Petra Diamonds (LSE:PDL) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PETRA DIAMONDS LIMITED investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen, please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll, which will just appear on your screens now. And I would now like to hand you over to the management team from PETRA DIAMONDS LIMITED, Richard, Greg. Good afternoon. Good afternoon or good morning, everyone, and welcome to our company and diamond market update.

0:50 I'm Richard Duffy, PETRA's CEO, and I'm joined by Greg Stephenson, our Sales and Marketing Executive. If we could please move to the next Slide three.

1:04 Given a number of key events have taken place over recent weeks and months, we wanted to provide a brief update as well as touch on our expectations for calendar year 2024. The format for this presentation today, which can be found on the Investors section of our website, is to begin with an overview of diamond markets and our recent tender results, which shows pricing is bottoming out and that the Indian moratorium, together with discipline by the majors around supply to the market, have been effective, but ongoing discipline by the key players is important to provide some price stability going into calendar year 2024. The important points that we would like to make is that we have taken a number of prudent steps to improve our resilience through optimizing our costs and increasing the headroom of our revolving credit facility.

2:04 In financial year 2024, we expect to see an acceleration in the traceability of natural diamonds as the G7 ban on Russian rough comes into effect in a staged approach. Traceability and provenance is already being trialed and opens up a number of mine to market opportunities for natural diamonds. Lab grown diamonds continue to diverge as a separate product category at a lower price point. And looking forward, we continue to focus on the ongoing stabilization and optimization of our operations while building resilience into the business and looking for opportunities to enhance the value of our diamonds through traceability.

2:51 Through the session today, the objective is to keep it relatively short so that we are able to provide sufficient time for questions before we conclude. If we could please move to Slide four, and I will now hand over to Greg to talk about the current state of the diamond market. Thanks, Greg. Thank you, Richard, and welcome, everyone. Moderator, if you can please move to Slide five. Our recent sales results in both Johannesburg and Antwerp have seen a bottoming out in the year's price decline. At these final sales of the calendar year, we've seen like for like prices improving by over 19% compared to tender two held in October. The prices achieved for three to six grainers, that's diamonds below 1.8 carats and smaller, increased by more than 20%.

3:45 Coarser material, two carats and above, saw a 15% increase in price. Product mix will always vary, but our three operations continue to produce a full spectrum of diamonds. Cullinan has long been famed for its large type two a white diamonds and is renowned as the world's primary source of blue diamonds. One such example is the 12.6 carat blue stone sold in this sale for just under $6,200,000. Cullen has also seen a number of super vivid yellow stones such as the 13 carat stone on this sale, which sold for just under $1,000,000. Fincher's makeup of predominantly high yielding, sawable and octahedral diamonds has always helped provide a captive clientele. Williamson has a long history of producing high value pink diamonds and is popular with manufacturers for its rounded models.

4:35 Moderator, could you please move to Slide six. Looking at the broader market, there seem to be a number of market data points that support the pricing trends seen in our latest tender. The Indian moratorium that Richard touched on earlier on rough imports certainly had an effect on supply into the cutting centers, and it's led to a shortage in certain areas. Demand is focused primarily in the smalls, the poorer qualities, brown goods, but we've also seen an increase in demand for larger material, which I shall touch on shortly. De Beers and to a degree, Al Rosa have led the way in limiting supply in an attempt to diminish high polished inventory levels, and the responsibility shown by all producers at the request of the midstream and the German Jewelry Council in India has been positive.

5:24 Marketing efforts by De Beers and the Natural Diamond Council have also been ramped up, though we still have a fair way to go and a lot more to do. Further to this, I just wanted to say that we sense a change in the attitude by the majors who are now looking to limit rough and hold prices stable. Coming back to the point around Polish sales, in late October and November, we saw Polish picking up on US orders driven by brand demand and high net worth individual spend. The general consensus is that this Thanksgiving and Christmas period has been better than envisaged and polished inventory levels in Stuart have certainly lessened. High value white goods and colored diamonds are performing well, albeit off their historical highs.

6:12 Sales have improved in China and we are seeing some traction in tourist spending in Hong Kong, but we remain cautious on China noting their economy their economic recovery has not emerged as predicted. All eyes will be on the Chinese New Year spending from late January to the end of February. We have the first Hong Kong German jewelry show falling late February, and that will help to give some direction to both the rough and polished markets.

6:40 One other point that I wanted to add that there's little doubt that the local Indian market is picking up strongly and there's a genuine feeling that the Indian market has the capacity to take up some of the slack from China. As I wrap up my piece, I think our feeling is one of cautious optimism as we head into 2024. We feel confident we can hold on to the recent price increases and we sense stricter discipline across the pipeline by all players involved. As always, we'll monitor the market closely using our flexible sales processes to take advantage of the market as it improves. As part of this, we're planning to host sales in late January for all three operations, which will include Williamson in Antwerp, in order to maximize value from the improved demand that we are seeing.

7:31 Moderator, can I please ask you to turn to Slide seven, and I'll return you back to Richard? Thanks very much, Greg, and we can go on to Slide eight, where we I'll just touch on some of our recent steps to build resilience in the business. As we announced in early November, we've taken a number of prudent steps to reduce cash outflows, targeting savings of some US$75,000,000 by the end of June twenty twenty four. That comprises a reduction in capital spend of around US65 million dollars deferral of 3,000,000 to US5 million dollars of sustaining CapEx and US7 million to US10 million dollars of operational spend.

8:19 The aim is to minimize the impact of these project deferrals whilst strengthening the balance sheet in the event of prolonged market weakness, which importantly is not our base case. Also, in the event of protracted market weakness, we have secured a USD 43,000,000 increase in our revolving credit facility from Absa Bank, and this increases our financial flexibility as in the event we do see weaker for longer prices in the market. And then finally, we announced last week that we have entered into a nonbinding agreement with a party that is interested in acquiring our holding in Kofie Fontaine.

9:07 The transaction remains early stage and subject to further due diligence, but may lead to a better outcome for our stakeholders, specifically community members and former employees, and, may also remove some of the costs associated with closing the mine. We remain committed to our environmental and social responsibilities relating to Coffee Fountain, whether through the decommissioning and closure process or through a potential sale. If you could please turn to Slide nine and on to Slide 10, where we will just have a quick look at industry trends in calendar year 2024. 09/01/2024 has now been given as a deadline for G7 countries to have robust traceability based verification and certification in place with the sale of Russian diamonds banned.

10:07 As a result, the industry has had to augment progress on its approach to provenance. TRACER, which is owned by De Beers and Serene, a diamond processing technology company, have collaborated to launch a solution to track diamonds from mine to finger or, if you like, jewelry stores, providing a scalable, cost effective solution to facilitate the source verification and traceability of diamonds when they enter the G7 and other countries utilizing a dedicated digital portal. We are in discussion with this joint venture to improve our diamonds traceability beyond their point of origin, and we will update the market in due course as we progress this. This is more than just traceability though as it also provides an opportunity to digitally capture capture the unique story of each natural diamond, the size, quality, origin, character and impact in terms of employees and community and social projects.

11:06 Over time, we also intend including the carbon footprint of each diamond that is logged and mapped. This will create further mine to market branding opportunities and further differentiate natural diamonds from lab grown. If we could please move to Slide 11. We're keen to dispel the myth that lab grown diamonds and natural diamonds are in competition. They can grow together in the diamond market, but in two very distinct product categories. While lab grown diamond production capacity has increased considerably and will likely continue, this has led to significant price declines in line with the scale of production and lower production costs.

11:55 The sector has also faced some challenges with pricing as demonstrated by the recent bankruptcy filing by WD Lab grown, the largest man made diamond producer who is now reinventing itself to focus on the industrial use of these man made materials. While The U. S. Jewelry company found its sales with 33% down for the third quarter of twenty twenty three compared to last year. We also continue to see consumers recognizing the difference with some supportive information from the Chinese market and a trend report by Chai Tai Fuk showing that 74 of consumers see natural diamonds as more premium, more luxurious and more valuable than lab grown diamonds.

12:42 So we believe that both can exist in this market and lab grown diamonds offer a lower entry point to a broader consumer base. If we could move to Slide 12, please.

12:59 I won't go into all of the details here as set out in the slide, but the takeaway show that lab grown diamonds manufacturing processes are energy intensive and currently mostly reliant on fossil fuels, so often do not offer a more sustainable option than is often portrayed. These manufacturing processes also then lead to the same opportunities for job creation and support of local communities as is the case with natural diamonds. This has become key of our industry's messaging marketed through the Natural Diamond Council, whose mission is to advance the integrity of the modern diamond jewelry industry and inspire, educate and protect the consumer. Ladbroke and Diamond sell at a considerable discount to the natural stones with one of the contributing factors being easy supply.

13:52 For natural diamonds, to put it into perspective, the annual recovery of one carat natural diamonds would fill an exercise ball, while that of five carat diamonds produced in a year would fill only a basketball. So real is indeed rare. There is now also some blowback from consumers who have bought lab grown diamonds after seeing the same lab grown that they purchased a year or so ago available at less than half the price. So for the moment, jewelers are selling lab grown diamonds at much higher margins than natural diamonds, but the question is for how much longer. There are also significant discrepancies in pricing between different retailers for the same lab grown diamonds.

14:42 And now I'd like to move on to the outlook for PETRA in FY 2024, if we can move to Slide 14, please. Operationally, we continue to stabilize our operations at Cullinan and Williamson, which is ramping up to steady state. At Finch, we continue to seek to minimize the volatility associated with the current sublevel cave, while we develop the 78 level Phase two project, which will start contributing later in this financial year 2024. We continue to monitor the market and execute on our cost optimization initiatives, while maintaining flexibility

15:21 at our tenders. During the six to eight month period of deferred capital spend, we are looking at opportunities to optimize and minimize the impact of these deferrals through a number of initiatives, including value engineering. We are also looking at smoothing the capital associated with underground mining to avoid the cyclical peaks and troughs, which we will look to update the market on during our Capital Markets Day, which we are planning for the end of April next year. Finally, next calendar year is expected to bring significant change to the industry as traceability unlocks the ability for the industry to map supply from mine to market.

16:07 PETRA is set up as a resilient business going into calendar year 2024 with the objective of providing a smooth and more predictable capital profile going forward, together with the flexibility to benefit from an improved diamond market. With that, we'll open up for questions. Thank

16:26 you very much. Perfect. Richard, Greg, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Patrick, as you can see there in the q and a tab, we have received a number of questions from investors that were both presubmitted ahead of today's meeting as well as those that have come in this afternoon as well. Firstly, thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. And Patrick, if I may hand over to you, sir, just to chair the Q and A with the team, and then I'll pick up from you at the end.

17:11 Thank you. Thank you, moderator. We have two presubmitted questions from Stanislav p. I'll direct these to Richard in the first instance. Hello. I have I've had a few shares since the beginning of May twenty nineteen. Until now, I've lost 66%

17:27 of the value. Can you please explain to me why this has occurred? The big fall started three months after I purchased, and there was a second fall in February 2020. Thank you. Thanks, Patrick and Stanislav. Yes, I think the key thing around this, the two major factors. The first was in 2019, we saw diamond prices

17:56 reduce throughout 2019 until the major producers started to reduce supply to the market. You may recall back in 2019, there was also distress in the midstream, the cutters and polishers in India as financiers withdrew some of their funding, and there were a number of players in that midstream that exited.

18:22 So that contributed to a weaker diamond market through 2019. But I think the key factor behind the share price performance for PETRA was in fact triggered by COVID, where we ended up having to go through a capital restructure. And that capital restructuring was announced in October 2020 and was concluded in March 2021, which saw the significant dilution of existing shareholders. So the key reason for the poor performance

19:01 was in the main as a result of the capital restructure, which was brought about by COVID and the diamond markets to all intents and purposes being inaccessible for a period of time and PETRA

19:19 needed to repay a $650,000,000 bond, which it renegotiated with its creditors and ended up issuing shares and a much smaller bond of around $350,000,000 So that's the main reason behind the share price performance.

19:43 Patrick, do you want to take the next one? A second one from Stanislav. Can you please tell me more about dividend payments? You've said previously that this is something you would like to do, but until now, there haven't been any dividend payments. Could you perhaps just give a little bit more clarity on that?

20:01 That certainly remains the intent of the Board is to be in a position to pay dividends. I think part of the focus in making the business more resilient is to ensure that PETRA is resilient both through the market cycle in terms of diamond prices, but also the capital cycle.

20:24 We can't control the foreman. We can't control the market, but we can provide for a smoother capital profile, which means more predictable cash flows, which are required to be able to pay dividends. So certainly, we are still looking at getting into a position to be able to pay dividends, and that is part of what we discussed today around making business more resilient and providing for a smooth capital profile going forward.

21:01 Thank you, Richard. I have a question from David S. It's about rough demand for rough diamonds and pricing per mine. I'll initially direct this to Greg. I'm not sure how much we can say per mine, but perhaps there are specifics you can talk to, please.

21:23 I think if I can defer to Richard with regards to talking on pricing with regards to the mines. Yes, I think and Greg, you can come in to supplement as you see fit. I think the

21:41 demand for rough diamonds is really driven by the midstream. So the midstream, if you like, and it's called the midstream for good reason. It sits between the producers on the one hand and the wholesalers and retail on the other. And in a market where you see either excess supply

22:09 or excess supply of rough or weaker demand of polish, the midstream then either holds back in terms of what they buy or in a rising market, will obviously accelerate their purchases. So I think that if you look at our production per mine, I think it really depends on where the markets are at the time. We've seen not too long ago stronger demand for smaller size fractions. And as you would have heard Greg say earlier, we've seen a return to demand for larger white D color stones and colored stones as well.

22:59 And so I think each of our operations provides a different offering to the market. But generally, what we see is our pricing outside of product mix factors, which obviously changed from quarter to quarter. But if

23:19 you look at like for like pricing, we tend to see the prices of our goods from the different operations kind of move in sync. So I don't think there's any meaningful

23:35 distinction that I could make between our different operations. But I do think that the midstream is integral to how prices behave. And as we've seen more recently with higher interest rates, with inflation staying higher for longer, although we seem to be through that, the ability of the midstream to finance

24:01 inventory has also reduced, which has contributed to the weaker market. But the steps taken around the moratorium, as we mentioned, and supplies restricting supply to the market has seen that inventory pipeline rebalance with more demand now being evident in the rough space, which has resulted in the better pricing we saw at our last tender.

24:29 Richard, if I can maybe just add on, you touched on it as well. Obviously, the hardest hit area was in the coarser material, the plus two carat goods and primarily the gem goods. You know, obviously, high value, high average price goods. A lot of that to do with the downturn in China.

24:49 But as I mentioned earlier on, we are starting to see an uptick in those goods and that will have a positive effect on the average price of all three of the mines. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Richard. I have a question from Steve Wye, which is somewhat related. It's more on the supply side. I'll direct this to Richard in the first instance. Are you concerned that Elrosa may change their recent supply discipline in response to EU sanctions?

25:20 And what can PETRA do if that is the case? Thanks, Patrick and Steve. Yes, I think on this one relating to Elrosa, they've certainly shown discipline in a weaker market. And I would expect that would continue because there's not too much to be gained by them

25:46 undercutting prices. I think what you will probably see is some sort of a bifurcation in the market where you would see Alrosa supplying the likes of China and India

26:02 on a more regular basis and then other production sources supplying, if you like, the Western world. So expect we will start to that's already happening, but I expect we would see that continue and increase.

26:22 There's not a whole lot we can do as PETRA. We're relatively a much smaller player. We roughly from a production point of view, we list around a tenth of the size of Al Russo in terms of annual production and the same with De Beers. But certainly, our view is that we wouldn't expect Olaroz to flood the market simply because it's not in the interest to do that. And we would expect that they would likely focus more on China and India in terms of their goods.

27:03 Thank you, Richard. Switching to the CapEx cuts, I have a couple of questions, which I'm going to join together. Given cuts in CapEx, do you still expect to be able to meet the lower end of production guidance in FY 2024 year end? And then the second question, which I'm joining on to that is if diamond prices remain low, how may that affect our view on being able to meet our lower end of guidance? Yes.

27:32 So I think on both the capital deferrals have a limited impact on our financial year 2024 production, which is why we've left our guidance unchanged, although at the lower end of the guidance range. So I think we're comfortable with that guidance as presented. I think that if prices if we're wrong and prices haven't bottomed and ticked up as is our view and as set out earlier, and we see prices retreat further, I think the question there is what is the impact then on our production? And again, I don't think that would have an impact on our production for FY 2024.

28:30 I think the steps we've taken in terms of the capital deferrals and increasing the headroom on our revolving credit facility just provide us with greater resilience in the event that we do see a weaker for longer market. That's not what we see currently. As you would have heard Greg say, we're cautiously optimistic that we've seen prices uptick on the back of a bottoming in prices. We do expect some volatility whilst this all works its way through the market. So we don't expect to see weaker for longer, but PETRA is well placed to navigate through a downside or distress scenario if that is what happens.

29:26 Thank you, Richard. And switching to Coffee Fountain, if the contemplated mine sale goes ahead, can you quantify at all what the cash savings might be going forwards? Unfortunately, not at this stage. That is dependent on what a final deal might look like. What we've done is we've signed a nonbinding heads of terms, and we don't have sufficient detail to be able to provide that information. But certainly, we would look to provide that as soon as the deal is finalized. We would expect to see some savings on ongoing costs in the event of a potential sale as we've outlined. But I can't, at this stage, provide detail on what that might look like.

30:16 We'll do that as soon as we have finalized the agreement and can then calculate what that looks like. Thank you, Richard. I have a question from Catherine R. Can you please focus a little bit on energy costs, energy reliability and any specific efforts on emissions reduction? Thank you. Thanks. Yes. Catherine, we on from a South African perspective, which is where the immediate focus is, we we do have a renewable strategy that we're busy executing on. And the intention there is to procure a proportion of our energy requirements from renewable sources.

31:06 You may have seen that we have targeted a reduction in carbon emissions of 35% to 40% by 2030, and our renewables strategy execution of that plays an important part in getting there. We're comfortable that we will do that. So, know, I think the focus is certainly around reducing our emissions through that and you know, that is all on track. And as we execute on that, we'll provide more detail to the market. Thank you, Richard. And a question just on our bonds, given that they're trading at quite a discount at this point. Has the board considered any bond buybacks?

32:01 Yeah. I think, you know, we we obviously follow where the bonds are are trading. And at the moment, what we've done is we've taken steps to ensure that the business is resilient. And so you saw capital deferrals, as mentioned, cost optimization and additional headroom on the revolving credit facility. But certainly, the intention is to look at opportunities against which we can apply incremental cash, starting with our capital development. As we move towards a more smooth profile, we will be ranking and prioritizing capital projects that will provide us with the best impact in terms of return soonest.

32:53 And so if we see ongoing improvement in pricing, we'll start to be able to get back to delivering on the projects some of the projects where we've deferred spend. And then if we do have further cash to apply, then certainly looking at our capital structure in terms of bonds is something we do look at, as I said, on an ongoing basis. So we would prefer to have a lower gross debt. It's one of the areas of focus. May remember that we did recently reduce our loan notes fairly significantly down to around $250,000,000 And so yes, we will continue to look at how we allocate cash against our projects, against our debt and indeed any other discretionary opportunities.

34:01 Thank you, Richard. And returning to Coffee Fountain, do we have any sort of timeline or date in our minds as to when we may reach a firm agreement on Coffee Fountain? Thank you. We don't as yet, but we would hope that it wouldn't take too long. There are obviously a number of regulatory requirements that we would have to get across as well. But I think we would hope to be able to get this all done in a matter of months in terms of finalizing agreements, even if there are still some regulatory approvals that still need to be obtained.

34:47 So I think certainly the party we're working with and ourselves are committed to driving to an executable transaction, but difficult to give you a firm answer other than to say I would expect it to be a few months in terms of timing, but but can't be particularly more precise than that. Thank you, Richard. And returning to the market, I have what looks to be the last question from Ahmed A, and I'll direct this to to yourself, Richard, in the first instance. Several jewelry retail chains in The USA are reporting strong year on year growth. However, India's net polished exports in US dollars keep falling and have been since March 2023.

35:38 Could you please explain the disconnect between the strong retail data that we're seeing in The U. S. And the slightly weaker polished exports from India? Yes. Look, I think what you're seeing there is we're still seeing a rebalancing of the inventory pipeline. So there has been quite has been quite high inventory levels on the polished side. And as a result, you could see, as you as has been pointed out, fairly strong retail sales without the corresponding pull through from rough through the midstream into retail. So I suspect what we'll see is as that inventory pipeline rebalances and polished stocks stock levels reduce, then we should start to see some pull through from the midstream in India and in fact, in terms of rough supply.

36:44 So I would expect that India not having imported any rough for since October, the majors reducing supply to the market will have seen some rebalancing. And through this festive period into the Chinese New Year, we would hope to see that inventory rebalance on the Polish side translate into increased demand and pricing through rough and the midstream. Thank you, Richard. It appears there are no more questions coming through. Can I please hand back to the moderator? Perfect. Patrick, Richard, Greg, thank you very much indeed, for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you, immediately after the presentation has ended just for you to review, to then add any additional responses, of course, where it's appropriate to do so, and we'll publish all those responses out on the platform.

37:45 But Richard, perhaps before really just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that would be great. Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you for participating today, and we look forward to similar discussions in the near future. If you do have questions that haven't been addressed, please do direct them, through to our investor relations team. Thanks all, and goodbye. Perfect. Richard, that's great. And thank you once again for updating investors, this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations?

38:35 This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of management team of PETRA DIAMONDS LIMITED, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.