Good morning everyone. We'll get going. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited. I'm Sean Boyd. I'm the chair of the board of Agnico. As is our tradition, started by our former past chairman, Jim Nasso, who's here with his lovely wife, Jackie, we now will invite some Agnico representatives to welcome all of us to the meeting in some of the local languages where we operate. We'll start with Leona Aglukkaq, our board member, to offer a greeting in Inuktitut. Thank you, Leona. Now I'll call on Alexi Racicot-Ruel. Say hello to your dad. Alexi's father worked for us for a number of years in exploration, Marc Ruel, so Alexi will greet us in French.
Thank you.
[Non English Content]
Thank you, Sean.
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Thank you, John. {Non English Content} . Thank you, Jordan, and thank you all. Next I would like to acknowledge that today we're meeting on the traditional territory of many First Nations, including the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat. This territory is now home to diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, and is also part of Treaty Thirteen. I would also like to acknowledge that many of our activities take place on the traditional lands of indigenous peoples around the world. We recognize these peoples as being the traditional custodians of these lands, and we reaffirm our commitment to work with them to establish mutually beneficial, cooperative, and productive relationships.
As announced in the corporation's management information circular, we're conducting this as a hybrid meeting in order to allow registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders to participate in person and online. This meeting was called for 11, and it's past that time. I ask that the meeting now come to order. I would like to now acknowledge the head table and the other directors of the corporation who are here with us today and some other guests. Seated with me at the head table is Ammar Al-Joundi, our President and CEO, and also a Director of Agnico Eagle, Jamie Porter, Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and Chris Vollmershausen, Executive Vice President, Legal, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Thank you, gentlemen. Seated near the front are our other directors. Kindly acknowledge when your name is called.
Our Vice Chair, Jeffrey Parr, our Lead Director, Jamie Sokalsky, The Honorable Leona Aglukkaq, Martine Celej, Deborah McCombe, and Merfyn Roberts. Thank you all. Unfortunately, our other directors, Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, wasn't able to join us in person from Australia, and also Jonathan Gill and Peter Grosskopf could not, unfortunately, be here with us today. In addition, seated near the front are some of the participants in our Dr. Leanne Baker Scholarship and Development Program. You've already met and heard from Alexi and Ana Luisa. In addition, I'd like to introduce Laura Minera Carreón, Ashley Matthias, Felicity Davy, Felicity- Jane Borosanko, Olivia Palmer, and Tanis Trotto. Some of you know and have known Leanne Baker, and Leanne was a.
had a very accomplished career, and as a result of that, she was an excellent role model for those women starting in the industry and pursuing a career in the mining space. Leanne was a big contributor to the Agnico board. She was a close friend to many of us, and I'm sure, and we know that Leanne would be extremely proud of the program that was set up in her honor, but she'd also be even prouder of the participants that have come through the program and the current cohort.
These are an example of the outstanding talent we have in the company, and it shows you that our shareholders and employees are well-served by the leadership that the participants in the program have shown and continue to show and will show in the future. Congratulations, and welcome to the program. In accordance with the bylaws of the corporation, I'll preside as chair of this meeting. Mr. Vollmershausen will act as secretary of the meeting. With the consent of the meeting, Shirley Tom and Kate Stevens of Computershare Trust Company of Canada, that's the corporation's registrar and transfer agent, they'll act as scrutineers of the meeting. After the formal business of the meeting, I'll provide some informal remarks. Ammar will present a corporate update, and we'll follow that with a question and answer period.
In order to get things moving, Mr. Vollmershausen will move all the motions. Mr. Al-Joundi will second all the motions with respect to the business of the meeting. As this meeting is being held, both virtually and in person, we'll just set out a few procedures just so we can manage that properly and have an orderly meeting. In order to set that up, we'll turn it over to Mr. Vollmershausen to go over the procedures.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will now outline the procedures for the orderly conduct of this meeting. Participants may also refer to the virtual meeting user guide, which included instructions on how to attend, vote, and ask questions at this meeting, and is available under the corporation's profile on the SEDAR+ website and on the corporation's website. For those participating online, questions in respect of a motion can be submitted by any registered shareholder or duly appointed proxyholder using the instant messaging service of the virtual meeting portal. Questions that relate to a specific motion must indicate which motion they relate to at the start of the question, and they must be submitted prior to voting on that motion.
If questions do not indicate which motion they relate to or are received after voting on the motion, they may be addressed during the general Q&A session at the end of the meeting. For those of you here in person, you will be given the opportunity to ask questions in respect of each motion. When given the opportunity, please raise your hand to indicate you have a question. Once acknowledged, please clearly state your name and identify yourself as a shareholder or proxyholder prior to asking that question. For those participating online, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot. If you had submitted your vote prior to this meeting, there is nothing for you to do unless you wish to change your vote.
Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders who have not previously voted or who wish to change their votes will be asked to vote on each item of the virtual meeting portal by accessing the Vote tab. To vote, select your voting direction from the option shown. Please note you will only have a limited amount of time to vote. For those participating here in person, we will conduct the vote on all matters by ballot. All registered shareholders and proxyholders have been provided with color-specific ballots for each resolution. You should record your vote in respect of each resolution on the applicable ballot when so directed. The scrutineers will collect the completed ballots towards the end of the meeting. With respect to Q&A, for those participating online, questions may be submitted by any registered shareholder or duly appointed proxyholder using the instant messaging service of the virtual meeting portal.
If several questions relate to the same or similar topic, the chair may group the questions and state that we have received similar questions. For those here in person, you'll be given the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session at the end of the meeting. When given the opportunity, please raise your hand to indicate you have a question. Once acknowledged, please state your name and identify yourself as a shareholder or proxy holder prior to asking the question. We will try to answer as many questions as we can that are submitted online and asked here in person. The chair has broad authority to conduct the meeting in a manner that's fair to all shareholders and may exercise discretion in the order in which questions are asked and the amount of time devoted to any particular question or shareholder.
If we are unable to answer your question during the meeting today, we will endeavor to respond to you after the meeting.
Thank you, Chris. I confirm that I have received a sworn affidavit of an officer of Computershare Trust Company of Canada stating that the Notice of Meeting, the Management Information Circular, and a form of proxy have been sent and made available to each shareholder, each director, and the auditors of Agnico Eagle. The affidavit has been signed by Computershare, and I direct the secretary of the meeting to keep a copy of the affidavit with the minutes of the meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I will dispense with reading of such notice. Scrutineers have advised me that prior to the meeting, proxies were received from holders of a sufficient number of shares to constitute a quorum. I therefore declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business.
I direct that the formal report of the scrutineers be annexed to the minutes of this meeting as a schedule. The first item of formal business is the presentation of the audited financial statements of Agnico Eagle for the year ended December 31, 2025, and the auditor's report on these financial statements, both of which have been previously made available to the shareholders of the corporation. If anyone would like a copy of these financial statements, additional copies are available here today. I now place before the meeting such financial statements and the auditor's report. Questions regarding these statements will be entertained at the end of the meeting during the Q&A session. The next item of formal business is the election of directors of the corporation. The articles of the corporation provide for a minimum of five and a maximum of 15 directors.
The board of directors has determined that the total number of directors to be elected at this meeting shall be 11. I now declare the meeting open for nominations. May I have nominations, please?
I nominate as directors of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, the Honorable Leona Aglukkaq, Ammar Al-Joundi, Sean Boyd, Martine A. Celej, Jonathan Gill, Peter Grosskopf, Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, Deborah McCombe, Jeffrey Parr, J. Merfyn Roberts, and Jamie Sokalsky, all as named in the Management Information Circular dated March 19th, 2026, and move that they be elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual shareholders meeting following this meeting or until their respective successors are elected or appointed.
May I have a second for the motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you. Under the bylaws of the Corporation, any additional director nominations for today's meetings were required to have been received by no later than the close of business on April 1st, 2026. As no such nominations were received by the Corporation prior to that date, there are no further nominees eligible to stand for election today. Accordingly, I now declare the nominations closed. You have heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? Anything online? No. If there's no further discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion. For those participating virtually, you may now vote online. If you voted prior to this meeting, there is nothing for you to do unless you want to change your vote. For those here in person, you may now vote on the motion by ballot.
You should record your vote in respect of the election of directors by making an X in the box entitled For or Withhold, as the case may be, in respect of each of the proposed nominees on the blue ballot, and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot. The scrutineers will collect your ballot later in the meeting. The next item of formal business is the appointment of auditors of Agnico Eagle for the current year. It is proposed that Ernst & Young LLP chartered accountants be reappointed as auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders of the corporation or until their successors are appointed and that the auditor's remuneration be fixed by the board of directors of the corporation. May I have an appropriate motion?
I so move.
May I have a second to the motion?
I second the motion.
You have heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? Anything online? If there's no further discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion. For those participating virtually, you may now vote online. As we said earlier, if you voted prior to the meeting, there's nothing for you to do unless you wish to change your vote. For those here in person, you may now vote on the motion by ballot. You should record your vote in respect to the appointment by auditors by marking an X in the box For or Withhold, as the case may be, on the yellow ballot, and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot. The scrutineers will collect your ballot later in the meeting.
The next item of formal business to consider at the meeting is the non-binding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive comp. May I have an appropriate motion?
I move that the resolution approving, on an advisory basis, the corporation's approach to executive compensation, as set out in Appendix B to the Management Information Circular dated March 19th, 2026, be approved.
May I have a second to the motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you. You have heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? In the room, nothing online. If there's no further discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion. Those participating virtually, you can now vote online. Again, if you voted prior to this, there's nothing you need to do unless you wish to change your vote. Those here in person, you may now vote on the motion by ballot. You should record your vote in respect to the resolution approving on an advisory basis the corporation's approach to executive comp by marking an X in the box entitled For or Against, as the case may be, on the purple ballot, and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot.
As that concludes the voting on each of the motions today, for those of you here in person, would you kindly hold your completed ballots in the air for the scrutineers to collect? Those participating online, please ensure you have entered your vote through the virtual meeting portal. While the scrutineers collect and tabulate the results of the ballots taken, we will adjourn the formal business of the meeting. We'll announce the results of the voting when we reconvene. During this short adjournment, I am pleased to present the Paul Penna Award. This is the 19th year of the Paul Penna Award for Community Service.
As many of you know, Mr. Penna was the founder of Agnico Eagle, and he was widely noted for his philanthropy and his concern for the well-being of his employees, but also the larger communities and the communities in which we operate. There's a picture of Paul in the old Royal York Hotel at the library room, a dashing figure. He loved nothing better than to host his shareholders at the annual meeting. This was the highlight day of his year, hosting a dinner the night before with his retail shareholders and coming and presenting the story. What we'll do is we'll go through the slides, and we'll bring up our award winner. Our winner is Hunter Davis. I had the opportunity to meet Hunter ahead of time. I thought he was security for the room.
Big, a big man, looks like a policeman, and I can tell a policeman 'cause my dad was a policeman. You can pick them out of a crowd very, very easily. Hunter has done an exceptional job in his community. He works in asset protection at our Detour Lake mine. He's an exceptional individual. He's made significant contributions, as we said, to the community. Since January 2020, Hunter has served as an auxiliary, a police officer with the Cobourg Police Service in Cobourg, Ontario, just down on Lake Ontario, contributing almost 1,000 volunteer hours in support of the community. His service spans food security, public engagement, crime prevention, emergency response, delivering lasting social and economic impact to the city of Cobourg.
He's participated in Touch-a-Truck events, which creates positive, approachable interactions between police and the community. He supports community toy drives. He's led 35 Cram a Cruiser events, collecting food for the local Northumberland Fare Share Food Bank. He also supports people at their most vulnerable, participating in searches for missing people and participating in door-to-door canvassing activities. Hunter's service reflects the enduring spirit of our founder, Paul Penna. We wouldn't be here without the foundation that Paul created, that strong foundation and base of not only working hard and delivering for shareholders, but also being focused on the benefits that we all have to give back and contribute to communities, and we'll talk a little bit more about that.
For these reasons and more, we are proud to announce Hunter is the winner of the 19th annual Paul Penna Award. Hunter, thank you for your community service, your inspiration to your colleagues. Hunter would like to say a few words.
Oh, a speech. Okay. Thank you, everyone. I just want to say thank you to Agnico Eagle for making this kind of stuff possible. I look forward to continuing this in the future. Thank you. Thanks.
In addition to Hunter, the beauty of the Paul Penna Award is it really focuses our entire employee group. We have 18,000 employees. And it focuses our attention on the work that many hundreds and thousands of individuals are doing in the community. In addition to our winner, Hunter, we have there are several regional finalists that were selected from the nominations we received in each region. There's a lot of really good work that's being done. Each of these year's regional winners and finalists really demonstrate the spirit that Paul had in terms of community giving and community back.
Each year, Agnico donates $10,000 to the charity selected by the Paul Penna winner. Hunter's charity of choice this year was the Northumberland Fare Share Food Bank. Thanks for that, Hunter. We can now reconvene the formal part of the meeting to proceed with the remaining business. The secretary has advised me that the scrutineers have tabulated the results of the ballots conducted earlier, both online and in person. I'm pleased to report that the election of each of the directors. The appointment of the auditors and the nine non-binding advisory vote on approach to executive compensation have each passed. If any shareholder is interested in the exact number of votes cast with respect to each of these motions, they may attain particulars after the meeting by contacting the secretary.
We will also issue a press release and file a report of the voting results at this meeting on SEDAR+. As there's no further business that may be properly brought before the meeting, I will now ask someone to move and someone to second a motion that the formal portion of this meeting now terminate.
I so move.
May I have a second to the motion?
I second the motion.
I declare that the formal portion of this meeting is now terminated. We'll now move to the corporate update, followed by a question and answer period. Before we begin the presentation, it's important that we caution you that it may include and will include some forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations, but are naturally subject to assumptions and uncertainty and risks and changes in circumstances. Certain factors may cause the corporation's actual results to be materially different from the expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The corporation is not under any obligation to update the forward-looking statements in today's presentations. Please see the disclosure included at the beginning of the presentation for additional details on that. Boy, I'd have trouble. I used to be able to read that. I can't even see it now.
It looks like a blur. So, what we'd like to do is talk about. I'll talk a little bit about concept that, in addition to generating above average returns for our shareholders for an extended period of time, one of the benefits, as we said earlier, is that on top of delivering for our shareholders over the long term, one of the real benefits and privileges of our jobs at Agnico Eagle and our employees on the sites is to provide important benefits to communities and build value and create opportunity within communities. We do that by focusing on a regional strategy, which certainly works from our shareholders, and Amar will talk about that, but it also works on creating community.
This is just simply good business, but it's something that we've perfected over the years, we're proud to be able to do. We do it in Finland, we do it in Mexico, we do it in Australia, we do it in Canada. I'll use a particular example here today. Because of the upcoming announcements around the Hope Bay project, I'll talk a little bit about Nunavut. Nunavut's timely because of its significance in this country, Canada now, and what it means in terms of the future for Canada, as long as we work together and responsibly develop the opportunity in a way that uplifts the community. We see our role.
It's interesting how, you know, having been here for over 40 years, there were many portions of that time where mining was sort of off to the side. It wasn't considered that important. It was viewed in some, in some instances as an industry which created harm, et cetera. I think that's partly on us as miners. We didn't do an effective job of communicating the benefits that we see every single day when our employees are running their business and growing their businesses. It's funny how we find ourselves now, given where the country is, given as the country and our leadership looks at opportunities to create value and build the economy, mining's back in the forefront.
Given that we're the largest mining company and have been in business in Canada for almost 70 years, we're in a perfect position. When you add on our expertise in the North and what we've been able to do in terms of building the size of the business but also contributing to the community, we're also in an enhanced position to make a difference, not only to the country, but more importantly to the community. As we've always looked at mine building as community building. That's extremely important because we're working with our partners in the community, and in fact, our employees live in the community. In the instance of Nunavut, given the size of our business, the importance of our business, the location of Hope Bay, this has become more than community building.
It's become nation building. When we look at the opportunity of Hope Bay, which we'll talk about in a month, there's no better example of what this country can do and needs to do and how we can sort of collectively work together and do big things in the North and make important things happen for communities. Hope Bay is gonna demonstrate that in a few weeks when we all go up and announce what we're gonna build there. If you recall, the original thesis was that we would pick that project up when our federal government said they did not want a Chinese-owned mining entity to own it. Agnico picked it up within a couple of weeks due to some good thinking and some hard work, with the theory that it would grow.
We've invested a lot of time with our people and hard work on rethinking but also drilling easier. The theory proved out. It grew. It's gonna be an important pro-production base. Our sense, based on what we see geologically, but just really based on our experience of having done this before, that type of property package suggests to us that it's a multi-decade large business. Gonna generate benefits not just for Agnico and its shareholders, but also for the communities, our Indigenous partners, and also for Canada. What we'll be talking about when we go up there in the North, and we will have members of government, members of community, our Indigenous partners there.
We'll not just be talking about the financial benefits that will flow from this mine, but we'll also talk about Agnico's investments in housing, where we're helping the Nunavut government logistically build modular homes. We'll talk about Agnico's additional investment in food security, where we currently fund programs which feed thousands and thousands of young Nunavummiut when they show up for school each morning. We'll also talk about the investment Agnico just made in the new Inuit Nunangat University, which is expected to see its first cohort of Inuit students in 2030.
Agnico announced last week in Ottawa that we're going to invest 10 million in Inuit Nunangat University. That's an outcome of our former Chairman, James D. Nasso, who understood the importance of education, saw a void, wanted to enter the conversation, suggested back in 2015 that we should invest 5 million. With inflation, it became CAD 10 million. We announced 10 million last week. That's an important initiative because there's nothing more important, not just education, but hope for young people, particularly in the far North, that they can stay at home and continue their education and develop into the leaders that are needed to drive that growth and build those businesses for the benefit of the communities in the North.
This is our formula because this formula delivers on the promise that we made to our shareholders and our employees in the communities in our mission statement. Build a business that drives those above-average returns to our shareholders, but also makes it an important place to work for our employees, but also does great work in the communities and brings those communities together and helps to uplift the communities. Our people really drive this. Without our people, that's one of the things, you know, being in the position that we're in, senior executives, the one thing we've said over decades is we never have to worry about what our people are doing in the communities. In fact, we sit back, and we can be proud knowing that they're doing the right thing in the communities. We're very fortunate. We'll just mention The Arctic Edge.
This is the second year, and this is something that has been driven by our communications group and our team. We established The Arctic Edge podcast to allow members of the Inuit community and the Nunavut community to tell their stories. The stories are compelling. There were 10 podcasts. There'll be five podcasts this year. It's worth a listen. Worth a listen to develop a perspective. What we wanted to do was showcase the resiliency, the strength, and the potential of not just the communities, but the young people in the North. This will do that. If you have an opportunity, you knw, please check it out. I'll turn it over to Ammar. He can get into the share returns, et cetera, to demonstrate we're delivering.
I also want to take the time to thank Amar and his team. They're exceptional executives. They've done a trem endous job of continuing to build on the foundation and build a fabulous business that's not only generating for its shareholders, but is positioned to do more in the communities as we think about Canada and what Canada needs to do. Amar, over to you.
Well, it's always a pleasure to be here. I know this is our AGM, when I look around, this is mostly family. These are mostly friends, coworkers, and really the family of the company. It's 11:40. There's gonna be lunch. It's Friday. I know all of you are hoping that my speech is gonna be as short as Hunter's speech, but it'll be a little bit longer than that. I've got a few slides, again, because really this is family here. I wanna talk a little bit and build on what Sean said about the company, and what we're all about. In 2010, I interviewed for the job of CFO at Agnico Eagle. I had two interviews.
First interview was over a cup of coffee with Sean Boyd. You just saw Sean. Very quickly in that interview, I decided, "Look, I could work for this guy for the rest of my career." He's that type of person. I was 46 years old. My second interview was a lunch with Sean and James D. Nasso. They talked about the business, and they talked about the potential and what they were doing. True story, what they talked a lot about was Nunavut. Because this is 2010, and Agnico had just made a big commitment, and it was brand new. Most of the lunch was about Nunavut, and it wasn't about how much money we're gonna make in Nunavut. They used the phrase nation-building.
This is the opportunity for Agnico Eagle to really contribute to Canada, and help build the nation. That's what I remember from that 16 years ago. Sean and Jim are saying the same thing 16 years later. We have made a difference. We are roughly 25% or 30% of the GDP now of Nunavut. In May, you know, we'll be announcing probably, Tanya, you have to cover your ears, but a big investment in Nunavut. It hasn't stopped there. Now Sean is the chairman of one of the biggest companies in Canada. He does a lot of work in that role.
Really what he's been doing for the last couple of years as an individual, as much as a Chairman of our company, is spending time with Canadian politicians, with the people who set policy, to promote the North. A $10 million investment in a university, breakfast for every child in Nunavut. These are initiatives that aren't sort of complicated corporate initiatives where we sit down and talk about things. These are things where Chairman says, these are the right things to do. I'll give you one more example and then I'll jump into the work stuff, but don't worry, it's not that long. It's a true story.
A few years back, I happened to be in Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, and I was staying at the sort of one hotel there, and I went downstairs at about 7:00 in the morning to, you know, get a cup of coffee, and there was a TV in the lobby. Those of you who have been in that hotel know what I'm talking about. On the news was that, the water supply in Iqaluit had just been contaminated. I think an old diesel tank had leaked into the water supply. It was on the news. Basically, you know, that's a big problem for the major city up in Nunavut. As I'm watching the news, and this is brand new, I get a call from Sean, again, sort of seven in the morning.
He says, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm, you know, working hard, of course. What do you think I'm doing?" He said, "Are you watching the news?" I said, "Yeah, I happen to be watching the news." He said, "Has the flight..." 'Cause we have flights every day from Montreal to Val-d'Or, taking our people, taking goods up to Nunavut.
He says, "Has the flight left from Montreal yet?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "Well, find out, and if it hasn't left, true story, he said, "Tell our people to go to all the Costco in Montreal, buy all the water they can, take our stuff off the plane, put the water on the plane, and fly it up to Iqaluit."" Probably within about six, seven hours, we had water up in Iqaluit, where the Canadian government was still trying to figure out what to do. That stuck with me because I like to think I'm a good guy, but I was watching the news, never occurred to me.
You know, I think, I think a lot of, a lot of people talk about culture, but I think Agnico Eagle and our chairman and our previous chairman, you know, walk the talk. With that, let me jump into our business. If you take a look at this chart, this is over 20 years. In any one year, I would come up and say, "Well, we've had a great year," or, you know, if we didn't, I wouldn't mention anything. It's hard over 20 years to look at something and say, "Why are you double the industry average over 20 years?" You know, our compounded return is about 13%. The gold equity index is about 3%.
Interestingly, we're 50% higher compounded year over year than the S&P. I don't think a lot of people would know that. I think a lot of people don't know that gold has outperformed the S&P, compounded over 20 years. How does that happen? One has to sort of sit back and say, "How do you make that happen consistently for 20 years?" I'll talk quickly about our, about our strategy and why I think it works. Some of you have seen this before, but that's okay. We should be talking about the same strategy. It's a consistent strategy. Really, it's the same strategy we've had for almost 70 years, which is where a lot of our peers. I always preface this by saying our peers do a great job. They're very smart people.
They just have a slightly different strategy. Most of our peers will consider themselves global gold mining companies. They will go anywhere in the world to build a gold mine. There's a certain logic to that. If you wanna be a big international miner, you sort of. There is a logic to say, "Well, I've gotta go where the ore is." I get that. That's an okay strategy. Agnico's strategy is different. Agnico's strategy has always been a regional strategy. We'll go anywhere in the world, but only to certain regions. Those regions have to, of course, have the geologic potential. They have to have the geologic potential for multiple mines, not just one mine. It has to have the political stability to allow you to operate multiple mines over multiple decades.
Agnico's been doing this a long time before I got there, and as I was honored to get hired as the CFO and then President and eventually my current role, I reflected a lot on this because I had worked for other very good mining companies. But what was the secret sauce at Agnico? To me, this just makes a lot of sense. If you ask yourself what makes yourself a good miner, you assume people are equally smart, equally hardworking, because there are a lot of smart, hardworking people out there, what gives you a real competitive advantage? That is, in our business, do you know the ground better? Do you know the suppliers better? Do you have less turnover because you've been, you know, the employer of choice for 50 years?
You know the contractors better. I could go on and on. What I'm really saying is I think this gives us a real competitive advantage. I think, frankly, some of our peers are coming to the same conclusion. You know, in the world, if you think about, as we assess where are the best places in the world based on geologic potential and political stability, we think it's Canada, we think it's Australia, we think it's Mexico, we think it's Northern Europe, and there are a few other places that we would look at, but these fit the bill. Although I do have a question for you, Sean. When we respectfully ask people in all the regions we work to introduce and say greetings in their local language. Why didn't we do that for Australia?
Bad joke. Sorry, couldn't resist. If you take a look at how we've grown our business on the right, impressively over the last 20 years, Agnico's grown gold production by a factor of 14. We can hold our heads up high and say, "Look, we've grown this business exceedingly well." The truth is, we don't get paid to grow the business. We get paid to grow value for our owners. By definition, our owners have a position in shares. Our job isn't to grow the company, our job is to grow value per share. One of the ways we do that in our business is growing production per share. Buying things is not hard. Growing production is not hard because you just buy companies. Growing production per share is very hard.
Over that same 20 years, we've grown production per share by about a factor of three. That's pretty good. That's hard to do. Our peers' production per share over the last 20 years is down 50%. Our production per share is up by a factor of three, and honestly, that's why we've got a 13% compounded annual growth rate when our peers at around 6.3, at least in my opinion. We've grown our EBITDA per share by a factor of almost 20 and increased the dividend by a factor more than 50. The strategy works. As this is the AGM for 2025 and a reflection on 2025, what did we do in 2025?
Well, first of all, we had an exceptional run-up in the gold price, and I'm proud to say that not only are we creating value by growing production per share, but we're also delivering the leverage of gold price increase to our owners. In 2025, the gold price went up $2,000. Our costs went up about $70. We were able to deliver in the neighborood of 97% of that increase to our owners. That's something that we should be proud of, and that's something that comes from the work of our teams.
Through that high gold price, good production, good cost control, we returned almost a $1.5 billion Dollars to our owners through dividends and share buybacks, while at the same time, we paid down almost $1 bllion dollars of debt and ended the year with $3 billion dollars of cash on our balance sheet. You can look at all the nu mbers in the charts, they're all exceptional. Of course, a big part of that was the increase in gold price. I do think that we should be proud that as the gold price went up, we continued to control our costs, we continued to deliver the production, we did it safely, we did it responsibly. We're gonna continue to grow value for the company.
I just highlight a few of the deals that we've done over the last five or six years that have contributed value. In Quebec, we bought the second half of the Malartic Mine, Canadian assets of Yamana. We bought the first half of that in 2014. We bought the second half in 2013. In Ontario, we merged with Kirkland Lake, a great company with some great assets. We are building the Upper Beaver Mine. We're looking at Hammond Reef. We're expanding Detour Lake. We're upgrading Macassa. At Nunavut, Sean said we acquired TMAC from the Chinese. Since then, the team has done an exceptional job, and we're gonna be announcing some good news in about a month. The chart on the right is kind of interesting.
If you take a look at how we've created value with those acquisitions, there are many ways to express this, but a simple way to just look at the additional gold that we found, that Guy and his team have found since the acquisitions. Since the acquisitions at Canadian Malartic, the total gold, and I'm not supposed to add up all the numbers, but between family, I will. Chris, you might wanna cover your ears. You know, we've grown from a total of 12 million in all categories to 34 million ounces, including what we've mined, an increase of 22 million ounces. There's not a lot of mines in the world that have 2 million ounces. Detour has grown from 19 million ounces to 47 million ounces. Those two mines, growth alone is 50 million ounces.
That's a lot of value added. In Hope Bay, we've really just started that journey. That is going to be a world-class, I can't give numbers yet, but a world-class mine that's gonna run for decades. Finally, I'll end with the growth story hasn't stopped. Got two lines here. On the top, on the top line, you have Canadian Malartic, which we think will be able to get to 1 million ounces a year. You have Detour, which we think will be able to get to 1 million ounces a year. We've got Upper Beaver that we're building, although we haven't announced that we're building. We have Hope Bay, and we have San Nicolas. Those mines alone will produce between 1.3 and 1.5 million additional ounces of production over the next 10 years.
There's gonna be some depletion from other assets, but those mines will allow us on a net basis grow production by 20% to 30% over the next decade. At current gold prices, we'll be able to do that and probably buy back shares at the same time. It's one thing to have grown from 240,000 ounces to 3.5 million in increased production per share when you start with one mine. That's tough, really tough to grow production per share when you're starting at 3.4 million ounces, and we're gonna be able to do that. Finally below, between the Finnish platform that we're consolidating, Hammond Reef, some additional optimization at Detour Lake, some other assets that we own.
You know, we're not talking about these publicly, but we're working on them, and we're gonna continue to grow. With that, I just wanna thank once again everybody for attending today. I wanna thank everybody who I work with because I really do work with the best people. Sean, who I know this because he's the Chairman, I might be sucking up to the Chairman, but I mean it. Sean, you know, thank you not just for being a great Chairman and building a great company, but for what you're doing for Canada, building Canada. Thank you.
Thank you, Marc Ruel. Thank you so much. Now it's time to take questions from our shareholders and proxy holders. Those of you online, you may submit those questions online. There's an instant messaging service on the virtual meeting portal, use that. For those in person, if you want to ask a question, just raise your hand that indicate you have a question. Once you're acknowledged to ask the question, please clearly state your name and identify yourself as a shareholder or proxy holder prior to asking your question. There's one in there.
Hi, I'm Paul Durnin from Burlington. I have two questions. First of all, what about getting some rare earth metals as a byproduct of what you're doing? Or maybe that's a totally different piece of geology. I'm guessing on that.
Well, that's a good question, and it's timely. Because Agnico's had a small team of experts over the last three years or so, looking at the critical metals landscape. That's a challenging thing to do when you have such a important gold business. You don't wanna distract from that gold business. We've been very careful in how we've moved that initiative forward. I think it's important to say I'm actually the chairman of Avenir Minerals, which is the critical metals small group at Agnico. The thing that we are so laser-focused on is making sure there's a clear separation, there's no gray areas, everybody knows what they're doing.
Where this is headed is that, we're launching this vehicle so that it can be self-sustaining, self-funding, be able to access its own capital, and it's on the way to doing that. We see that as a minority-owned subsidiary of Agnico as that company does its deals because what we don't wanna do is hamper that company. If it's too close to Agnico from an equity perspective, then things will stick to Agnico. There'll be a lack of clarity on that vehicle. Those are very smart and talented people that have worked with Agnico for a long time that are now taking on this initiative. We'll be crystal clear that that won't take away from the focus of the Agnico team.
We'll be focused on building the big business, but that critical metals group will continue to move that initiative forward in a way where Agnico becomes a minority owner because they brought in additional equity and additional ownership interest in that group.
Okay. Just another quick question. Why are you not in Nevada with the other biggies? Is there reasons for that?
I missed that. What was that?
You have no presence in Nevada.
Nevada?
Yeah. Is there a reason why you don't want Nevada?
Well, I think you have to look at the history and where companies operate and where companies have expertise. I think that, as Agnico was building its business and focusing on the LaRonde mine, a world-class deposit in Quebec, we had two major large gold companies that were focused on Nevada. When Barrick and Newmont were focused on Nevada, Agnico was focused on Northern Quebec, and we had a revenue base of CAD 50 million. We were quite small in the big picture, and by the time we got to the stage where we could take a keen and more serious interest in Nevada, a lot of the big, large deposits were taken. What we did is something different. We looked closely at Nevada, and we looked closely at Nevada joint venture with Barrick and Newmont.
We looked at it from Barrick's perspective and their percentage interest in that joint venture, we said. This was a few years back. We sat around and said, "Well, isn't that interesting? Barrick's sitting on a joint venture interest that produces 2.1 million ounces to Barrick's account. It has 80 million ounces of reserve and resources, something like that." We thought we have an opportunity to create something better than Barrick's interest in the Nevada joint venture. We have an ability to do that in Canada. We have an ability to do that from Detour down through Kirkland Lake across to Val-d'Or. That's essentially what we set out to do, and that's essentially what we've done.
If you look at what we have from Detour to Kirkland Lake with Upper Beaver and Macassa across to the east of Val-d'Or with Canadian Malartic and Goldex, and LaRonde, and add Detour in there, we've got production of over 2 million ounces that's growing. In that region we'll have, we have two of the top 10 gold mines in the world, that have the potential to be two of the top five gold mines in the world from annual production going to 1 million ounces. We actually created something in a way that added tremendous value to our shareholders, with a lot more geological potential to come. That's the way we focused on it. Any other questions? Any online, Chris? Oh, there's one here. You gotta ask a question to Ammar, the CEO, maybe Chris, you know.
Thank you. I'm Dale McDonald. I'm, I think, a proxy shareholder.
Yeah. Can you speak up a bit?
I'm Dale McDonald.
Perfect.
I'm, I think, a proxy shareholder. I just own some shares, not very many. I'm accumulating a few for my grandchildren, and they are excited as I'm doing this for them. They don't understand the high price of the share. You can only buy, I guess. I'm a small individual. I can only buy maybe five shares for each of my nine grandchildren. Doesn't give them any excitement. If you split some of the shares up so that they were valued less, it would have higher numbers, and there'd be a lot of excitement in my family. That's just. It may be a silly question, that's a question I had.
Well, that's a different way to frame that question. We've never had it framed that way. We're asked that question a lot. We've never, ever sort of split our shares over time. We understand, you know, some of the benefits. We just tend to focus less on the overall value proposition. Splitting the shares in itself doesn't really add to increased valuation. You may be able to spread it around a little bit and break it up a little bit. Maybe Ammar and Jamie on the financial side of whether that actually makes sense. I'm trying to push questions over there.
This working? Yeah, this is on. Yeah, no, I'd echo Sean's comments. You know, the fact that splitting our shares actually doesn't really change the overall value of the company. You know, that said, we have seen our share price, you know, triple or more over the course of the past few years. As that, as the share price continues to go higher, it's something that we'll potentially look at. There might be a way to make shares more accessible if they were lower in value. I believe most brokerage accounts you can actually buy fractional shares as well, which is, I know it's not as exciting to buy, you know, 0.3 of a share, but that's always an option.
I have a suggestion. You're welcome. Bring your shareholders or your grandchildren as shareholders to the annual meeting and future annual meetings. You're welcome to do that. We'd welcome them here. We'd be glad to have them. They can see the excitement Ammar has in the business and the team has in the business. If you let us know, they're coming, we'll ramp it up a bit. We'll get Guy up here, and he can start waving his arms on Hope Bay.
Oh, thank you. They are age three up to 23.
That's good. That's good.
I think they might enjoy it. Thank you.
That's good because that'd bring the average age down. You know, I've been, I've been coming to these meetings since 1983. I know I'm getting old, but I look out there, and there's some shareholders I've seen here for 40 years. You're getting older too. Any more? Oh, there's one here. Just here, middle.
My name is Robert Billow. I'm here with my wife, Deborah. We're shareholders, longtime shareholders.
Welcome.
Thank you. It's nice to see you again. Thank you for a great presentation. Thank you for wonderful stewardship and leadership of this fine company. We've been shareholders for a long time, and I'm proud to say we knew Paul Penna.
Mm-hmm.
We're a friend. At one point in the conversations this morning, the CEO and President commented about capital expenditures on the assumption of, I think you said something like at current gold prices. I just wanted to see if you'd be open to sharing any views you might have with regard to global instability, socioeconomic situations around the globe, et cetera, et cetera, central bank buying. What you might think the direction of gold could be, and how you forecast your CapEx based on that. Because I think as our CFO said, there's been quite a climb in the price of gold in a blink of an eye, really. So I wonder how that affects your planning. Any comments on that would be appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you for the question, and thank you for being a long-term owner of the company. I'll answer the second part and then go to the first. The second part being given the unpredictable and cyclical nature of the business you're in, how do you plan for that? The answer to that is, have a strong balance sheet because, you know, who knows where things are gonna go and don't have a lot of debt. We have virtually no debt. We have net $3 billion in cash. one, it's a very strong balance sheet. two, try to have low-cost operations so that, regardless of where the gold price goes, you're still generating a lot of cash. Then three, have other options to be able to deal with the variability.
We do all of that and there's a lot of work goes into that. I think we're quite well-positioned there. The first part of the question is where is gold gonna go? Of course, I don't know. I would say the following. I would say in the near term, the big driver for gold is what's happening overseas. You may it may seem counterintuitive that a war happens and gold goes down, but that's really related to a view very quickly because I could go on forever. If this war gets worse and oil gets cut and shipping gets cut and supply chains get hurt, it will be inflationary. If it's inflationary, governments will raise interest rates. They raise interest rates, gold goes down.
That's what's driving it right now, and that's why you've seen all the volatility. Long term, I don't know where gold's going near term, but long term, while I don't know where it's going, I am very constructive on gold. I'm constructive on gold because governments are spending money like crazy. They're not stopping. In fact, accelerating. At the same time, the U.S. dollar, which used to be the reliable thing central banks could buy, they're now worried that they're gonna get sanctioned if they do anything. They're saying, "Why would I put all my money in U.S . Dollars? I better get some gold." Near term, right now being driven by what's happening overseas to no small extent. Near term, hard to predict. Long term, I'm very constructive. Any other questions? Any online, Chris? None online? Okay.
It's not lost on all of us. As we look out in the crowd, we see our employees, we see suppliers, we see service providers, we see shareholders. Some of you have been involved and played a important part in our success. We acknowledge that, we recognize that, and we thank you all for the contribution you've made in helping us make and build this fabulous company. Thank you for your presence today. Thank you for all the help over the years. We invite those of you in the room to join us for lunch. Thank you for those that also tuned in online. We really appreciate your attendance and your support. At that, I'll conclude the meeting.
Again, look forward to bringing you news on new developments as we continue to grow the business. Thank you very much.