First off, thank you very much for Willard Holdings for supplying the room for the annual meeting of GCM as well. Just a few preliminary comments. There will be a presentation by our CEO, Lombardo Paredes, and with assistance as well with Mike Davies. But what I'd like to do is go through the script that I have with me that our Vice President, Amanda Fullerton, has supplied me with. Once I get finished that, there'll be ample room and time for any questions the shareholders may have. So we won't forget your questions, and we'll definitely answer them. If you hold off until we get through the script, I'd appreciate it. Once again, welcome to the annual and special meeting of shareholders of GCM Mining Corp.
My name is Robert Metcalfe, and I am the Lead Independent Director on the board of directors of the corporation. In accordance with the corporation's articles, I will act as chairman of the meeting, with your consent, of course. As noticed in the notice of meeting and accompanying management information circular, due to the ongoing uncertainty related to public health impacts of COVID-19 this year, the corporation, as well as last year, we encourage all shareholders to submit their votes ahead of time and to view the meeting virtually rather than in attendance in person. Through Zoom meeting, which allows registered shareholders and proxy voters to attend virtually, but not vote, virtually. Only shareholders who voted ahead of time or who are present at the meeting in person may participate in the meeting.
If you are viewing the meeting over Zoom, you are welcome to submit questions through the chat function, which we will answer at the end of the meeting. When asking a question, please indicate your name and which entity you represent, if any. With me at the head table, we have Lombardo Paredes here, our corporation Chief Executive Officer, Mike Davies, our Chief Financial Officer, and Amanda Fullerton, our Vice President and Legal Secretary. Also here today from the board of directors is Belinda Labatte. We also have various directors of the company who are online here on the Zoom, and we have them there with us. We will deal with the formal business of the meeting before providing a brief presentation, as indicated, of the corporation's business.
I have appointed Amanda Fullerton to act as secretary of the meeting and would now ask the secretary to provide certain details of the meeting.
Thank you, Bob. This meeting of shareholders is called pursuant to the notice of meeting dated May 3, 2022. Unless there is an objection, I will dispense with the reading of the notice. I confirm that the notice calling this meeting, the accompanying management information circular, financial statements, and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2021, in the form of proxy, were mailed on May 13, 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on April 26, 2022. I tabled these documents prior to the meeting. The affidavit of mailing in connection with the mailing of these documents is also available for our inspection. The chairman has appointed a representative of TSX Trust Company as scrutineer for the meeting. The scrutineer's report has been completed and indicates that a quorum is present in person or by proxy.
Notice having been properly given and a quorum being present, I declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business as set out in the notice of meeting. Accordingly, the meeting will now come to order.
The first item of business is a presentation of the audited consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, together with the report of the auditor thereon. With the consent of the meeting, I will dispense with the reading of the auditor's report. The next item of business is to fix the number of directors of the corporation at 7 for the ensuing year.
I move to approve such resolution. May I have a seconder for the motion? Yes, I'll second the motion. Is there any discussion? If not, scrutineers advised that a majority of the votes cast by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy have been voted in favor of the resolution. I declare the resolution to set the number of directors at seven is approved, effective immediately.
Next item of business is the election of the following individuals as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their respective successors are elected or appointed. Serafino Iacono, Miguel de la Campa, Delia Blomquist, Hernán Martínez, Robert Metcalfe, Jaime Pérez Branger, and Belinda Labatte.
I move to approve such resolution. May I have a seconder for the motion? I'll second the motion. Thank you, Mike. Is there any discussion? The scrutineer has advised the majority of votes cast by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy have been voted in favor of this resolution. I declare the directors elected, effective immediately.
The next item of business is the reappointment and compensation of auditors for the ensuing year. KPMG LLP has been proposed for reappointment as auditor for the corporation for 2022 or until a successor is appointed at remuneration to be set by the board of directors of the corporation.
I move to approve such resolution. May I have a seconder for the motion?
Yes, I'll second the motion.
Thank you, Mike. Is there any discussion? Okay. The scrutineer has advised the majority of votes cast by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy have been voted in favor of the resolution. I declare the reappointment of KPMG LLP as the corporation's auditors to take effect immediately.
The final item of business is to consider, and if deemed advisable, approve and reconfirm the corporation shareholders' rights plan, dated as of January 2, 2019, between the corporation and TSX Trust Company as rights agent, as more particularly described in the accompanying Management Information Circular. Unless there's an objection, I will dispense with reading of the resolution aloud. I now ask for a motion that the resolution approving and reconfirming the shareholder rights plan, the full text of which is set out on page 22 of Management Information Circular, be approved.
Okay. I move to approve such resolution. May I have a seconder for the motion?
I'll second the motion.
Thank you. Is there any discussion? Scrutineer has advised that a majority of votes cast by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy have been voted in favor of this resolution. I declare the resolution effective immediately. That concludes the formal business brought before the meeting, as set out in the notice of the meeting. Is there any other formal business that anyone present wishes to bring to the attention of the meeting? If there is no further business to be brought before the meeting, I would ask for a motion that the formal portion of the meeting be terminated.
I move that the meeting now be terminated. May I have a seconder for the motion?
I'll second the motion.
Thank you. All in favor? All right. Opposed, if any? I declare the motion carried. This annual and special meeting of shareholders of the corporation is now concluded. Lombardo will now provide a brief presentation of the corporation's business, along with the assistance of Michael Davies. Following that, management will be available to answer any questions there may be by the shareholders. Please submit any questions using the Zoom chat function. When asking questions, please indicate your name and which entity you represent, if any. Thank you very much for attending. Lombardo, if you could, words for our shareholders.
All right. Thank you. I will present some brief description of the business of the Segovia mainly, which is our main producer of gold. We have brief appraisal how we are trying to do with Yanacocha. In Segovia, we are having a good start this year. In May, we have a strong month of about 18,000 ounces of gold. The expansion of Maria Dama plant to produce or to handle 2,000 tons per day is on the way, and it will be finished in July. There, we have filed our 19 conceptual plans in order that look for the possibility to expand, to make another expansion in Maria Dama. Remember, the Maria Dama at the beginning was something around 800 tons per day.
Now, it's 2,000 tons per day. We have conceptual plan to expand that to 3,000 tons per day. It will take probably two or three years to do that. It will depend on how the exploration program is progressing. Certain projects that we are implementing in Segovia, like the communication on the ground, Providencia Mine and Insolación Mine, which will allow the utilization of the mining structure of Providencia, and will help a lot. Definitely, it will allow us to improve the production capacity. The exploration program is proceeding. The results are promising. This year, again, we are going to spend something around $10 million in the exploration program, brownfield and greenfield.
The expectation is to be in capacity to have another mine, a fifth mine, probably in a couple of years to two years. It will depend on the final result of exploration campaign. Segovia in general term is we can say that this business is huge and we are going to have a good year in 2022. We are going to be very likely above the guidance. Segovia continues to be a good business. In Toroparu, we are progressing the project on a fast-track basis. So far, we awarded the contract for the BOO power plant. We awarded the contract. Well, we are going to sign the contract on June 28 for the mining contractor. The winner was a Spanish company.
We have the FEED study for the processing plant, and the facilities are balanced by Sedgman. Sedgman will also take care of the engineering and procurement of the processing plant. We are progressing on that with the long lead item. Because the long lead item is a critical factor in, you know, to finish the project on time. Because of the disruption in the supply chain, you know, the delivery times of certain items is a bit longer than expected. The critical equipment is the SAG mill, which the delivery time is around 15 months. The potential ports for the SAG mill are Cape Town, a Chinese port, and a Turkish port.
To bring that equipment from that port to Georgetown and to Toroparu, maybe it will take two months and a half. That potentially could introduce a delay of two months in the schedule of the project. In other words, now we are planning to have the first doré bar in March 2024. If we cannot deal with the delivery time of the SAG mill, then the first doré bar will be ready two months later. Well, we expect that we can deal with the delivery time. The two critical factors in the project are the road which go from a site called Itaballi to the mine site. That from Itaballi because all the equipment will arrive in Georgetown. It will come transported by barge to Itaballi.
From Itaballi to the mine site by road. It's a 200-kilometer road. We are revamping that road, replacing the wood bridges by steel bridges. We are repairing, you know, the crossing, the river crossing of the Waini River. In which probably we are going to put a steel bridge 100 meters long. But that part, it will depend how we deal with the government. You know, what concession you can say can we get from the government. Because our intention is that if we have made the revamping of the road, we are seeing if the government can impose some tolls in the roads. Also can put some control elements in that road.
Because if they do not do that, the maintenance of the road is going to be very expensive because the miners, the local miners and the loggers probably will destroy the road or hurt the road very heavily. Those are the factors we see. Another contract which is on the way is a contract, for we are now going to provide the fuel to the contractors operating in the mine. We are doing a bid with two companies. The company which will get the bid will provide fuel, storage of fuel, distribute the fuel, and manage the fuel. It is an activity which we will subtract from our capital project. It will be best for everyone.
We are not expert in managing fuel. We are not expert in mining open pits. That's the reason because we look for a company to do that. We are not expert in power generation, so we look for a company that they can do that. Those things will reduce the capital expenses of GCM in that project. ETK is going well. We already inaugurated the offices of ETK in Georgetown. The people moved to the new offices in this week. They're partly accommodated in a complex of apartments that we rented. We are transporting the people by plane from Georgetown to the mine. We need to revamp the airfield. We are looking to do that in the most economic way.
More or less it's a description of the project. We are doing the project on fast track. Means that we do not waiting for the PFS to start construction. Now that we have the river crossing ready in Puruni, we can transport all the element to start building the camp in the next couple of months. It's a camp which will allow to have the 500 people. Okay. This is more or less the situation in Guyana with the Toroparu project. If you have any question, please don't hesitate.
That's excellent, Lombardo. You certainly know your business well.
Thank you.
Okay.
Um-
Are there any questions or comments for Lombardo?
It doesn't look like we have any online questions.
Okay.
Not online either, so I guess that's the meeting everyone.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thanks very much for attending.
Of course.
I have no question about that project kind of stuff, but I have a financial question.
Sure.
It's a question I can't get a straight answer on from anyone, not from GCM. Back in 2017, you guys did that reverse stock split. 15 for one for fifteen. I was at a meeting back then. I go to very few meetings because I have a full-time job. I question the wisdom of that because I was afraid of something called naked short selling. I guess we were victims of naked short selling. Because after you guys went reverse, presumably to get institutional investors, because you have to be over $5 to get institutional investors, and then the stock crashed not long after that. Was that a naked short selling situation?
No. I remember in 2016, we came out of our debt restructuring in January. At that point in time, on a post-split basis, we would have only had about 1.5 million shares outstanding. You know, today we've got about 98 million. In 2016 and 2017, the real thing that hurt this company's stock and what we were reacting to was we had the convertible debentures, both the senior and junior, outstanding at the time. Particularly the junior, which were trading well below par in the market. We had a firm based in Toronto that was wreaking havoc on the trading of our shares because they had a strategy going on with respect to the junior convertible debt.
What they were doing was buying the junior converts in the market, converting them, but they were locking in our share price, roughly around $0.14-$0.15 at the time, and capping our stock while everybody else was going up. With so many shares outstanding, as that started to play out, because they were throwing shares in the market, ending up in weak hands and retail, we felt that the consolidation in 2017 was a way to take the firm out of the business and get us to a spot where we could get stronger shareholders, more institutional, and take away the significance of this retail weak retail base that it was creating.
If you look at our charts from 2016 through now, you know, during that period of time afterwards, we didn't see the share price fall back. We actually saw the share price starting to rise over time as the turnaround that was going on in Segovia was taking shape.
Okay. I have one other question. About the dividend. This is just a curiosity question. You guys pay a big dividend. Because I'm in the position now where I'm considering the dollar cost averaging to a significant level with my client, which is why I ask the question. How odd is it for a company your size to pay a dividend? What's your kind of thinking behind paying that dividend?
I think when for the longest time, we were reticent to do a dividend, obviously, in the turnaround, getting comfort around the strengthening of the balance sheet, reducing debt. In 2020, as the gold price started to reach new levels and get more comfort that those new levels were here to stay, and our cash flows at Segovia were a lot stronger as a result of the improvements that Lombardo and team have made, we started studying a dividend. Other issuers were starting to put dividends out, and we thought, "You know what? It's, we're getting a call from certain shareholders to start sharing some of that free cash flow that we were generating." We looked at it initially to, you know, sort of stick our toe in the water, go conservatively.
We initially announced a 1.5-cent dividend on a quarterly basis. Remember that we were still in the throes of the, I guess we'd call now, the earlier stages of COVID. We wanted to make sure that although we had the operations consistently working at that period of time, that there would be no sort of disruption because of a change in the pandemic situation. Quarterly was the way to start. As we got more comfort in the next couple of months, we got to what we'd always intended to do, which was to do it on a monthly basis to give that return to shareholders routinely. We still feel that we are, you know, at a decent spot with our dividends. We're paying out about, I guess, CAD 18 million a year, about $12 million.
The return has gone up as a result of the regression of the price over the last few months. It's hit all companies. When we look at comparators, we are in the top, you know, quartile of dividend paying companies, but there are several our size, Jaguar, Aura, Equinox, that are paying dividends which are actually more robust than ours. We plan to keep sort of steady state. You know, although we continue to see decent cash flow coming at these gold prices, we are building a project, so we're gonna continue to allocate capital.
Some to dividend, we have defensively been using some for normal course issuer bid, but we wanna continue to build the cash on the balance sheet because as Lombardo's building out Toroparu, we want to ensure that we constantly have comfort around fully funding of the project. We probably won't see a change in that dividend until 2024 when Toroparu's up and running, doubling our cash flow, doubling our EBITDA and our production, and we can reevaluate the dividend at that time.
I'm not concerned about a decreasing dividend now. I'm more concerned about is that gonna continue?
Yes. Yeah. I think when we set it, obviously we set that in December 2020 was when we announced we'd go monthly. We had already been studying the prospect of moving forward with Gold X. We knew that we'd be issuing more shares if we did succeed with that transaction. We set a rate. I think we demonstrated that even on the other side of the Gold X transaction, when the share count went up, it didn't dissuade us and cause us to pull back on the rate of the dividend. We'd set a rate that we were comfortable at. Even if gold goes down, we'll keep it at rate because that's our baseline, if you will.
Yeah, because I think it was 3% back in the day.
Yeah.
Sure.
We set a baseline.
Thanks very much.
Okay. Thank you for your questions.
Thank you.
Yes, there's no other questions on the line.
That concludes the meeting, and thank you for everybody attending. Once again, thanks for Boulevard Club for supplying their facilities here. For allowing me to see people in person. I didn't realize that there was a kind of discouragement of shareholders coming in. I was just excited that I had the day off today. I had a big favor to do in case I was off, but I said as long as I join, I can. It's not a discouragement, it's more as recognizing people are not coming in. We're back in the office now, and I'm thrilled. I'm including the OP extra. We're all there with you.