Earnings Call Excerpt
Gold Fields Limited (GFI)
Q4 2006 Earnings Conference Call
August 03, 2006, 10:30 am ET
Executives
Ian Cockerill - Chief Executive Officer
Nicholas Holland - Chief Financial Officer
Brendan Walker - Head of South African Operations
Terence Goodlace - Senior Vice President, Head of International Operations
Analysts
Victor Flores – HSBC
Mayostard - Royal Bank of Canada
George - Royal Bank of Canada
Presentation
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Gold Fields Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year End 2006 Conference Call. My name is Anthony and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of today’s conference. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call Mr. Ian Cockerill, Chief Executive of Gold Fields. Please proceed sir.
Ian Cockerill - Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Anthony, and good afternoon everybody and welcome to this phone call. With me here today, I have Nick Holland our Chief Financial Officer, I have Brendan Walker, in charge of the South African Operation as well as Terence Goodlace who will be talking later on about our International Operation.
And it is good afternoon today, because this is the fourth quarter fiscal year 2006 feedback and it’s also the final of the year, the fiscal year 2006. So another year is over and I think it is fair to say that in the current environment, it certainly a lot more fun winning in gold company than it was a year ago. As you can see from our results, it has been another pleasing quarter, very much inline with the guidance that we previously gave to the market.
For this quarter, we manage to maintain our production levels at 1.02 million ounces of gold. We certainly achieved a much better production from the Kloof mine, much more inline with what we expect on the sustainable basis. With the high gold prices we received our margins improved from 32% to 38%. Our cash cost were essentially flat quarter-on-quarter at $376 an ounce. Our operating profit improved 47% to $260 million and net earnings also rose 25% from $95 million for the quarter. And we were able to declare a final year dividend of 110 South African cents per share which combined with the interim dividend of 40 cents per share, means of the total dividend for this year is 150 South African cents.
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