Let us know when we're on.
Okay. Welcome back, everyone. We have an update from Citizens, Inc, trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CIA. We are happy to welcome President and CEO, Jon Stenberg, and CFO, Jeff Conklin, and they're dialing in through the phone today. Welcome, gentlemen.
Well, thank you so much. Sorry you can't see our faces, but that's okay. Jeff and I both have a face for radio. We'll just jump right in, and I'd like to leave you in my opening comments with kind of three main things. That's who we are, what we do. Second would be why we're different. Third, an understanding of our journey 'cause I think it's an exciting journey. First of all, who are we? We're stock ticker CIA. We sell life insurance. Traditionally, 2/3 of our revenue comes from overseas, 1/3 from the United States. What's interesting is in the last couple of years, we've flipped that, and roughly 2/3 of our sales come from the United States, and 1/3 of our sales comes from overseas.
Over time, as those sales turn into renewal premium and revenue, that'll start to balance out more towards 50/50, which we think is something we'd like to aim for. It has symmetry, and it also provides the best of both worlds. The safety and security and predictability of a United States life insurance company, but with the growth exposure of an international company. We'd like to provide both at the same time to our investors. A growth company, a growth opportunity, while at the same time providing that safety and stability of a United States life insurance company. Okay. Very quickly, we have policyholders in over 75 countries. We have over 3,000 agents that produce with us, and we've got about 250 employees. We're based in Austin, Texas.
That's where Jeff and I are speaking to you from today. We are about $1.8 billion in assets, and our revenues are just shy of $200 million, $189 million in 2025. Our revenue comes from five countries outside of the United States, primarily, and that is Colombia, Taiwan, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina. About 39% of our revenue in 2025 came from the United States. As you can see, we have a nice diversification of revenue sources. We think our growth opportunities are exceptionally strong in the United States and in Asia.
That's part of our journey, is that as we prepare to grow in new markets, we're investing in capabilities to modernize our product portfolio. And that modernization will unlock certain opportunities in countries that have moved to a more modern type of life insurance than what we currently offer. That would be countries like Peru, Chile, Panama, and countries in Asia sell a lot of Universa l Life. We currently only offer whole life insurance policy and some other simple products. We're excited about that opportunity to grow up market in the United States and in geographic markets where we've been limited in overseas. I think that's probably where I'll leave just the opening comments, and we'll get right into the Q&A.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Oh, well, hold on. Jeff wanted to add a couple things.
Hey, I just want to add two things. This is really important. Jon basically alluded to them, I think, but for those that maybe heard us or listened to us before, 2024, we ended the year with the highest revenues we've ever had as an organization, as well as fourth quarter was our highest revenue quarter ever in the company's history. I think that's quite important to say 'cause we've been working hard to get to that point. I just thought it would be important to say.
Perfect. Thank you for that. Yeah. Let's jump into some questions. One from Mike Cobb. Your domestic insurance segment net income was $12.1 million in 2025, up from $1.9 million in 2024. What drove that growth, and how do you see the domestic business evolving as you expand?
Yeah. I'll start with this one. There's really four things that drove the earnings, the big earnings increase. One, two relate to investments. Our net investment income has increased year- over- year as we reinvest in higher yielding enhanced investments. We had improved realized gains and losses versus 2024. Bigger than that is our growing volume of business has continued to add insurance margin, which is overall increase in our earnings. The last thing, which was the biggest impact, was we had favorable updates to our annual actuarial assumptions, when compared to 2024. During the third quarter every year, those assumptions get updated, and we have to unlock values and bring those values into earnings.
We would expect our white label partnerships to continue to help us expand and grow our volume and our insurance margin, which overall increases our earnings. 2025 was a very good year because of the favorable assumption updates.
Perfect. Tom Gallagher asks, "How is Citizens uniquely positioned and its structural advantages, how does that position you in international markets?
Internationally, we're in a really interesting position. We have very strong distribution relationships that are decades long, with a high degree of loyalty to our company and just really strong relationships there. We leverage those relationships in particular in South America and Taiwan currently. The customer base we offer a very unique offering, and that is a solid, S.A.F.E. life insurance policy from a U.S. life insurance carrier issued in U.S. dollars. That provides somebody in countries that have a history, perhaps of political instability or hyperinflation, a real level of safety and security for the one part of their life that they would like to be safe and secure, which is their life insurance, a protection for their family.
It really positions us uniquely against the local offerings. 'Cause the local offerings generally just cannot offer what we offer. We're very excited. I'll expand a little bit the question to answer the same thing in the United States. Jeff mentioned white labeling. That is very unique in the United States. In order to do that, you have to begin with the concept of white labeling for a distributor right from the very beginning of developing your systems and processes, because it's very difficult later on to reverse engineer how to white label a life insurance product if you haven't built that capability in right from the very beginning. That provides us with some real unique advantages with our distributors here in the United States.
Perfect. Dave Ayres says your white label distribution strategy and expanding global agent network appear to be key differentiators. What makes this model difficult to replicate?
Yeah. Like I said, it's as far as I know, we're unique in offering this to our key agency partners. And over 50% of our premium comes in from our white label process in our domestic final expense business, which in the last two years has been the fastest growing part of our business. So it's gonna provide us with real protection against new entrants in the future, if there are any, and give us a real advantage in terms of our ability to keep what you got and get more is like one of my, you know, sales people say. I love that phrase. Yeah.
Okay.
We're excited about it.
Last question, you can end with this. You've indicated you expect both revenue and profit growth for the full year of 2026. What are the key drivers of that?
There's three key drivers. Jon might wanna add some of the milestones at the end here, but really three key drivers for us, which is we're reinvesting into higher yielding investment instruments, such as investment grade private placement, in addition to kind of asset-backed securities that will help increase our net investment income. The continued volume of just sheer growth domestically in the final expense business will, you know, increase our insurance margin, which theoretically increases your profitability. As we said a bit earlier, we're coming off the second straight year of revenue growth, premium revenue growth, which we haven't seen since 2016. We expect to continue that momentum to grow another year.
Last year, we were hit pretty— We had the highest ever mature endowment business, which was a benefit that we pay from a business that was sold, you know, 15, 20 years ago. We're returning the money to the policyholder. That increased our reserves in 2025, which we don't believe will be as large in 2026, although we will still have elevated mature endowments. Those kind of combination of those will lead us to, you know, slight increase in profitability as well as revenue growth.
Perfect. Well, thank you, gentlemen, for this update, and we look forward to seeing you again real soon.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, everyone, we'll be right back. Welcome back, everyone. Next we have an update from CopAur Minerals Inc, trades on the OTCQB under the symbol COPAF and on the TSXV under the symbol CPAU. It's focused on developing projects within the emerging mineral-rich mining regions of Nevada. Happy to welcome back CEO Andrew Neale. Welcome back, Andrew. We're looking forward to your update today.
Great. Well, thank you very much for inviting me back. What I'd like to do today is provide a brief Q1 update, primarily on the Kinsley project, which we've spoken about before, where our near term objectives are the completion of a Preliminary Economic Assessment or PEA, and the continued advancement of the permitting process in Nevada. I'll also touch briefly on Troy Canyon, which we continue to view as a meaningful secondary project within our Nevada portfolio. I'll move quickly through the cautionary language on forward-looking statements, but also would like to note that all the technical content relating to Kinsley and Troy Canyon has been reviewed and approved by Kris Raffle of APEX Geoscience, who act as CopAur's independent qualified person for these projects.
As our listeners will recall, CopAur remains a Nevada-focused gold company with our two core assets being Kinsley Mountain in the northeast and further south, the Troy Canyon project. As our listeners are well aware, Nevada remains one of the premier gold mining jurisdictions in the world and accounts for over 80% of U.S. gold production. Kinsley, in particular, sits within the still developing Kinsley Trend, the most easterly of the three major gold producing trends in Nevada. The Kinsley Trend includes the nearby 3,400,000 oz Long Canyon Mine, which operated from 2016 to 2022. Clearly, Kinsley Mountain project is in a great geological setting and we believe has significant future exploration upside. To build a mine, you need both a great deposit and a great team.
At CopAur, we believe we're very fortunate to have been able to assemble a great team for the Kinsley project. As we previously discussed, Chris Babcock, our COO, and I came on board last year. Together, we've got great complementary skill sets, and Chris pretty well knows everything there is to know about designing, building and operating gold heap leach operations. He's a tremendous asset for the company, and we're truly fortunate to have him on board. After I joined the team in October, we successfully raised $3.3 million through a private placement in November, December of last year, which is funding the current work.
Through APEX, we've updated the Kinsley geological model in December and January based on the inclusion of over 20,000 m of drilling completed in 2020 and 2023, significantly expanding our understanding of the gold mineralization on the property with those results being reflected in the PEA in progress. In January of this year, we brought together the CopAur local owners team under the management of Scott Hill and Martin Berg, two very experienced Nevada mining engineers and project managers. In February, after a competitive bidding round, we selected Global Resource Engineering out of Golden, Colorado, who have recent and invaluable experience in Nevada gold heap leach evaluations to develop the preliminary economic assessment.
To round out the team, we have Charlie Johnson and Beth Erickson to lead our permitting efforts, and they are doing a great job of reintroducing the Kinsley and Troy projects to the appropriate regulators in Nevada. Lastly, APEX completed additional site geological mapping at Troy Canyon in November and December, resulting in a significant expansion of the mineralized trend, which continues to support the Troy project as a meaningful secondary asset. The key point here is that CopAur continues to be execution-focused, with Kinsley clearly established as the lead value driver. As I've said, Kinsley is obviously the center of our near term effort. To remind our listeners, the Kinsley Mine previously operated profitably in the nineties at a gold price of approximately $350 gold.
In 2021, there was a post-mining resource update to 43-101 standards, which was completed at $1,600 gold, identifying a nominal 500,000 oz gold resource. When we started the project review late last year, we ran some preliminary pit shells at $2,600 gold. Now with the recent uptick in gold price, using the three-year average gold price, we will be using $3,000 gold for the PEA. The Kinsley project is a well understood open pit run of mine heap leach operation, broadly similar in concept to the previously permitted operation. The site obviously benefits from being in Nevada, with that state's long history of permitting these type of mines. We also benefit from having good road access, strong local community support, secure water rights, and being a previously permitted mine. These are all important de-risking factors.
We believe that from a permitting perspective, our team understands the process, and the project appears manageable on the basis of the work completed to date. The points listed on this slide support the permitting process, with the key ones being minimal competing land use, current waste rock characterization indicating low acid generating risk, and the ultimate pit bottoms are not expected to encounter significant groundwater. Those of our listeners familiar with the mine permitting process will understand how critical these three factors are in supporting the permitting process. Taken together, Kinsley looks to us like a technically familiar and potentially permittable Nevada restart opportunity, with the PEA being the next hard step in defining the opportunity more clearly. As such, the next 90 days at Kinsley are very clear, with our immediate objective being the completion of the PEA by the end of April.
In parallel with this work, the preliminary mine plan boundary has been defined, the revised plan of operations is advancing, and the regulatory engagement is continuing. The point here is discipline, and we have the team in place with the necessary experience to get the work done as per the regulatory guidelines. We're very much focused on a defined set of near-term milestones that will advance Kinsley towards a development decision in a measured way. Some quick comments on Troy Canyon, which is an important project, but very much secondary to Kinsley. Troy Canyon includes the past-producing Locke Mine and 59 contiguous unpatented mineral claims located about 150 km east of Tonopah, Nevada. It's in another highly prospective geological area of Nevada.
Recent field mapping by APEX has expanded the on-surface mineralized trend from previously approximately 400 m to greater than 1,000 m, including a newly identified mineralized quartz hematite breccia zone to the southwest. Surface sampling has also been encouraging, returning both significant gold and silver values from historic workings and adjacent areas. The 2026 work program is focused on baseline permitting-related surveys to support the application for the construction of two diamond drill platforms, with drilling expected to commence in 2027. To summarize, at our current burn rate, CopAur is fully funded through the end of 2026. The Kinsley PEA is scheduled for completion by the end of April, and permitting is progressing on both properties. We believe that the continued execution of these key milestones will further strengthen CopAur's market positioning, as reflected by our share price. Our focus remains straightforward.
That is, advance Kinsley methodically as our lead asset, continue to de-risk the permitting path, and preserve the upside represented by Troy Canyon. Thank you for your time, and if we have the time, I'd be happy to address any questions.
Thank you, Andrew. Yes, let's see how many we can get through. Quickly, in addition to Troy Canyon, what other opportunities are you looking at to grow CopAur?
Well, that's a fantastic point because we're actively having discussions with various parties about projects they may have under their umbrella, which may fit into the CopAur business plan. Nothing concrete to report in that matter, but there's a lot of properties out there, particularly at these current gold prices, that are looking for a group such as CopAur with our assembled team to bring them into production. Probably in the next quarter or so, we might have some information to provide on that front.
Perfect. Excuse me. Do you have any comments on the current regulatory environment in Nevada and the U.S.?
Yes. As you know, I've spent most of my career outside of North America. I find the regulators in Nevada extremely professional. They certainly know their business. We've had active discussions with them about Kinsley. They're very familiar with that project. They remember. Some of their people remember permitting in the 1990s. They have very clear guidelines. They have very clear schedules, and it's incumbent upon us to provide them with the information they require in order for them to issue the appropriate permits, and that's what our team is currently working on.
Is your strategy to discover and sell assets or build a producing mine?
No, our strategy is very much focused on building producing gold mines and managing producing gold mines.
What's your current resource size and grade, and how much of that resource is oxide and sulfide?
The numbers have been reported on our website. It's essentially a 500,000 oz resource in indicated and inferred. Approximately pre-PEA, approximately 15% of those ounces were amenable to heap leaching. We think that percentage is going to go up based on updating the geological model, and those numbers will be reported as part of the PEA at the end of April. Suffice to say, we're looking at an average grade to the heap leach in excess of 0.7 g/ ton, which is well within the reasonable realm of Nevada heap leach operations.
Last question, you can close with this. Talk about the timeline to your preliminary economic assessment and production decision.
Yes. On the PEA, we'll have the first draft out by the end of April. That will be subsequently reviewed by our internal team and reported accordingly. The PEA then segues into the filing of the plan of operations that will start the permitting process. That will go on through May, June, and July of this year.
Perfect. All right, Andrew. Well, thank you so much for this update, and we look forward to seeing you again real soon.
Great. Once again, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Absolutely. All right, we wanna let everyone know that Stallion Uranium had to push till May, so we'll see them in May. Next up at 4:10 P.M. Eastern will be AtlasClear. We'll see you soon.