South32 Limited (S32) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Graham Kerr, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me is our Chief Financial Officer, Sandy Subbanala, and our Chief Operating Officers, Vanessa Torres and Noel Pallay. Before I give a summary of our financial results, FY25, I'd like to acknowledge the tragic loss of our colleague, Jose Luis Perez, who was fatally injured at Cerro Matosa in September. Our thoughts remained with Ms. Perez's family, friends and colleague. An investigation into the incident was completed and we shared learnings across our business with actions taken to prevent a similar incident from happening again. During the year, we continued to implement our Safety Improvement Program, which is supporting measurable improvements in our safety performance. While it is encouraging to see a positive shift in our leading and lagging safety indicators, we remain focused on continuously improving and embedding safety leadership across our organisation. Nothing is more important than our people going home safely at the end of every shift. Turning to FY25 results. We increased our production of minerals and metals critical to the global energy transition. delivering annual production growth of 20% in copper and 6% in aluminium. Our strong operating performance enabled the group to capitalise on improved commodity prices, with underlying EBITDA increasing by 7% to US$1.9 billion and underlying earnings increasing to US$666 million. Operating free cash flow increased by US$272 million and we improved our net cash position by US $885 million to US $123 million, supported by proceeds from the sale of Illawarra Metallurgical Coal. At the same time, we invested US $517 mill...