Please disable any adblockers if the video is not showing below.

Coeur Mining, Inc.

View Company Profile

September 16, 2024 at 9:10 AM (MDT)|Broadmoor Hotel & Resort

Mitchell Krebs

Chairman, President & CEO

Mitchell J. Krebs
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Mitchell J. Krebs was appointed President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Coeur Mining in July 2011, which is one of the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. (CDE:NYSE) Prior to becoming President and CEO, Mr. Krebs served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from March 2008 to July 2011; Treasurer from July 2008 to March 2010; Senior Vice President, Corporate Development from May 2006 to March 2008; and Vice President, Corporate Development from February 2003 to May 2006. Mr. Krebs first joined Coeur in August 1995 as Manager of Acquisitions after working as an investment banking analyst for PaineWebber Inc. in its Mergers & Acquisitions group.
During his tenure with Coeur Mining, Mr. Krebs has been responsible for dozens of acquisitions and divestitures of private and public entities both domestically and internationally and has overseen numerous private and public financings involving all aspects of the capital structure totaling nearly three billion dollars. Since becoming CEO, Mr. Krebs has led an organizational relocation including a reconstitution of the board and overhaul of the senior management team, all of which has contributed to industry leading growth, ESG leadership, and the country’s best safety record among metals mining companies. Mr. Krebs recently led the Company through a $725 million expansion of its Rochester operation in Nevada, which will now be America’s largest source of domestically produced silver and one of the world’s largest operations of its kind.
Mr. Krebs is a seasoned leader in the mining industry, recognized for his strategic vision, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, and his commitment to sustainable growth. Under his leadership, Coeur Mining has become a prominent player in the global mining sector, and he has guided the company through challenging market conditions and evolving industry dynamics. Mr. Krebs serves as the current Chairman of The National Mining Association, which represents nearly 300 companies, and he led the creation of its ESG Task Force in 2020. Mr. Krebs also served on the Board of Kansas City Southern Railway Company (NYSE:KSU) (Audit Committee; Finance and Strategic Investments Committee), culminating in the $31 billion acquisition by Canadian Pacific (NYSE:CP) that closed last year. Mr. Krebs is a past President of The Silver Institute where he remains on the Board and serves on the Executive Committee. Mr. Krebs also serves on the board of Big Shoulders Fund, which provides support to inner-city schools to provide a quality, values-based education for Chicago’s children.
Mr. Krebs holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (1993) and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University (1999). He grew up in rural Iowa and lives in Chicago with his wife Debby and their three young children.

This is an automatically generated transcript. Denver Gold Group cannot accept responsibility for mistakes, errors, omissions, or any action taken in reliance thereon. Use of this transcript is governed by Denver Gold Group’s Terms of Use.

I didn't realize all the water out there. Good morning. Thanks for making some time to hear about Core Mining. This is the largest audience I think we have presented in front of in maybe a dozen years. Wow. So this is a company that goes back to 1928. So it's an old US, mostly silver mining company. Historically. I've actually had two stints here at, at core mining. I first joined the company in 1995 and then I had a second stint. I came back. I was a CFO started in 2008 to 2011 and then took on this role in, in 2011. And I have to say, in all honesty, I've never seen the stars aligned. I've never seen such a great setup. I've never seen the company better positioned than it is. today. I couldn't be more, we couldn't be more excited, not only because of what's going on in the macro with silver and gold prices, some great supply and demand fundamentals there obviously, but as a, as a US centric multi asset growing, silver and gold producer that has been totally rebuilt over the last decade, I think still is largely sort of misunderstood by a lot of investors. Thinking back over the decades that this company has been around. We have been doing the hard yards over the last five years or so in terms of reinvesting in the business in both exploration and in expansions. So all of that capital has now been invested and we're right now on the verge of, of seeing a whole bunch of catalysts play out for the company both in the, in the, in the short term, in the medium term. And, and and in the long term, just to give you a sense, if you're not familiar with our company, we'll produce this year about 12 million ounces or so of silver, about 325,000 ounces of gold. We have a, a sizable reserve base there that in terms of additional material in the resource categories, I think we have 5 million more ounces of gold and another 300 million ounces of silver across measured indicated and inferred, this year's production represents some solid double digit increases from, from last year. We'll see some, some significant double digit growth here over the next few years based on some of these catalysts that I'll, I'll go into. now the the key driver for us and the most, most, mostly what I'll focus on here today is a expansion of a project in Nevada that we just wrapped up. It's called Rochester. It's a silver and gold Open Pit Heap Leach operation that's been in in operation since mid eighties. It was a $730 million investment which for a company our size is a, a huge investment. It created a lot of headwinds and a lot of challenges. It was a 100% COVID project. It was approved by the board in May of 2020. So it was, it was definitely a tricky expansion, but we're now just on the verge of now starting to see the benefits of that both in silver production growth. and, and in a flip to positive free cash flow in the second half of this year, not only at Rochester, but as a company overall, we'll now start using that free cash flow to begin that deleveraging process. ourselves, our peak cap peak balance sheet, leverage debt level was in the second quarter. You look at a lot of work at at what kind of a catalyst deleveraging is for mining companies and typically what you see from peak leverage over the next 18 months of deleveraging, you see those stock prices outperform by like 40%. So I think deleveraging is a pretty tried and true catalyst for companies in our sector that's going to start happening here in the second half as we transition into positive free cash flow. And not only is it a a near term jump up in production and cash flow, but we'll see that continue into 2025 which will really be Rochester's first full year as a ramped up operation. And we'll see that go into 2026 on the back of some other organic growth that will start to play out in terms of higher production and stronger free cash flow. And I'll talk about a couple of those. Here in a minute, I don't think I need to talk much about silver and gold. fundamentals. The demand side, you know, for gold is really more of a diversification away from the US dollars central banks. All of that silver is much more of an electrification theme which is super exciting. But I'm, I'm actually really intrigued with the supply side. You know, there hasn't been a lot of new discoveries, there aren't a lot of new projects. And even if you have a new discovery or you have a new project, there was just an S and P global report out that shows that in the US from first, from discovery to first production, it takes 29 years to get that in for that period of time. So even if you have a new discovery that's not going to hit the supply side of the equation for a very long time. And so as a company that has four operations, the growth that's fully funded that's hitting now we're really well positioned as we're delivering more and more silver on the back of this, of this Rochester expansion. Two of the, the big electrification themes that we all hear about and read more and more about is, is obviously on the photovoltaic side for silver and on the automotive demand side, you know, it's silver is not often mentioned with electric vehicles, but I think AAA normal vehicle has about a half an ounce to three quarters of an ounce of silver in all of the circuitry in a in a regular automobile, in an electric vehicle, that's about double. So it's about an ounce and a half. So silver is a beneficiary even though it's not a battery metal necessarily in EVs, it's definitely on the demand side benefiting from growth on the EV side. So Rochester is a big deal for us. It's actually a big deal in in the sector. It's it's really the largest operation of its kind anywhere both in terms of tonnage, in terms of reserves in terms of of production, this will be now, America's largest source of American produced and refined silver and it's got a 16 year mine life just based on reserve. So it's going to be a good steady domestic source of silver for a long, long time. So we're excited about the impact that it will have. not only on the company but from a supply of, of silver domestically, it really is a unique unique asset. So what is Rochester? It's, it's really what we invested in our three main infrastructure components. It's a new crusher, three stage crusher, a new Leach pad and a new Merry Crow processing plant. All that's done. We started putting rock through the new crusher in March. It hit commercial production later that same month. We just put out a news release last week that provided an update on, on, on how we're doing there in terms of really hitting that steady state of around 90,000 tons a day being placed out now onto that new new Leach Pad. And what that'll do is really take, you can see on the bottom here just in 2024 you'll see at the bottom production start to jump up here in the back half of this year, really driven by, by us hitting now that, that, that run rate throughput. But when you fast forward into 2025 those production levels will jump up quite a bit again. And that's when we'll really start to see some, some significant increases in our cash flow, not from just the throughput, but you can see costs will be coming down as we benefit from those economies of scale at that significantly higher throughput rate that we'll have at Rochester going forward. There's just a, a visual of what we've just completed. The thing is massive. The crusher corridor, it's over a mile from where you put or into the gyratory to the truck, haul out down at the bottom of, of the, the hill there in the background. It's a massive scale. It's right there in northern Nevada. Great location just off of interstate 80 in a place where we've been now for, for 30 almost 40 years. Even though the near term focus has been on getting this project behind us. We've been sort of methodically consolidating the land position around Rochester. The 16 years of mine life is, is exists inside that little red squiggly circle. That's the Rochester pit. So we have a lot of potential here as we go forward to replace what we mine and hopefully add some higher grade material into the mine plan in these next few years to really reduce the economics and the cash flow and, and really maximize the return on this significant investment that we just that we just wrapped up. I mentioned exploration. I think a couple of times we have been, I think sort of a contrarian when it comes to investing in, in exploration. This is those bar charts on the left there. I think that's $300 million of investment that we've made in exploration over that period of time, which again for a company our size is a lot and it's mostly brownfields high return, high success rate. This company, I think historically was known as a company with Short Mine lives. We've pretty much com completely taken care of that with the exception of one and we're well on our way to, to, to fixing that one. That's the Kensington Gold mine in, in Southeast Alaska and on the reserve and resource base. I think if you add up the on the, on the gold equivalent at the very bottom under reserves, you'll see that that since 2018 is something like a 36% increase in reserves. And if you add up all the the resource categories, that's, it's something like a 45% increase in resources. So we've been very deliberate about investing in the business and setting ourselves up now for the, the benefits that we're now just starting to, to see a good example of this organic growth commitment to exploration. Our largest single operation is actually in Mexico Palma in Chihuahua. We have consolidated all that stuff off to the off to the right, the green including the yellow, we just, we just closed on a transaction with Fresnillo to, to acquire that yellow, those yellow blocks of ground. And why that's important is in inside the blue box on the left. That's all subject to a, a fairly rich Franco Nevada gold stream. And so anything we can produce off to the right in that green and yellow. we can sell at market price rather than selling it to Franco Nevada for $800 an ounce. So there's a huge margin and cash flow opportunity off to the East at Palma. So those are the kinds of things that we even though Rochester has been the big focus, these are the kinds of things that we've been doing to really set up our other operations. For the long term I mentioned Kensington, this is a about 100,000 ounce a year gold operation just outside of Juneau, Alaska. We in late 22 committed to a multiyear development and drilling program that will wrap up the first part of 2025. And with that, Kensington will have a plus five year mine life based on reserves and it will have a return to free cash flow in the second half of next year. So it it's gonna have its own sort of inflection point in the second half of next year. Kind of like Rochester is having this year. So we're gonna start stacking some of this organic growth growth up on top of each other and, and be able to deliver several years now of good double digit production growth and strong free cash flow. Wharf. I don't if any of you remember Wharf, this is an old Gold Corp operation that has been going on forever. Lots of people will ask me, Jeez Wharf. That's still, still going. It's, yes, it's going. We bought this for $100 million in 2015. We've taken out something like $450 million of free cash flow. They had a five year mine life when we bought it, it has about a six or seven year mine life. Now we think we can add materially to that reserve life with some modest incremental investment that we'll be making here, not only in this year, but in 2025 this thing throws off about 85 to 90,000 ounces of gold a year and about 5060 $70 million of free cash flow. It's just an awesome, awesome asset and a great a great predictable contributor to our portfolio in the long term growth category. We have the Silver tip. It's a polymetallic very high grade carbonate replacement deposit that sits just up on the very northern part of British Columbia, right on the border of Yukon. This thing is, is, is large, it's high grade it's growing and this will over, over time become likely a a new project for us. Maybe in five years from now, it'll be set up to be developed and put into production. We're very excited about what we're seeing. This thing keeps growing but our near term priority is getting into the free cash flow, deleveraging the balance sheet as we continue to understand and grow silver tip so that when we're ready to develop it, we'll have a good thought out plan that we can execute from a position of strength balance sheet. I mentioned peak debt was in the second quarter. We'll start working away on that revolver borrowing that's 275 million, that big red bar there up, up top. We look forward to seeing not only the denom, the numerator of our leverage ratios come down, but the denominator as our IBI continues to, to grow on the back largely of that Rochester expansion. And we should see some, I I think that's going to be a great catalyst for the stock because for us over the last few years, there's been a lot of balance sheet concerns as we've gone through this expansion at Rochester. So to have that behind us and now start generating free cash flow and paying down debt. That's exactly what our investors want us to do and these higher prices are going to allow us to do it that much faster. Just a reminder if you're A B on silver and gold, which you probably are if you're here, you know, we've got probably the best leverage. Well, this chart would suggest that we have the best leverage to those metals prices, both gold and silver even though gold is 70% of our revenue, our stock trades like a silver stock always has and I think it probably always will. So if, if, if you're constructive on silver, you know, we're a fairly, you know, household name in terms of gaining some good exposure to to that metal ESG. I think, you know, as a US Secnysd company, it's Real Belt and Suspenders leadership approach where I think we, we punch above our weight when it comes to ESG whether it's, you know, our, our water tailings heap bleach pad management on the safety community side last year. According to MS Shaw, here in the US, we were the safest mining company in America on the governance side. You know, we, we've really, we, we stripped this company down over the last 10 years to the studs and have rebuilt it back, right? bigger and better and that includes the board as well. It's been a re revamped board. It's, it's a much more relevant current and, and diverse board as well and we get, you know, the top scores from iss for our governance scores or for our governance profile, pretty much year in and year out. So what's ahead for us? It's really delivering on these catalysts both in the near term, medium term and long term starting with the free cash flow here in the second half of the year and using that to start reducing debt keeping in mind that we're not a single asset company Rochester has been the focus for good reason, but we have a lot of great things happening across the portfolio and our other operations, we need to continue to deliver on all those initiatives because those, those provide that medium and long term set of of organic growth opportunities that will continue to propel us into the future. And just, just to wrap up, I, I really think in this current climate, you'd be hard pressed to find a better better opportunity than core mining. I'm obviously biased, but you've got the macro finally working and then you finally got this company squared away and set up in a way that it never has been and you put those two together. And I think that's gonna really allow our shareholders to benefit, which is, which is so great to be able to, to, to say because it's been a tough few years as we've gone through all of this heavy investment to really get us to where we are today. So we couldn't be more excited. And with that, be happy to answer a question if there, if there is any. Thanks, Mitch. There is a question on the floor, gentlemen here. Thank you. Yeah. Hi Ron. Yeah. Hi. So silver is two thirds of the revenue. Gold is one third of the revenue. gold comes out, you know, 85% of it comes out in, in, in 60 to 90 days. So very quick recovery curve, silver low and slow, right? The ultimate recovery rate for silver at Rochester is, is around 60 low sixties takes 20 years to get to get there. Now you get most of that after, you know, six months. But it's a, it's a slow lee curve on the silver side. So good thing. We have a third of the revenue coming from gold there to really balance that out. Sorry. Oh my God, Ron, you're gonna make me tears of joy here. Iii I mean, I think that the macro has been, what's been fueling a lot of our out performance, you know, keep in mind it's been under performing in the last few years as we've gone through this build out. So that leverage to metals I think is, is a large reason for what the stock has done this year. Hopefully as we get into more of these company specific catalysts now, you'll see even, you know, further, hopefully strong performance. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Mitch. I think with that we have little time for questions all the best. Ok, thanks.


NOTICE

The Denver Gold Group does not make any express or implied condition, representation, warranty or other term as to the accuracy, validity, reliability, timeliness or completeness of any information or materials in general or in connection with any particular use or purpose presented at the Gold Forum. Denver Gold Group cannot accept responsibility for sourcing variances, mistakes, errors or omissions or for any action taken in reliance thereon. Use of this data is governed by Denver Gold Group's Terms of Use.

The Denver Gold Group does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any third party advice, opinion, statement, information or materials received during the Gold Forum.

INVESTMENT ADVICE - NO OFFER OR RECOMMENDATION

The Gold Forum and the information and materials presented at the Gold Forum do not, and shall not be construed as, making any recommendation or providing any investment or other advice with respect to the purchase, sale or other disposition of any regulated gold related products or any other regulated products, securities or investments, including, without limitation, any advice to the effect that any gold related transaction is appropriate or suitable for any investment objective or financial situation of a prospective investor. A decision to invest in any regulated gold related products or any other regulated products, securities or investments should not be made in reliance on any of the information or materials presented or obtained during the Gold Forum. Before making any investment decision, prospective investors should seek advice from their financial, legal, tax and accounting advisers, take into account their individual financial needs and circumstances and carefully consider the risks associated with such investment decision.