South32 Limited (S32) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

I will now hand over to Matt Daley, CEO. Please go ahead. Thanks, Kayleigh, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we discuss our financial results for FY26, my first to South32 CEO. And of course, on the call today, we have Sandy, our Chief Financial Officer. So it's an exciting time for our business with our positive operating performance and repositioning to base metals driving strong financial results. a clear pathway to substantial value accretive growth in copper and zinc, with 55% production growth expected from projects under construction or approved, and a pipeline of growth and life extension options beyond this that can drive further value and returns for our shareholders. Before I run through our financial results, I do want to talk about safety. The most important measure of our success as a company is the safety of our people. And in FY26, we did not live up to the standards we set ourselves. The death of our colleague Simon Mukwarami in an incident at Worsley Illumina in March 2026 had a profound impact on everyone at South32, particularly our team at Worsley. Simon's family, friends and colleagues very much remain in our thoughts. We've taken steps to further enhance awareness of Worsley's existing procedures and controls for working at heights, and we continue to look at opportunities to design tasks in a way that eliminates or reduces fall from high risks. As South32's CEO, I'm unwavering in my commitment to a workplace free from fatalities. Turning back to our financial results, our base metals business drove strong earnings and cash flow with strong operating performance enabling us to capture the benefit of commodity price tailwinds, while active cost management mitigated the impact of industry-wide inflationary pressures. Gro...