decline in the iron ore price during the period. On platinum as well, declined by 38% to ZAR 1.2 billion. As Mike mentioned, part of the reason is due to that mark-to-market adjustment, due to the come off of both the rhodium and the palladium price. On coal, seemingly, due to the rally in the coal price, increased to ZAR 351 million. In the prior corresponding period, we had a ZAR 222 million loss. That was quite a nice turnaround that we hope will continue.
In terms of dividends, the dividends that we declared was ZAR 12, which is a 20% increase off of the dividend, in the same period last year, ZAR 10 last year to ZAR 12 this year, 10% up. In terms of the dividends that we received from our underlying operations, we received ZAR 3.5 billion from Assmang, which is a 133% increase from the previous year. We received ZAR 459 million in dividends from Two Rivers, which is a 6% increase on the previous year. Recently we received dividends from Modikwa post them getting their loan. In the prior year, we didn't have any dividends that came to the company. Whereas in the six-month period, we're pleased to report that we received dividends of ZAR 415 million.
If we look at our financial position, I think the foremost thing that we have mentioned is the Bokoni deal that we are currently concluding or in the midst of concluding or process of concluding, which would be for consideration of ZAR 3.5 billion to be settled in cash to the Bokoni Platinum shareholders, being Atlatsa and Anglo. In terms of our group net cash, that improved by 35% to ZAR 11.1 billion. That also talks to the improvement in the net cash to equity ratio, which is now sitting at 24.6%. Our corporate cash and cash equivalents, that is sitting at ZAR 8.6 billion. That was as at the end of December.
We also report on the Assmang cash and cash equivalents balance at the end of December, which was sitting at ZAR 4.4 billion. That is on an attributable basis. Mike, I think that in terms of highlights for. Oh, yes. Earlier this week, we received an additional ZAR 2 billion from Assmang as a dividend. That came into our bank account on Monday. The numbers that we have reported in the results exclude that ZAR 2 billion dividend receipt. Thank you.
Okay, operator, I think back to you because I have to be mindful that we want to allow as much time as possible for questions. Back to you to take any questions from the audience.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone or the keypad on your screen. If you decide to withdraw your question, please press star then two to remove yourself from the list. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. We will pause to see if there are any questions. First question comes from Brian Morgan from RMB Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Brian.
Thanks very much. I had to miss most of the Q&A call this morning, so I apologize if I repeat anything that was asked. For some uncalled debt, if I look, number 12 of the financials, you've got ZAR 437 million sitting in long-term, ZAR 181 million sitting in short-term, so about ZAR 600 million. Is there anything else sitting in uncalled, owed to Glencore?
I think on slide we do show the total amount of what is uncalled and outstanding. I think we've got ZAR 1.5 billion as at [inaudible].
[inaudible] .
No, no. It's on slide 24. It's not broken down there between the two different entities, but the total amount that is outstanding is [inaudible] .
Current prices, that should be, pretty easy to get done this year, right?
Well, in terms of the current prices, it's always tough. It may then come down a bit, but no doubt it should payback very quickly. We modeled based on our outlook and our price assumptions; it was over a year or two years before we expect payback. Look, we obviously have had challenges on the operational side. All of this is contingent. We've had some challenges around moving volume. And again, you know, what is the port. We are seeing a little bit of an improvement to Transnet. But depending on how that stacks up. It's very good as far as that goes, but we've got to get the stuff to the port, right? Yes.
Yeah.
You have a business that's generating spot cash flows that is unencumbered.
Yeah, exactly. Mike, I haven't had a chance to ask you about Bokoni. I mean, you're talking first production 2026 and full production 2028. I think a lot of people's fears out there is that, you know, the EV revolution will be in full force by then. IC vehicles will be losing market share, and you might be in a bit of a death spiral for PGM demand. Is that something you subscribe to? Is that something you're concerned about?
I agree to your comment, and obviously it is a concern, Brian. The information that we've gone public with is very well contained in the presentation. There's obviously a lot of moving parts, particularly in terms of the DFS study, which has already commenced. The fact that we don't have the keys to the business, we haven't had a free rein to really fully comprehend what's possible. On the face value, the intention, Brian, is you will recall that Bokoni, at the time of closure, was predominantly mining Merensky out of Shaft [Concentractor]. That we looked at internally and decided for a number of reasons to park that to preserve it maybe another way, not to continue mining the Merensky.
What we've been looking at is to go back to Middelpunt Hill, where they were mining UG2 on a conventional basis. There are three levels which are well developed, open workspace availability. The thinking as we sit here, but it'll be concluded with the same, Brian, is that we would comfortably be able to get in there and produce and rapidly ramp up to about 50,000-60,000 tons comfortably within a year. We will process that all through the existing UG2 plant, which is fully functional and new, albeit smaller, to comfortably handle the 60,000 tons. This cradle study was around what do we do because we start literally from day one by doing what we call on-reef development. Now, that obviously comes pretty diluted and, that could have easily filled the mill.
That was the initial intention, is to keep the UG2 mill full with on-reef development, which would also quite rapidly build up to the 60,000 while we're doing the full conversion on the Merensky plant. I revert now. The current thinking is rather to stockpile the development reef, 'cause it's on-reef development, and focus on that, conventional ore body which is there and process that, at these prices it makes a sizable dent onto the overhead and the loan. If we can do that without compromising the conversion in the plant and without compromising our ultimate gain or drive is to get, established on a recognized drift layout or paired drift layout for opening up and rapidly opening stoping. We're certainly looking at that. Brian, I think that will bring a lot of early answers. Well, let me qualify.
It will bring early answers a lot earlier than what we've publicly gone out on. It's still subject to a due diligence study, which we'll conclude pretty quickly. That part of the study, maximum three months. We do need the keys to the property to engage various parties around the plant and the mining option. The intention with is we then stockpile all the reef development. Once the new plant is commissioned, which is approximately, Zandile you must help here, 18-24 months. You're sitting with quite a sizable amount of development reef. The thinking then there is to look at pre-concentration. That optionality or that study is also going on, Brian. Then we have a sizable stockpile in front of the new plant nose to process that into a seamless integration.
I think there'll be a lot of optimization going forward, Brian. You know, it's not something I could stand on the podium and say.
Of course. Where would you in the sort of that bigger phase that you were talking about, the original thing that you were talking about in December. Where were you going to or planning to sink that decline?
Out of the Brakfontein Shaft, we can use the portal access. At the second leg we are gonna put a triple decline down to the UG2. The vertical distance being under 90, so about 700 meters, 780 meters. It's a triple decline of very pure waste development to access the UG2. That's why we say Brakfontein, well, which is a Merensky Shaft, will be converted to a full UG2 plant. We are not gonna cannibalize or sterilize the Merensky. All that will be preserved, kept in place.
As and when the flipping starts moving, we may even, you know, advance some of that development to be really in a good position from a flexibility point of view, to swing between the one or the other, or combine both at whatever ratio we think is appropriate. To come back to your question, yes, we will access the existing Brakfontein Shaft with rapid high speed development. At this stage, we're looking at autonomous drill rigs operating on multi-blast conditions. If we go back to the Middelpunt Hill, and that's where I said we've got a challenge. I don't want to do the UG2 at the cost of utilizing the belt infrastructure, which is really not very big, at the cost of delaying the development onto UG2. We have. There's already a portal which is 200 meters up.
I think it's got 300 odd meters to go, what they call. They call it.
Klipgat.
No, no.
Klipgat.
Klipgat. It's called Klipgat portal. Now that, again, that development's about six months and another six months to establish the belt. Then we've got all the flexibility in the world to continue with the transition to UG2 whilst we even continue then mining that on a conventional basis. Brian, those are the studies and the thinking that's going on currently.
Okay, cool.
Phillip wants to say something.
Maybe just to add, Brian, to what Mike has said. The priority is basically to open up that UG2 block, you know, for that new transition strategy. Whatever else, whatever option that we have, we're going to weigh it against that. If we compromise that, it's going to be on the back burner in terms of the focus.
Brian, you would appreciate that we are converting this entire mine, like from a brownfield. We're simply changing the ore body, and we're starting afresh. We are gonna pick up the surface infrastructure. We're gonna do a massive change in the plant, absolute modern, look at focus on recovery, extraction. We're gonna look at beneficiation and. It's a full mine transition from what was historically a Merensky Mine, for all the good reasons at the time, and refocus on UG2. Hope that answers you, Brian.
It does. Thanks very much. Obviously, you know, I remember Amplats talking about the possibility of UG2 even 10 years ago at the Bokoni. They, you know, they've had a whole lot of stuff on the go and other options available to them. It is very high grade and still a big resource. Why do you think they would have opted to do other stuff rather than this?
Well, it hasn't shrouded itself in glory in terms of delivery over time. You will recall that its pure focus, which I could never criticize, had been platinum driven and hence the Merensky. The Merensky had two problems. It eventuated, you know, and that was hindsight's a perfect science. Firstly, there's been a major shift from what was platinum-based into palladium, rhodium. That's the first fundamental shift that transpired in the last five to seven years. They were not in that position to recapitalize. I don't believe their partners Atlasta had the capital to co-contribute. Anglo was keeping on pumping money disproportionately in that. Secondly, Anglo has their own operations. Anglo would even offset Modikwa for capital. You will recall those conversations if your operations are 100%.
I and you would have done exactly the same. That was the first problem. In the mining of this Merensky over time, the pothole intensity has really just kept on surprising on a downside surprise. Well-defined now, the pothole intensity is between 18% and 20%. The implications of that, you have to do 30%-40% more development. The other thing, practically, with handheld equipment, you couldn't develop fast enough to replace the stope faces which you were losing at an ever-ending game. You could never open up a panel and do extraction on those panels because of the pothole intensity. Pretty dismal in the region of 40%-50%. Now, in the years when they have been doing UG2, and obviously they have quite a strong drilling database.
In mining UG2 for the last, I think, nine years on a small basis, it's very, very clear that the UG2, while it's not as homogeneous, hanging wall is not as homogeneous, but the pothole intensity is between 8%-9%. All the work we've done supports that. There's a double whammy today and why we simply have to put a huge amount of capital to that. Merensky itself can't survive currently. The market fundamentals don't support it. You know, it's 70% Merensky, another is 50, where it's, you know, the swing now is more in favor of palladium and rhodium, it's 57%. Obviously, the UG2, the Merensky's about 4.5 grams a ton, and the UG2 is 5.7-5.8 grams a ton. All the right figures.
You and I know that there's gonna for years to come, and we must be prepared. We are looking at other mining methods to accommodate the high pothole intensity. There are some thoughts that we're not there, and we saw fit not to mine, even as an interim period today, not to go back to the Merensky.
Okay. Cool. Thanks, Mike. I had to jump off the call when Warren asked the question, in terms of what are you actually paying,
Jesus, Brian.
About ZAR 3.5 billion. Sorry.
Yeah.
Please go ahead, sorry. Hi, Brian.
Yeah.
Please go ahead.
Can I go?
Yes, please go.
Okay, cool. Sorry, I had to jump off the call when Warren asked the question about what you're actually paying in terms of cash.
Brian, we've had this debate. There is currently a shareholder's loan at the Bokoni mine level of 3.3. We are paying 3.5 to the existing shareholders at that percentage. That's what we're paying. What will happen over time is that when the operation starts generating cash, it will first service those loans, and we've got some flexibility in terms of the terms around that. It will service those loans, and once those are fully serviced, when I say service those loans means they will be paid, essentially paid back. Once those are fully serviced, the money will come back to ARM by way of a dividend.
I had a debate with Warren about this and the temptation to say your net hold is 3.3 against the 3.5, which I don't think is correct. We are paying 3.5. Those loans are pseudo equity, and essentially we are paying ourselves back. The advantage of those loans is that the cash will come back to ARM on a 100% basis first to settle those loans. When it starts coming back as dividends, obviously 15% of it will go to the external shareholders, being the 5%, industrialist, 5% that's going to the community, the 5% to Eskom. To the external party, which is the current shareholders, we are paying 3.5.
Brian, I know you've probably got another question, but I thought it was quite important that or Jongi. Jongi is fine. She's closer to the mic. Just explain the unredeemed CapEx and the losses from a tax point of view and a recovery point of view. For many years, post operations, this entity is likely to be in a good tax position because of what is available. We firmly believe based on our evaluation of the tax structure. From the six. Then we've got
Yeah. You ask, well, It is clear, Mike, I think this is a key part of the due diligence when we were conducting it. There's obviously capital allowances that are a part of the business from a tax perspective, and then there might be a bit of unredeemed losses that can be utilized for future benefits. We were quite conservative when we assessed our terms in the sense that we discounted what portion of it would be available for use. You know, there's potential for upside in so far as that we considered once these operations start generating cash. That is some value uplift or value unlocks that's associated with that.
Cool. That's it from me. Thanks, guys.
Thank you very much, Brian. Ladies and gentlemen, just another reminder. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. We will pause to see if there are any further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, just one final call. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. We will pause to see if there are any further questions before we conclude. Jongisa, at this time there are no further questions in the queue. Can I hand back to you for us to conclude?
Fantastic. Thank you very much. I think, you know, just to reiterate that, for everyone who is on the call, we are available beyond this call. If you've got any further questions, please feel free to drop me an email, and I'll pass them on to the team. I think just to wrap up, we believe that we are moving into a really exciting phase, in our path where we expect our diversified portfolio to fare well, particularly in the current volatile times. We've also got, you know, our different operations at different stages. Our iron ore operations have delivered fantastic cash flow, really great returns. They are at steady state.
We are mindful of the outlook for a pullback in the iron ore prices and will continue to kind of focus on making those operations more efficient and better from a cost perspective. We've made a significant investment in our manganese operations, which we really believe is going to bear fruit. That CapEx spend is coming to an end from that side. I think it will place these operations in a really great position on the cost curve, and it will be producing good quality grades which are in demand. We're excited about our PGM portfolio, which is gaining critical mass very quickly.
All of this is happening at a time where we are maintaining a really strong financial position, which is allowing us to grow but at the same time really deliver very competitive dividends to our shareholders. We keep our eye on and focused on creating value for all stakeholders, continuing to invest in our communities, and a wider stakeholder realm. We are really excited and confident about the outlook for our business. I think that's it then from our side. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon.
Thank you very much, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you very much for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.