Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc (AMEX:CMCL) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc (AMEX:CMCL) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript March 23, 2026

Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.56 EPS, expectations were $0.59.

Operator: Welcome to the Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc Quarterly and Full Year Results 2025 Presentation for Analysts and Investors. I would now like to hand you over to Mark Learmonth, the CEO. Mark, over to you.

Mark Learmonth: Afternoon, and welcome to this management conference call. If we could move to the first slide of the presentation, please. Just go to the disclaimer. So that is the standard disclaimer. If we could go on to the next slide, please. Presenting teams, there is me, Mark Learmonth, Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc’s Chief Executive. We are also joined by Ross Jerrard, who will run us through the financial performance for the year; Victor Gapare, who will talk to us about what is happening at Bilboes; and Craig Harvey will give us an update on the various exploration initiatives. If we could move on to the next slide please. So just in terms of the summary of the results, it was a very strong financial performance, underpinned by a higher gold price and some consistent operating delivery.

Revenue up by 46% to $267,000,000. Gross profit up by 78% to $137,000,000. EBITDA up by 100% from just less than $60,000,000 to just over $125,000,000. And profit after tax up by 200% from $23,000,000 to $67,000,000. So there are some quite big numbers there. Ross will unpack those numbers in more detail in a moment. We move on to the next slide, please? Before we go much further, can we just briefly discuss Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc’s value creation proposition? So from one angle, what we see here is looking at this from the perspective of our distributions in country, to government by way of taxes and royalties and also to our local shareholders. Over the course of the last nine years, we have distributed just over a quarter of $1,000,000,000.

We are making a very, very substantial contribution. And you can see quite how that increased in 2025 as a result of higher taxes due to higher profitability, higher royalties due to the higher gold price, but also an increase in local dividend payments to our local minority shareholders as a result of the strong financial performance and the unwinding of certain local ownership initiatives. That is very pleasing to see. But moving on to the next slide. As well as paying a quarter of $1,000,000,000 out to local stakeholders, we have also delivered very significant value to our shareholders. So the top line shows Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc’s share price over 10 years with dividends, and we have given a return of just over 1,000%. Over the same period, GDXJ has increased by 464% and gold up by 300%.

So as well as making significant contributions locally, we are also delivering a very, very healthy return for our shareholders. Should we move on to the next slide? Right. Let us just quickly focus on the operating results. Clearly, we had a very unfortunate fatality in September as a result of a secondary blasting incident. As a result of that, we initiated a comprehensive review of our safety practices and our safety procedures, our operating controls, and our training programs across the entire business with the objective of improving our risk management and making sure that we operate as safely as it is possible to do in a very hostile underground environment. That includes instilling operational discipline, a proactive forward-looking approach to identifying hazards and avoiding such hazards, and embedding a zero-harm culture across the organization.

Should we move on to the next slide? What we see here is the usual graph. The top graph shows our tons milled and grade. The bottom graph, the bars show the ounces, and the line shows the recovery. What is notable really on the top graph is that the tons milled has been stable. We are pretty much operating the metallurgical plant, the crushing and milling and the CIL plant, pretty much operating that at maximum capacity of about 820,000 tons a year. And that has been very stable, largely because we have been able to make use of the stockpile to draw down from the stockpile on those rare occasions when the mine has not been delivering the tons. But also what is clear from the lower line is the extent to which the grade is lower in Q4 or Q3 than it has been historically.

Part of that is due to the fact that temporarily we are mining lower grade areas. We are developing into high grade areas that we expect will reverse into 2026. So in January and February, we were still mining relatively low grade areas; that has improved in March. And also to some extent, as we have been drawing down from the stockpile, the stockpile itself is relatively low grade. The bottom chart clearly shows the ounces, but it shows the drop in recovery, and that is largely due to the lower feed grade. The tail grade that we deposit onto the tailings facility, pretty much it is 0.2 grams. We are not going to get much better than that. So inevitably that means that the difference being that the recovery goes down. Can we move on to the next slide?

Craig will talk in a lot more detail about exploration towards the end of the presentation. Our exploration activities at Blanket are really targeted with replacing what we are depleting. So we are effectively standing still. Nevertheless, we have actually done rather better than that. So over the course of the year, over the course of the quarter, it was Q4, you can see that we added quite substantially more tons than we depleted. And as Craig will explain later on, that will in due course result in a revised reserve and resource statement for Blanket. Should we move on? Right. I will now ask Ross if he could run us through the financial results. Ross, could you do that?

Ross Ian Jerrard: Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we dive into the financial results, I just wanted to draw your attention to the format of the reporting. And as previously advised, Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc is now classified as a foreign private issuer under Canadian rules. So the standard filing requirements in Canada that you have historically seen have changed. We will be filing full financial statements under the SEC rules, so included in our 20-F, which is scheduled to be filed in April, you will see the full financial statements and controls attestation. And that is all going to be done in April. So I am delighted to talk you through the financial results today. And you can see on the summary slide in front of you, we have had a fantastic year.

The performance was really driven by the benefit of the higher gold price environment but also delivering the ounces. Blanket Mine produced 76,000 ounces of gold in 2025 and sold 77,000 ounces. The 1,683 ounces of gold inventory movement and other adjustments together total 79,000 ounces on the top right-hand of the chart. Importantly, to highlight, our on-mine costs were up some 19%, and the unit costs were marginally above those cost guidance ranges that we had guided the market. This was really a reflection of the restricted access to some of the higher grade areas, but also some inflationary pressures and our continued investment in development to ensure long-term operational reliability and safety, but also that grade profile. So with grade coming through slightly lower than we had originally anticipated, that did have a flow-on impact on our unit costs, just slightly above what we had guided.

The overall result, though, was a very pleasing financial result with EBITDA up 109% to $125,300,000, which was a significant improvement. And after our capital expenditure, which was largely on track to guidance when you take into account some commitments that will roll over year-end, we delivered on our CapEx profile, all resulting in healthy free cash flow of $62,000,000, which was up some 483% on the prior year. And after our distributions, it resulted in earnings per share of $2.83, which again was up over 200% for the year. So a very pleasing set of financial results. Just diving into a little bit more on production costs, so if we can turn to the next slide, please. You can see in the bottom right-hand pie chart that the makeup of production cost categories is largely driven by labor, consumables, and power, indicated with the blue, orange, and green slices, and then a little bit, 10%, across admin.

You will see in the figures our overall production costs went up 25% across the group; 19% was an increase at Blanket. Really those were driven by those three buckets of labor, consumables, and power. Our labor costs were up this year again due to higher overtime payments that were made during the year and production bonuses together with some wage inflation. But really the delivery of the ounces needed more volume being moved and hoisted to compensate for that lower grade, and as a result, we had to pay that overtime and the various bonuses that came through the system. Our consumables were up some 14% for the year. This was driven by some of the inflationary impacts on consumables, reagents, and the like. But there is a ZIG premium in terms of local procurement.

There has been a big push this year in terms of deploying our local ZIG components back into the market. With that, there is a slight difference with the ZIG versus U.S. dollar differential in terms of the local market. And I would highlight that it has been a very pleasing year in terms of foreign currency. The differential between the ZIG and the U.S. is very close now. We are not seeing the high differentials that we have seen in the past. But as we have taken a strategic decision to deploy into the local procurement market using ZIG, we have incurred an additional premium in terms of that ZIG to U.S. dollar differential. We will talk a little bit more about the overall forex loss when we talk through the cash flows. But that has been a driver in terms of our consumables.

Our power costs have been grid and genset power, which has been really driven by supporting that additional output. We are obviously mining in deeper areas within the mine, driving higher power usage and requirements and obviously incurring more power. And we do have initiatives in place that will address these three buckets as part of our ongoing cost initiatives to ensure that we can at least reduce or at least maintain our cost profiles in those significant buckets. Moving on to the next slide, please. You will see the results as we work our way through the profit and loss. So top line revenue up at $267,000,000, driven by those ounces and the higher gold price that I had spoken to. Our royalty this year was up at $13,500,000. That is driven by the higher revenue number.

And I would draw your attention to the change in the royalty rates. As we deliver ounces over $2,000 an ounce, they do attract an additional 5% royalty charge. Our production costs, as already indicated, are up some 25%, and depreciation charges were largely unchanged. So we are very pleased with our gross profit that was generated, up some 78% for the year, driven by those improved margins and thanks to the gold price. You will see the net foreign exchange losses were down from $9,700,000 to $3,300,000 this year, and again that was a very pleasing result in terms of the exchange differential that we had historically seen, and we are very pleased with the ability to access the willing buyer, willing seller market. $8,500,000 is the profit on our solar plant.

I will not talk to that. We have gone through that in previous results presentations, but it was pleasing in terms of being able to sell that asset, generate proceeds that we could then deploy across the group. I would draw your attention to the administration costs at $20,480,000. That is higher than the historical run-rate and general trending that we see going forward. This year, we have incurred some quite significant one-off fees, predominantly around our advisory fees related to the convertible, some additional employee costs that have gone through the system, and some other transaction costs we do not see ongoing. And we think that run-rate will come off by some 10%–12%, more closer to a $17,000,000 type number on a per annum basis.

We have incurred a fair value loss on our derivative financial instruments, so those are the hedging instruments that we put in place to protect our side, our mine, and the gold price at a $3,100 gold price. So those hedging instruments are really put through the P&L. We do not do any hedge accounting or anything that is nuanced to that extent. So everything goes through the profit or loss. And we were delighted with the ultimate profit before tax of $106,000,000, up 162%. The tax expense was higher off this great result but also included the capital gains tax on the solar plant sale, which pushed up that tax expense a bit more than a normal run-rate, but we are delighted with our P&L result with our overall profit for the period of $67,500,000.

If we can move on to the next slide, please, and let us quickly touch on some of those aspects from a cash flow perspective. So our cash flow from operations was up at $105,000,000, up 90%. I have spoken to interest and tax payments, included that solar sale. Our CapEx was on track in terms of what we had guided the market in terms of expenditures. And the proceeds from the sale and the gross proceeds from the solar sale were able to be deployed into our treasury options, where we deployed those into various fixed-term deposits during the year. And we were able to allocate central treasury and start our treasury function as we look to Bilboes and beyond. Ultimately, our net cash used in investing activities was able to then be deployed across some dividends paid.

The $19,900,000 was a result of dividends paid both to our Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc shareholders of $10,800,000 but also to GSCOT and NIEEF, so they are various partners at the Blanket Mine level in terms of deployment. So they got $5,500,000 and $3,600,000, respectively. A very pleasing close to the period with a net increase in cash and cash equivalents of $32,000,000 for the year, which was a great result. If we move to the next slide, you will see our overall liquidity and what it means is that we exited the year with cash on hand of $35,700,000, and if you add in our bullion on hand at year-end plus some gold sales receivables and our fixed-term deposits, before utilization of facilities we had almost $60,000,000 available to us and a total liquidity of just under $55,000,000.

So a very pleasing result and very solid position in terms of our performance for the year. On top of that, in early 2026, we were able to successfully complete a $150,000,000 convertible note offering, where, after inputting a capital structure, we received a net $130,000,000. So post year-end, we are in a very healthy cash position as we look to further development of Blanket but importantly as we start our deployment and our spend on our Bilboes project, which I will talk to in a couple of minutes. So moving on, I had mentioned that CapEx was largely on track and you will see our various expenditures that were aligned with guidance, so nothing that stood out in terms of where we spent the money. But ongoing sustaining capital expenditure was really about underground mine development, where we spent 22% of the CapEx budget, and that was really development and looking at new mining areas and underground developments targeting additional reserves and resources.

Thirty-one percent of the spend was sitting in the engineering department and that covered the whole bouquet of electrical, mechanical, and central shaft upgrading and engineering. And then there was 27% that went across the other mining departments in terms of mines, milling, and the MRM department. Our only non-sustaining CapEx project was the tailings storage facility and that accounted for 20% of the CapEx spend. So turning to the next slide, you will see the slice of where those various spends occurred in terms of sustaining and non-sustaining split. But we were pleased that we were able to deliver those CapEx projects and continue to invest in the mine for the future with some solid cash flow generation. If we move to the next slide, please.

Closing off on CapEx, you will see in the announcement that there have been some additional CapEx approvals by the Board. So our total group capital expenditure for this financial year 2026 is projected to be $178,900,000. The two key projects that were approved last week by the Board were $14,200,000 construction of a $34,000,000 power line connecting to the 132 kV backbone and a $2,200,000 allocation against the central winder for the central shaft, converting it from AC to DC. Both projects are great projects with quick payback periods and really underwrite some solid reliability in terms of power usage at the mine and also some imperative upgrades in terms of the underground mine. So we are looking to the future, investing in the future, making sure that some of these critical projects are delivered.

Over and above that sustaining CapEx, we have $136,000,000 allocated primarily against Bilboes, where $132,000,000 is anticipated to be spent against both the FEED phase but also some early deployment of expenditures against the Bilboes project, and then just shy of $4,000,000 which is further exploration at the Motapa project. If we can move to the next slide, please. We are delighted that the results of 2025 have delivered a solid performance and we are continually looking at that balance of our capital allocation in terms of both growth projects and shareholder returns. As you can see in CapEx that we have both delivered and planned to deliver, we are looking at growth for the future and investing in that future for the long term. Equally conscious about shareholder returns.

So we are delighted to have another dividend, a quarterly dividend of $0.14 per share. Dividends have been paid since 2012, so we continue with that continued payment of dividends and balancing both growth and shareholder returns. And I will just draw your attention to the key dates in terms of that dividend payment. So if we can switch to the next slide, please. I will now take the opportunity to hand it across to Victor to talk a little bit more about Bilboes.

Victor Robinson Gapare: Thank you, Ross. Can we move to the next slide? With regards to Bilboes, we have previously announced that the Board approved this project implementation in November. Basically, all the parameters which are in there, we have announced them before. An IRR of 32.5% at a gold price of $1,548. Obviously, the returns are materially higher at prevailing spot gold prices. Can we move on to the next slide? Basically, what we have shown here are the economics at three different prices: the consensus forecast of $2,548 per ounce, the three-year trailing average price of $2,350, and the price which was on 10/2026, which was $5,177 per ounce. Obviously, there has been some volatility in the price of gold, so those figures, at the end, you can put any price you want, and you can come up with different margins.

But clearly, you will see that economics change quite significantly if we apply the current economics. That is all we are showing. So effectively, what we have done is we have started implementing the project following approval. As Ross has said, we have raised some money and we have appointed an EPCM contractor, and that work has started. We are hoping for the plan to have the first gold pour towards the end of 2028, and our first year of full production will be 2029, which would be at just about 200,000 ounces per year. That is peak production. Can we move to the next slide? Ross will cover the funding aspects—what we have done and what we are planning to do. Ross, over to you.

Ross Ian Jerrard: Thank you, Victor. So our funding strategy for Bilboes is covered by four funding pillars, and we are delighted with our progress in terms of how we are tracking against that strategy. The first phase was underwriting our Blanket production and securing a series of put options at a price of $3,500 per ounce that covered a three-year period from January 2026 to December 2028, effectively the construction period. The key elements of that hedging strategy were really to provide a floor to the cash flows that were generated. It was not giving up any upside in terms of gold price above $3,500, but it did enable us to basically earmark the best part of $200,000,000 from our own operations that we could deploy against the Bilboes project.

At prices closer to $5,000 an ounce, that $200,000,000 escalates to closer to $300,000,000. So it is a core, cornerstone strategy in terms of using our current asset on the portfolio to underwrite the strategy. It also helped us in terms of our pricing with the various banks and financial institutions in terms of how we would take on our various debt facilities. The second step, as you have seen and previously mentioned, is the raising of some funds from a convertible note offering. It was a $150,000,000 raise, upsized from $100,000,000 due to some amazing demand out of the U.S., and we are delighted with the result that we were able to receive those funds in short order. And we were also able to allocate some of those funds against the cap-call structure, which effectively increased the conversion price to $56 a share, up from $40 a share.

So those two steps, steps one and two, have been completed and have enabled us to be able to move forward in short order in terms of the remaining funding facilities. The first one is an interim funding facility, so we are currently in negotiations with a consortium of both Zimbabwean and South African banks to raise a $150,000,000 facility. You would have seen the announcement in terms of appointing Standard Bank and CBZ as co-lead arrangers for that facility. We are targeting the middle of this year to get that facility in place, and the cornerstone of that is, again, the Blanket Mine cash flows. And in parallel with that, the fourth arm is really the project finance facility, a longer burn rate in terms of getting that facility in place, but that formal process has commenced, and we are expecting that to be delivered in the next 12 months with the various due diligence procedures.

So we are very pleased around where we are positioned with what we have done to date in terms of underwriting that financing strategy, and we are on track in terms of the discussions with the various banks and financial institutions. If we turn to the next slide, we will just illustrate, I guess, our thought process and the overview in terms of our sources and uses and actually how we believe that this funding requirement will be met. I will refer you to the right-hand side of the slide in the first instance, in terms of the use of funds. So you will see our capital cost is basically $485,000,000, but when you add in our capitalized interest and some working capital, the ask is closer to $600,000,000 in terms of a package. On the left-hand side, you will see the column at $3,500 an ounce, and you can see, together with our cash and our net proceeds from the convertible bond and our forecast future cash flows, the ask from senior debt and other facilities is just over $300,000,000 in terms of delivery of those funds.

If we move that pricing deck up to $5,000 an ounce, you will see that senior debt and other facilities reduce down to close to $170,000,000, and we are well on track in terms of getting that funding in place between both the interim and the wider project finance facilities. We are really pleased in terms of the status of the financing workstream. Importantly, we have got some big spend that is coming up. So we need to deploy the best part of $130,000,000 in the third and fourth quarters of this year as we start the more significant spend on the Bilboes project. And we are excited about that, well on track with that, and I think it is all coming together very nicely. So with that, I will hand it across to Craig Harvey.

Craig Harvey: Thank you, Ross. I will just give you an overview of the exploration activities that have taken place at Motapa and Blanket in the past year. So if you could go on to the next slide, please. So 2024 and 2025, Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc has put quite a lot of money into Motapa. We have drilled surface drill holes totaling just under 30,000 meters. It is a very strategic asset. As we can see on the map on the screen, it is located directly to the south of the Bilboes project, which we have just heard about. That kind of scale from the top of North to Bilboes is between 200 to 400 meters away. So I think we can all draw our own conclusions as to synergies between Bilboes and Motapa, bearing in mind it is basically hosted into the same shear zone.

Mineralogy and metallurgy are expected to be quite similar. So going forward for 2026, we have had a further allocation of $3,800,000 for exploration. We will continue looking at Mapuzi, and we are going to focus on Motapa South for the year. Clearly, there is potential for a sulfide resource below the historic open pits, but at the same time, there is a strong potential for oxides to the east. We have put in two drill holes to have a look. Results were encouraging. So things to look out for at Motapa: during Q2 2026, the company will probably be publishing a maiden resource estimate. We are just waiting for some of the final QA/QC checks of the data and geological interpretations to be complete. But in all likelihood during 2026, we will see what the drilling activities have actually given us.

If you can move on to the next slide, please. So during 2025, there has been a continued deep hole or long hole exploration program at Blanket. Just to give you an overview of the areas that we are drilling: on the northern side of the property, which is to the left of the image where you can see Lima, it is the Lima and Eroica ore bodies, and to the south on the right of the image, that is the mainstay of the mine—that is the Blanket and the Blanket Quartz Reef ore bodies. So I will zoom into a bit more detail on each of these areas. Could we move on to the next slide, please. So on the Blanket side, where we have essentially a whole bunch of ore bodies that come together—AR South, the Blanket Quartz Reef, and the Blanket ore bodies—and the Blanket ore bodies are Blanket 1 through to Blanket 6.

Of course, we have also got Blanket 7 now. What is important to note here: I have got a grade legend on the side of the map there, and really what you want to be looking for is the little purple stripes that you see coming off from those draw-off traces. Anything that is purple there is 5 grams a ton plus. Now in the next month or two, again we are just finalizing some QA checking from the lab, we will be putting out a press release regarding the drilling results that we have done at Blanket. That will give people insight into the widths that we encounter in these grades. Very, very exciting. So 34 Level is the base of the Blanket Mine currently. We are putting a decline, as you can see there, from 34 to 36 Level. It is on 36 Level at the moment.

We are starting with the 36 Level infrastructure development. And what is key to note: 34 Level is 1,110 meters below surface. The deepest hole there that we have represented with those little purple stripes is 277 meters below 34 Level. Now 277 meters below 34 Level equates to a depth of approximately 1,350 meters, which equates to 42 Level. So the main levels of set-up are 34 to 38, 20-meter lifts apart. So we are quite clearly looking at, all things being equal, another two main lifts at Blanket that we are going to have a look at. Very encouraging. We carry on doing the work. Just to give a bit of reference, if you had to move to the south to the right of the image, we will be putting in another hanging wall drill cubby to create another fan of drill holes in due course adjacent to these holes.

This is at the limit of our inferred resources. So clearly with this drilling coming in, we will be looking at upgrading inferred to indicated, as Mark, the CEO, has indicated, with a view to upgrading mineral resources and mineral reserves in due course. If we can move on to the next slide, which then focuses on the northern portion of Blanket Mine. So on the very left, the very northern portion where there is a little bit of colorful goods that you see there—stopes—is the Lima ore body. And in the middle is the Eroica ore body. Now Eroica has been a mainstay. Why you only see a couple of drill holes there is the majority of this area was drilled during 2023 and 2024. You can already see some of the development that is accessing these areas.

The majority of this area is now indicated resource. But you can also see that there is a long hole that is also maybe 60 meters below 34 Level—so currently on a 36 Level type horizon. Clearly, as we advance 34 Level, we will have a hanging wall cubby put in place, and we will continue drilling on the Eroica ore body from 34 Level down to 42 Level. The left-hand side with Lima, again you can see some of those little purple stripes which represent 5 grams a ton plus. One hole, on purpose, we pushed down to around the 34 Level mark to test the depth to see that we are not wasting our money. We did pick up the Lima ore body, but Lima itself is not one single ore body; it is made up of six ore bodies. So there is a lot of scope to continue doing this.

The lowest level of mining on Lima is at 750 meters below surface. You can just work out for yourself, if we take it down another 250 to 300 meters, we are talking 22 Level to 34 Level of mineral resources that may be exploited. Again, below 22 Level, it is inferred resources on Lima. With the drilling coming in, we will be looking at including that and seeing if we can upgrade some of the inferred resources into an indicated resource or better. So in a nutshell, Blanket keeps on going. The grades are still looking good. The grades, the widths—we obviously model what we are expecting to find with our drilling, and it continues to return similar, if not better, results at depth. So thank you for that. With that, I will hand back to Mark to give some closing comments.

Mark Learmonth: Good. Thank you, Craig. We have kind of run out of time, so I just want to draw your attention to an event that we hosted on the fringes of the Cape Town Mining Indaba in February. Along with five or six other foreign-owned Zimbabwe mining companies, we hosted a briefing event where we invited representatives from the Zimbabwe government—Minister of Mines, Minister of Finance, and the Reserve Bank—and the objective was to try and dispel some of the pervasive, continued misunderstandings about what it is like to operate in Zimbabwe. It was very well attended, and the way the representatives of the Zimbabwean authorities engaged in a very transparent, constructive way with the audience hopefully is a first step—first step of many—to trying to overturn some of these misunderstandings about Zimbabwe.

So that was very good. Can we move on to the next slide? So just to finish and move on to questions. Clearly, our strategic focus after the fatality last year is to continue commitment to the safety of our people, the objective to maintain reliable operations at Blanket, which, let us face it, is going to be an important generator of capital for the construction of Bilboes, but, as you have heard from Craig, has very significant long-term extension plans in its own right. Leverage the strong gold price to invest in Blanket’s projects to create operating resilience and to mitigate further input cost pressures. Moving along with Bilboes as quickly as we can in terms of the financing and development plan. And to continue to explore at Motapa, which in due course we think will be a very exciting project.

So all of those together really mean that we are continuing to execute our strategy to become a multi-asset, Zimbabwe-focused gold producer. So I think that is the end of the presentation. Can we open it up to questions, please?

Operator: Thanks very much, Mark. If I could just remind people, if they would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand button that is at the bottom of your screen. We will pause for a few seconds just to wait for people to raise their hands in order to ask a question. Our first question is going to be from Howard Flinker. Howard, I have unmuted you. Please unmute yourself, and then please ask the question to the team.

Q&A Session

Howard Flinker: Can you hear me now? Yep. What is the maturity of the convertible bond? I have another question too.

Mark Learmonth: It is—I think it is seven—is it seven years, Ross? It is a slightly longer-dated maturity than most convertibles, and that was specifically so that it matures outside the timing of the scheduled repayment of the project finance. Ross, is it seven or was it slightly longer?

Ross Ian Jerrard: Seven years. Seven years. So 2033? Yep.

Mark Learmonth: Next question, Howard.

Howard Flinker: Yep. And I thought this solar plant was in Jersey Island.

Mark Learmonth: So that would be a big mistake because it is often not very sunny here.

Howard Flinker: No. I thought the ownership was there and it was tax free. What is the capital gains rate on that?

Mark Learmonth: Roughly.

Ross Ian Jerrard: It ended up being $2,000,000. So—and there was a combination—some of it was on a total capital gain, and there was an element, but it was $2,000,000.

Howard Flinker: Oh, and what is the tax rate on the loss on the derivative? Was that a regular tax rate or something different?

Ross Ian Jerrard: No. So all the derivatives are held outside. They are all held here corporate. So it is 0% for the derivatives because they are sitting in Jersey.

Mark Learmonth: I think for practical purposes, it would be very difficult—strike impossible—to structure derivative holding through Zimbabwe. I think having to go through the various RBZ approval processes would just fly in the face of being able to—you know, when you decide to do these things, you do them very quickly, and to have to pause for RBZ approval would just make it impossible.

Howard Flinker: So the effective tax rate on the derivative pre-tax and post-tax is the same, right? Zero taxes.

Ross Ian Jerrard: Zero. That is right. That is right. Yeah.

Howard Flinker: Finally, I am going to say this is pretty thorough financial accounting. Nice job.

Ross Ian Jerrard: Nice. Thank you, boss. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. You are welcome.

Operator: Howard, we have got our next question from Joseph Parrish. Joseph, would you like to go ahead?

Joseph Parrish: Yes. Great presentation and anticipated a lot of my questions, so this will simplify things a bit. Only thing I really had left to ask has to do with power cost. You know, the solar plant, of course, was intended to keep those contained. With the recent conflict in the Middle East, there are temporary increases in fuel and energy prices. Depending on how long this goes on and maybe just with the higher operating cash flow you are enjoying on the mine, would further investment in solar plant facilities at Blanket become a higher priority as you are looking at these, or are these something that is being considered now?

Mark Learmonth: No. No. It would not. So let us just deal with our exposure to fuel. Blanket uses about 2,000,000 liters of fuel a year. Approximately half of that is diesel generators. The other half is used on diesel equipment in the business. Last year’s diesel price—that represents about 3% of our OPEX. So we are not particularly exposed to diesel in our operating costs. And in terms of supply, we have got just over six months of supply either on the property or on consignment stock, so we are not particularly exposed there. The problem with solar is that when the sun does not shine, you do not get solar. And the particular issue we face right now is that the way electricity gets through the grid to Blanket means that the last 30-odd kilometers goes through a pretty poorly maintained 33 kV line, which typically has bigger reliability problems when it is rainy.

And so you have got the combined effect of rain, which means that you have got a higher chance of power interruptions from the grid, and also it means that the solar panels are not working very well. So the two issues kind of compound each other. So what we are doing is we are putting in a 132 kV line, which we expect will reduce the average incidence of power outages from, say, 30 hours a month to an average of, say, three hours a month, and that will reduce our reliance on diesel. And once you connect to the 132 kV line, that gives you much more flexibility to access power both in-Zim and in the region. There is no shortage of power. So, frankly, solar kind of compounds the problem; it does not solve the problem. So the simple answer to your question is no, I am afraid.

Joseph Parrish: Okay. Well, I appreciate the detail. I am sure investors will appreciate it as well. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We are going to take our next question from Mike Kozak. Mike, unmuting you. Please go ahead.

Mike Kozak: Yeah. Yeah. Good afternoon, guys. You hear me okay?

Mark Learmonth: Yep.

Mike Kozak: Great. So two questions from me. First one, sustaining capital for this year. It looks like it increased from $27,000,000 to $43,000,000, and you did a good job explaining where that money is going. But I did not flag any change to the 2026 all-in sustaining cost guidance that you guys set a couple of months ago, I think between $2,100 and $2,300 an ounce. Are you going to stick with that range?

Mark Learmonth: No. That is clearly fallen between the gap, in that we got the Board approval a couple of days ago for the extra CapEx. And clearly, I guess that should flow through into all-in sustaining cost. Is that correct, Ross?

Ross Ian Jerrard: That is right. And we are just looking at timing, Mike, in terms of when some of that will actually drop. So while the projects have been approved, we are just going to see when they are scheduled to be paid.

Mike Kozak: Okay. Got it. Thanks for that. And then my second one, if I back out from your earlier quarterly results from last year, I should say, it looks like Q4 you recorded a derivative loss of around $4,800,000, I think. Is all of that related to the put options you guys bought in December, or is there something else going on there?

Ross Ian Jerrard: That is all to do with the puts.

Mark Learmonth: To be clear, even with this current volatility, the gold price is much higher than the put price. The point of the puts is, I think, as Ross outlined—just to reinforce the point—is it creates a floor price for the purposes of the Zim banks in terms of putting together the interim funding facility. So it is still strategically important to us.

Mike Kozak: For sure. I just want, for my own numbers, to know what to adjust out for and what to expect in future quarters. I just wanted some clarity on that. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you, Mike. Thank you. We have got our next question from Nic Dinham. Nic, please go ahead.

Nic Dinham: Hi, everybody. Usually, I would like to just spread around the questions. The first is for Craig, I think. Craig, it does look encouraging what you are doing. But coming back to Blanket Mine, are the reconciliations between what you are actually getting out of the mine at the moment adhering to what you would have expected from your reserve models?

Craig Harvey: Hi, Nic. Yes. Yes. So Q4 was affected by a couple of forced moves that we had to make. We could not access the areas as quickly as we would have liked. So we were forced into maintaining production out of some lower grade, some medium grade areas. As we all know in mining, trouble always hits your higher grade areas, and people see it. So yes, it is maintaining what we are expecting.

Nic Dinham: Okay. Excellent. I think the next question is for Ross. Ross, it is a usual one. Have you repaid your facilitation loans to your non-controlling interests? And the second question with that, I will have a few more, but second question is, how many dividends did you distribute from Blanket? Eventually, can we get some numbers here? It was not quite clear.

Ross Ian Jerrard: Nic, so I will do it the other way around. There were $60,000,000 of dividends that were declared in 2025 from Blanket. Not all of that equated to actually cash moved; there was an opening balance and timing of the payments post period, but it was $60,000,000, and there is a $5,000,000 rollover with $44,000,000 paid during this year. So high level $60,000,000, but there were some timing differences in terms of the cash flows. BETZ repaid its facilitation loans in Q4 2025.

Mark Learmonth: That is the employee trust?

Ross Ian Jerrard: Sorry, that is the employee trust. And NIEEF has got about $500,000 left on it to be repaid. And NIEEF is the government beneficial shareholder.

Nic Dinham: Okay. So it is all over for them; from now, they will be securing their share of the dividends from now on.

Ross Ian Jerrard: That is right. Yep.

Nic Dinham: In your—actually, one of the questions about the loss on the derivative reporting—and obviously this is a moving piece because you are marking it to a price at the end of the period—do you have a sense of what that number would be if you were to take today’s price? What sort of loss would you be recording?

Ross Ian Jerrard: I have not looked at it today. That range in the actual valuations ranges quite considerably as we do the pricing because it is a delivery of a put option each month for the next three years. So it is not a prima facie where we are under the three and a half; they are all written off on day one. There is a value that goes up. But no, I do not have the price for you today, especially after today’s.

Nic Dinham: No. I just thought you might have an idea of sensitivity. And the last question is, you have started to accumulate some near-cash equivalents, and you have got some deposits being made here. What do you think you need in terms of keeping Blanket solvent and keeping the rest of business lubricated with cash? How much do you think is the minimum residual cash that you should have on hand at any one time, or cash equivalents at any one time?

Ross Ian Jerrard: Okay. Well, selfishly, from a CFO perspective, I would rather have a little bit more in the back pocket than normal, but anywhere between $30,000,000 to $50,000,000, I think, would be a healthy position, particularly with the projects that are coming through the system. So we have got a large amount now that will be deployed, but I think having that sort of quantum on balance sheet just gives us some protection in terms of where we are going.

Mark Learmonth: So, Ross, do you mean cash, or do you mean liquidity?

Nic Dinham: Let us call it liquidity in terms of facilities.

Ross Ian Jerrard: Yeah.

Craig Harvey: Yep.

Nic Dinham: Okay. And then just on the operational side, there was a discussion previously about a buildup of ore stocks. Now you have run them down again to meet the requirements of the end of this last period. Is your strategy still to rebuild those stockpiles?

Mark Learmonth: Yes. So one of the things that we will be introducing in the middle of the year is a new shift system at Blanket to introduce two—it will do two things. First of all, it will introduce seven-day working at the mine as a standard, and that is pretty common now across the mining industry in Zimbabwe. The mine drilling and blasting only currently take place six days a week. So that should result in an extra day of drilling and blasting. If we can get the stuff trammed and hoisted in the ordinary course of events, that should give rise to an extra 100,000 tons a year. In the short term, we will be using that to accumulate a stockpile to see us through the hiatus relating to the AC-DC conversion. So currently, the central shaft winder works AC.

We will be converting that to DC for safety reasons and also for cost reasons, but that will result in the central shaft not being able to hoist for a period of two to three weeks. And so we do need to make sure that we have got a healthy stockpile at the end of the year to see us through that. So it very much is the intention over the course of this year to build stockpiles. And then once we are confident that the shift system is working and we have got adequate stockpiles, then clearly we will be looking at what we need to do to address and use the extra production, increase our milling capacity. That is a work in progress. So at this stage, I cannot tell you what the costs of increasing that milling capacity would be and what the effect on OPEX would be.

Let us just focus on the shift system, delivering the ounces, delivering the extra tons, building the stockpile to see us through the AC-DC conversion. And then for next year, there will be, hopefully, the story about how we are going to convert that into increased ounces. It is premature to say that at this stage.

Nic Dinham: Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And then the final question for Victor here. At the end of this year—this time next year, sorry—at the end of 12 months’ time, you will have spent circa $130,000,000 on Bilboes. What will you have in place by the end of the period? What is your approach going to look like on the ground?

Victor Robinson Gapare: Okay. So thank you, Nic. What we are really doing is placing orders—long lead items is what we are basically doing most of this year towards the end of this year. That is really what we will be doing. We will probably have some contractors moving in at the end of the year, but really most of the money we are spending this year is on orders on the long lead items.

Mark Learmonth: It means very little physically to see.

Victor Robinson Gapare: Yeah. Very little to see. The only thing you will see there are contractors moving in and starting to do some work.

Nic Dinham: So this will be in the form of prepayments then, really, will it?

Mark Learmonth: Payments and deposits.

Nic Dinham: Yeah. Yep. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Tatu Zuwonora. Please go ahead.

Tatu Zuwonora: Hi. Can you hear me?

Operator: Yep.

Tatu Zuwonora: Alright. So I just have three questions. The first one, can you explain more about the consortium facility, as in which banks in South Africa you are courting? And what is their level of interest in supporting the company, given the 15% non-resident tax which resumed this year? Could you explain that? That is my first question.

Mark Learmonth: The 15% non-resident tax—Ross, are you able to answer that?

Ross Ian Jerrard: Not specifically for the banks, but we have got two South African banks and then the Zimbabwean banks that are participating. So half a dozen banks that we are talking to for the interim facility. And, yes, we have been pleased with the appetite to participate in such a facility with those banks. So, no, we have not had any negative connotations or discussions from that perspective. And then our facility is the African banks in terms of DFI that we are talking to, with a similar sort of feedback.

Tatu Zuwonora: Okay. And my second question is, PGM companies have reported substantial amounts of their ZIG portion of the export proceeds are being trapped at the RBZ. I think there were complaints from Zimplats and Unki, and I wanted to find out if Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc is facing such a problem with their ZIG portion of the export proceeds being trapped at the RBZ.

Mark Learmonth: Absolutely not.

Tatu Zuwonora: Alright. Then my final question is, has your outlook changed in terms of the gold prices which you are expecting for the year, given the geopolitical tensions happening in the Middle East right now?

Mark Learmonth: So do you mean that we are going to adjust our—are you asking if we are going to adjust our production level? Is that the question?

Tatu Zuwonora: Yeah. Considering that the commodity market has become volatile owing to those geopolitical—

Mark Learmonth: No. The mine plan is pretty much set. We cannot just arbitrarily increase and reduce production. The objective is to mine, to optimize operating efficiency, and keep the mills full. What you could do is adjust your cut-off grade. So if you thought the gold price was going to be much higher, you might reduce the cut-off grade so you can perhaps mine more material that would be less attractive in a lower price environment. But, no, the current gyrations are not giving us any thoughts about changing our overall approach to the mine plan and our mining schedule.

Tatu Zuwonora: Alright. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for your question. Next question is from Tinashi Dumas.

Tinashi Dumas: Can you hear me?

Operator: Yes.

Tinashi Dumas: Okay. Nice presentation and nice performance as well. Great performance. My question is how much of this year’s performance is genuinely operational? I am talking about the year and the period under review. How much of the performance is genuinely operational and how much is simply gold price leverage? I concur that production at Blanket was broadly flat, and while gold prices are up circa 44%. And from that, I could argue that your earnings were largely price-led rather than execution-led. So what comfort or evidence can you give that the business can protect its margins and sustain cash generation if the gold price normalizes?

Mark Learmonth: Okay. So one of the things that we perhaps did not make clear enough—you are quite right. In 2025, a lot of the good performance was driven by the high gold price. One of the things that we are doing—and we have seen quite significant increases in costs at Blanket. If you look back over a five-year period, in 2020, Blanket’s on-mine cost was $784 an ounce. Last year, it was $1,280. People need to understand that Blanket now is a very different mine from what it was in 2020. We are hoisting significantly more material from much, much, much deeper. In 2020, we were hoisting most of our material from 750 meters below surface. Now we are hoisting most of our material 1,200 meters below surface. So inevitably that means that you are going to be using more electricity even before you start taking account of the incremental need to use electricity for improved ventilation.

And in terms of employees, if you look at the pointy end of the business—that is the people involved in the mining, the underground tramming, the hoisting, the people involved in the milling—we are actually handling more material, more tons per person now than we were five years ago. But our costs have gone up, and if you look at our consumable cost, we are pretty much using less in the way of inputs like grinding media, cyanide, drill steels—we are using fewer kilos of that per ton milled—but every year, year on year, we have seen our costs such as the costs of steel balls, which we use in the ball mills, go up on average 10% per annum over each of the last five years. So the cost profile has gone up. What we are doing now is we are focused on trying to reduce dollar costs.

In particular, the first three initiatives are targeted at electricity. So the 132 kV line, the AC-DC conversion—they are expected to give rise to significant cost reductions over the course of the coming three years. In addition to that, we are trying to use electricity more intelligently. So we are trying to reduce our overall power consumption by just being more clever about how we use electricity. The shift system that I referred to earlier on has got two aims. The first is to reduce worker fatigue by reducing overtime. Reduced overtime will clearly then reduce some of our labor costs because overtime is clearly at a premium rate. But the other thing—a lot of those cost reductions, I expect, may well be offset by other pressures that we are going to experience over the next three years or so, particularly in terms of providing better quality housing for the workers.

And so the only way I can see that we can get sustainably reduced costs at Blanket is to increase production. So as I have mentioned, we would expect, as a result of the shift system and introducing seven-day working weeks instead of six-day working weeks, to harvest more tons which should give rise to more ounces, which should mean that our costs are spread over more ounces and therefore get the cost down. So that is not going to happen quickly, but over the next three years, I would be hopeful that as a result of the combination of those packages, we can begin to get the cost down. But do not for a minute think that Blanket is going to go back to being a low-cost producer at $784 an ounce. It is not. The only way for a deep-level, relatively low-grade mine like Blanket to be sustainable—and Blanket is 120 years old this year; we want to keep it running.

As you have heard from Craig, there is plenty of potential to extend Blanket’s mine life by going deeper. And the only way we can do that is by continuing to invest to improve resilience and lock in economies. So that is a long answer to a fairly short question, which I hope answers your question.

Tinashi Dumas: Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I have been answered. I am from Equity Access, by the way. Thank you. That was enough for me.

Mark Learmonth: Okay. Let us be clear. The phrase that I use is “escaping forwards.” From pretty much any mine in Zimbabwe which is facing rising cost pressures, the only way to counter that is to escape forwards through growth. And that is what we are looking for over the course of the next three years. Okay. Any further questions?

Operator: That concludes the questions that we have at the moment. So, Mark, I would like to give the floor back to yourself for any closing remarks.

Mark Learmonth: Okay. Well, clearly, it was a good year financially, as we have identified, largely driven by the gold price. We are focused very much on Bilboes, turning that to account. That will be a game changer not just for Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc but also for Zimbabwe. But we are not neglecting Blanket. And as I think the comments at the end of that Q&A session made very clear, we are focused on using this high gold price to invest in Blanket, both to try and tickle up the gold production but also to lock in resilience and efficiency. So that is going to be a three-year exercise, not a quick turnaround. But we will keep stakeholders informed as we move along. So thank you very much for your attendance, and we will be putting out our Q1 results in about six weeks’ time in May. Okay? So thank you all very much.