Jubilee Metals Group plc (LON:JLP) Chief Executive Officer Leon Coetzer caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the highlights from their results, significant growth continuing post reporting period end and how the company will be funding new projects.
Q1: Now, Jubilee Metals Group announced earlier your audited results for the year ended 30th of June 2020, could you just talk us through some of the highlights?
A1: Yes, it’s a solid set of results. The company has shown that its previous performances and its continued improved performances year on year has continued, there are a number of results that stand out.
Of course, everything on the financial side is positive, our revenue is more than doubled, our earnings have increased dramatically, our EBITDA earnings coming in at an impressive £22/£23 million for the group.
I think an important figure that stands out for me is if you look at the continued capital investment, we’ve pumped into our group to ensure that operations are, of course sustainable. We also that we continue to secure further projects and our pipeline of projects are well-stocked with quality projects where you look at investing nearly £26 million of capital into our group.
It’s a significant number for a company our size, it shows the growth we are developing going forward for our group, a sustained growth for our group.
So, all in all, I think a great set of numbers, our production numbers support why our financial numbers are so good, PGM ounce production nearly doubled, our chrome production nearly doubled. Of course, very excitingly, as we’re aggressively stepping into Zambia, our copper refinery cobalt stream has come online and we’re expanding that operation as we speak.
Q2: As you mentioned, results show significant growth, has this continued post the reporting period end?
A2: It’s always the case where your end results are looking at the history for the period June 2019 to June 2020 but yes, we released our quarter results which was the three months following June, so following this year end results.
The quarter that followed, what it showed was is that not only have we sustained the performance that related to our annual results but in fact we’ve stepped up yet again. Our PGM ounce production is up, chrome production is up within the quarter but very importantly, if you look at our margins, our margin in each of our metric groups grew for the quarter following our results as well.
So, very much so, yes, our growth is being sustained and if that continues, we look forward to another sterling set of results for this reporting period.
Q3: Jubilee Metals Group has targeted a number of new projects that will require significant investment, will it be able to fund this growth itself or will it be asking shareholders for additional support?
A3: Yes, we’ve set a very aspirational target in our Zambian business where we pursuing 25,000 tonnes of copper units per annum, a very significant number and that is, as we’ve announced last week in the previous month, we’ve continued to acquire significant copper cobalt, tailing resources in Zambia, nearly total 270 million tonnes at the moment.
That is needing three copper concentrators, we will be concentrating up the copper cobalt and then transporting it either to our refinery, Sable, or if that refinery is at full capacity, partnering with other refiners to produce the copper cathode. That’s going to require, as you say, quite a significant capital investment but we are fortunate in that as we are stepping into this growth into Zambia, our balance sheet, our earnings, and our South African base has dramatically increased.
So, the short answer is yes, we’re looking at funding that capital investment from our cash reserves, as well as from institutional debt providers who have eagerly come to the party because of our balance sheet that’s so strong, you’ll see in our numbers, we have a very unleveraged balance sheet, our cash generation of our group continues to grow.
So, very much, we target to fund our capital investment off cash and off debt, we certainly are not looking to go to equity and dilute our shareholders who have supported us so much to reach this point in the near term.
