GEM DIAMONDS LIMITED (GEMD) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to GemDiamond's half-year results presentation for the six months ended 30 June, 2026. This webcast is being recorded and will be available on our website later today. Our presenters today are Clifford Alphick, CEO of GemDiamond, Michael Michael, CFO, and Brandon DeBrain, COO. Please use the Q&A function on your screen to sit through any questions. All questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. I'll now hand over to Clifford.

Welcome everybody and thank you for your attendance. We are addressing our half-year results and if you could go to the next slide, please Janine. The disclaimer, I'm sure all of you are very familiar with this so we can move past this. You're going to be hearing from me, Michael, and Brandon, covering operations, finance, and sales and marketing. And then, of course, at the end, we're happy to take questions. So, the half year in review, relatively good half year. Skipping across the top row, carrots recovered 41.5 million carats, three greater than 100 caraters in the first half of the year. That's slightly behind or below par, but I'm happy to say that in short order, we've recovered a couple more. So we are cracking our long-term average now. Top right-hand corner, Average dollar per carat achieved. This shows the beginnings of an improvement. It started sort of January, February and has continued. We'll need a few more sales and then we'll be able to determine, you know, if the trend is now firmly in place. But certainly that is my feeling. Big demand for our goods, lots of people chasing after them, and it's resulted in price increases. That gave us a revenue of close to $60 million and an EBITDA of $8.6 million. And of course, that translates into the earnings per share. Pleasingly, if you're looking at the bottom left-hand block, the net debt position is reduced substantially, and we are almost, you know, on a positive position. And, of course, our facilities are of some $70 million available to us. On the injury side, again, a decent performance, but Brandon will talk to that in more detail. I can talk to the diamond market. there's certainly because of the massive drop in supply my numbers are a peak supply of some 172 million rough carats per year and that has now dropped to approximately 90 million carats so not quite halved but almost halved And I think, actually, it may well be that the number is a little bit less, because apart from the well-known mines which have closed or gone into care and maintenance, some closed for good, others into care and maintenance for a period of time, such as big mines, such as Venetia, but I think that there's a myriad of small mines, smaller producers. I'm talking the likes of, you know, the alluvial diggers, but who are substantial in total substantial producers, you know, along the rivers in South Africa and elsewhere. Many of those two have closed. And of course, their data is not that accurately reflected overall. But I think with supply having almost halved and demand now settling as the understanding of what lab-grown or synthetic diamonds, as it's more accurately called now, is going to, the role it's going to play, it is a case that the diamond market is resetting. I think on the macro front, unfortunately, the conflicts in the Ukraine, in particular dragging on the Middle East, too, doesn't seem to come to an end. And on top of that, China doesn't seem to be able to pick itself up and get out of the deflation and the difficulties that its economy is experiencing. However, down in the bottom row, Gem Diamonds is well positioned. We really have gone after our costs in a major, major way to meet the prices which we were achieving last year and at the back end of last year. And the result has been that our business resilience program has right-sized our cost base for those prices, and now as prices are increasing, we're starting to reap the benefits of that. So, the diamond market certainly has, I wouldn't say a huge spring in its step, but it seems to me that if you look across the size categories, across the quality spectrum, things are improving. You may have seen, even at the very bottom end, there have been some price improvements. Not huge, but nevertheless, it sort of has the feel that the bottom of the market may well have been found. So that really has translated well, as far as we are concerned, at the very top end of quality and size.

And we see that in the results that we are able to deliver. next slide right on to sustainability and operations i'd like to hand over to brandon to do deal with these matters please thank you clifford and good morning everyone um as clifford mentioned our first off the year we've seen a very positive and pleasing performance uh both through our sustainability and operations but starting with sustainability and our first priority safety. Again, we've maintained a very solid safety performance in H1. We had one unfortunate LTI of one of our contractors slipping on a pipe near the pump house and sustaining a fracture to his arm. But other than that, we've maintained a very good safety record for the half year. Our all injury frequency rate is at 0.5, which compares to H1 last year at 0.51 which is very pleasing to see and we obviously work hard to maintain that the last time injury frequency rate you can see is at 0.17 we had no LTIs last year and unfortunately the one LTI has pushed that up for the first half environmentally and socially we've had no major or significant incidents and we remain committed to our decarbonization objectives you will note from our report for last year we reached our 30 target to reduce our carbon emissions as compared to our 2021 baseline we're looking at maintaining that and currently we're training to be above that for 2026. our tailings facilities obviously a priority in terms of our management and care for them they are being well managed and we've aligned our processes and procedures and systems to the GISTM. Moving on to our operations, we've seen a good productive six months in H1. Our production volumes have remained in line with our planned output for the year and also in terms of our long-term mine plan. It's worth noting that We have finalized the Cut 5 West cutback in the satellite pipe and therefore the satellite contribution for the first half of the year is 16% as we now move into main pipe and prepare for the next cutback in satellites starting in 2027. Our business resilience program has really delivered and continues delivering. It is well managed and executed by the teams at the operation. And we are seeing meaningful cost efficiencies coming through. And Mike will allude to that a bit later in the financial report. Our waste mining, you can see on the graph on the right, approximately 300,000 tons. So a significant reduction in waste mining, which is in line with our optimized mine plan. And while reducing immediate cash spend, which was our target in our business resilience program that we initiated in July last year, we've also been able to maintain our ore treatment throughput at approximately 5 million tons per annum. so the waste deferral is not impacted on that and we're confident that going ahead in the years to come we are able to maintain our ore production at 5 million tons given that we threw the waste cutting in our in our large cutback in the main pipe all right um as Clifford mentioned we recovered three plus 100 caraters in in H1 a very nice 347 carat which is appropriately been named the Lesotho Jubilee to celebrate Lesotho's 60th anniversary of its independence. This diamond is up for sale in our tender in September. Two additional 100 characters, 109-carat white and 104-carat faint yellow have been found post the period end. And if we just have a look at the table below we can see that we currently in h1 had three plus 100 characters and our 2008 to 2025 average is is eight per annum so currently year to date we're sitting on five so tracking well there we have seen a slight decrease in in the other size fractions the 60 to 100 30 to 60 and 20 to 30 and the tens to 20s but that's in line with our resource and reserve statement and what we expect to get out of the resource as we move more into main pipe and out of satellite pipe, which typically gives us a higher grade, so therefore more carats and also larger diamonds from that pipe.

If I can hand back to you, Clifford, on the sales and marketing. yeah um i think it's been a very pleasing uh six months when you look at our achieved dollar per carrot compared to the same period in the prior year you know some 30 40 percent better uh and that's in line with uh the demand that we have experienced for our goods it is it's always It's quite difficult to have an absolute certain capability of commenting whether or not there was some quality improvement, some better diamonds recovered, or whether it is a straight price improvement. But I think it's a bit of both, truth be told. But nevertheless, it's certainly a more positive situation and gets us back, you know, to the 2023-2025 sort of average dollar per carat. um and uh important factor the 10.8 carats are back contributing about 80 percent of revenue which is you know how we like to look at those things um we continue you will all have noticed that despite the diamond miners having a particularly rough time and of course talking El Rosa, Talking De Beers, the major suppliers, you will all have seen their results and issues. And of course, that flows through to all of us. But on the other hand, you would all have seen that the luxury brands, the very top end, whether it's Richemont, Vuitton, the like, their top end jewelry stores have been performing extremely well. And I think that That ties in a little bit with the improved pricing that we've experienced. But we do go into the second half of the year with a measure of confidence and hope that the trends continue. And I'm sure by the back end of this year, we will hopefully have seen the nadir, the bottom of the market will have been found towards the back end of last year.

Next slide, please. Over to you, Mike, for the financials.

Thanks, Clifford, and good morning, everyone. I'll take you through the financial performance for the first half of 2026, and I'm pleased to say that this is a markedly improved story compared to when we were last year this time. If you look at the overall performance, these results reflect the tangible returns from the Business Resilience Program, which we launched in July 25 last year, and it's a tighter cost base that's come out of that, together with the improved diamond pricing at Let's See, which Clifford alluded to. Revenue increased by 32% to $59.7 million from $45.4 million in the prior comparative period. This is from the sale of 42,624 carats, an average of $1,395 per carat. That compares to $1,008 per carat from 44,360 carats sold in H1, a notably higher price per carat, more than offsetting the modest 4% decline in volume. The step change in pricing reflects the higher quality of diamonds sold in the period and an improvement in the market prices for the larger, exceptionally quality stones that Lysang recovers. Royalty and selling costs decreased sharply by 86% to $700,000, down from $5.2 million in age 125. The $700,000 affects the selling and marketing costs, and the reduction is driven by the royalty suspension that's been agreed with the government of a suit at the end of 2025, August 25, which has subsequently been extended through to the end of September 26th this year. And we actively continue to engage with the government of Lesotho regarding the royalty relief beyond that date. If we look at cost of sales, cost of sales increased to $47.9 million from $39.7 million, an increase of 21%. But I think I need to unpack that in a bit more detail because it warrants some context in that increase. The cash element of the cost of sales, which excludes waste, which is capitalised, decreased by 1% to $31.3 million. So included in the $47.9 of cash cost of $31.3 million. But importantly, it's a 12% decrease in local currency, which went down to $513 million. And that's despite elevated fuel prices and broader inflationary pressures. In unit cost terms, the direct cash cost per tonne treated decreased by 15% in local currency to 197 malotties per tonne, or $12 per tonne. The total oil in cash costs, which includes waste capitalized, decreased 23% in local currency, again, a significant saving in local currency terms, and that was to be furthering $36 million malotties, or $32 million. This was assisted by a reduction in waste times mine, which fell 82% that Brandon spoke about in the operational section, which is in line with the Business Resilient Programme and dropping tonnes to 300,000 tonnes from 1.7 million as part of the mine plan being put in place currently. The principal driver of the overall increase in cost of sales is the non-cash accounting charges, and that's the difference between the 31.3 million cash portion that I mentioned and the 47.9 in the cost of sales headline number, and that was 60.6 million, and that's attributable to movements in stockpile and diamond industry volumes and costs across the different reporting periods, so not a reflection of operational cost inflation. Impacting our results overall, though, is exchange rate, which has had a negative impact on the overall dollar reported costs. During H126, the sutu loti, which is pegged to the rand, strengthened by 11% against the US dollar on average. And the rate moved from 1839 in H1 to 25 to 1642 in the current period. This had an effect of increase in our dollar reported cost, as mentioned, but also reduced the local currency cash flow generation. Despite this adverse currency impact and the operational cost savings delivered in local currency, that was sufficient to hold the U.S. dollar costs flat. Corporate costs as well reduced by 19% to $2.5 million compared to $3.1 million in H.125. This reflects ongoing rationalisation in our South African administration offices and our UK head office, and we remain disciplined in this area. All of that, all those results turn into then a positive EBITDA. We've reached $8.6 million, a substantial swing from the negative $2.6 million we reported in the prior period. Earnings before tax recovered to $3.1 million, and importantly, the group turned to a criminal or profit of $600,000.6 million compared to the loss of $11.7 million, and you will recall that we had a goodwill impairment in the prior period of $10.7 million. The group generated earnings of 5 US cents on a weighted average of 139.9 million shares in issue, and that was against a loss of 8.4 US cents in prior period. If we then just go to the next slide to just analyse some of the historical trends of our unit costs, you'll see that our unit costs continue to improve over the period. You've got a table there from H123 in half-year periods into this half-year. And that's despite the cumulative inflation that's run over time. The dotted line range from left to right to the top reflects the inflation rebates to 100. in June 2023, and you'll see that it's roughly increased to just under 120% cumulative over time. But despite that, our costs have dropped. So oil-in-cash costs, including waste, declined from 222 monotony per tonne to 206. And the significant drop there is also driven by a decrease in volumes, as is reported on a tonne treated basis. But the important one to see real cost savings is the second line where we exclude waste, and that's fallen to 197 malati per tonne treated. And direct treatment costs have more than half to 62 malati per tonne. So those are the two costs that you can see the benefit of some of the initiatives that have been implemented. And that also includes the impact and the benefit of insourcing with major activities like mining and processing. If we go to the next slide and look at the financial position, the balance sheet remained relatively stable. Total assets remain roughly about $279 million. But importantly, cash has increased to $20.2 million from $3.8 million at your end, and borrowings declined to $20.6 million from $24.9 million. And that leaves us in a much stronger position. If we then just go into our cash management, and you'll see that that has improved significantly during the period. The same generated about $27 million of cash before costs, waste costs and capital, debt repayments and financing costs. The group net debt reduced sharply to just half a million dollars, and that's down from $20.1 million in December. We also retained roughly 17 million of undrawn facilities, which provide meaningful liquidity, and the refinancing of those expiring facilities continue. I'll talk about that shortly. Capital expenditure was minimal at $300,000, compared to $2.2 million in H1 in 2025, a reduction of 88%, and reflecting the completion of appliance modification and recovery improvement projects that commenced in 2025. As mentioned above, our Revolving Credit Facilities totaling approximately $75-$76 million in aggregate across the group, GEM Corporate and Atlusim, expire in December 2026. The successful refinancing of these facilities is a key assumption in underpinning our game concern, and we're actively engaging with all our lending banks currently and progressing our discussions for that renewal before it expires in December. The board has reasonable expectation that this financing will be successfully computed and our strengthened financial position, as we've just reported, and improved operating performance provide a constructive platform for those discussions. In summary, our H126 results represents a significant financial turnaround for GED. Revenue is up 32%, underlying EBITDA return to a positive, and the group is back in an attributable or front-up position. Net debt is near zero, liquidity has materially improved, and our cost prices significantly stronger. Although we have some work to do, particularly financing on and navigating the uncertain morality conditions, the business is in a fundamentally better position than it was 12 months ago. Clifford, I'll hand it back to you to close out the presentation.

Thank you, everybody, for attending. There still is a number of significant issues out there. which are impacting confidence generally amongst miners as well as customers, traders, and manufacturers. And that, of course, is the De Beers sale by Anglo-American. My understanding is that this is moving towards a conclusion. Certainly, indications that I receive, I'm not deeply involved. but the indications I've received is that Anglo has an intention to have wrapped this up prior to the year end. And I think the entire industry is really looking forward to getting some certainty in respect of that and some understanding of who the new owners, new custodians of, you know, a significant part of the diamond industry from a rough perspective will be. So that's the one major uncertainty. The other, of course, is exactly where will the consuming market finally arrive in respect of the difference between man-made synthetic diamonds and mine diamonds. It seems that there is a greater understanding amongst consumers as to the merits of something that is natural, which was created in the bowels of the earth and has all of the romance associated with that. But the issue is, you know, where does that finally end up as market share vis-a-vis mine diamonds? So those are two remaining outstandings. But I'm happy to say that it appears that increasingly the market is starting to differentiate between these two products. and I think that'll be good for all of us in the long run. We're looking forward to selling goods. We have a number of sales coming up in the near future and hopefully, as I've said before, the trend of positivity remains. It would be extremely helpful if some of these conflicts could come to an end and, you know, the world's economies could start to settle and get some direction. But with that, let me bring the formal part of the presentation to an end and happy to take questions, which I think, Janine, you're going to manage those, are you?

Yes, Clifford, I will.

I haven't seen any questions in the Q&A box. um see there's a message here which says from stewart says uh has the 347 uh diamond been sold yet no it hasn't it will be um offered to the market in the near future um and uh yeah we look forward to you know a decent result there um back in you have your hand up Sorry Duncan, can you unmute and then please go ahead.

Okay, so I've tried then. Can you hear me? Thank you, yes. Great, thanks. Hi Clifford, Duncan from Pamela Libram. Just firstly on the market, you mentioned around half of the total supply may have come out with the various closures and care and maintenance. Do you have any sense of what it might be for your peers in terms of the higher end sort of quality of the market? I mean, I know you have limited direct peers, but yeah, is it a similar amount or are some miners prioritizing there if they can?

Yeah, it's a complex question. Let me try and give you an intelligent answer. So, you know, there's really us and Kuroi, you know, that our production is skewed towards this end. However, quite a number of larger goods are supplied from the Angolan industry. All mines from time to time, you know, find a whopper, as it were, and, you know, for example, Joaning in Botswana, although they don't, you know, differentiate this from time to time, we know that, you know, there's a decent diamond offered there. Cullinan obviously is in a constrained state, and of course, you know, that produces those ultra blues, which are so magnificent and command such a premium. And similarly, with cow now offline, you know, those pinks which emerge from there, you know, are now no longer there. I mean, I wouldn't say that sort of half of the larger goods are gone, but it's a guess. It's not, you know, we don't have good data, as you pointed out. But I would think that, you know, just as a, you know, a higher order estimate, that probably 25% of those better goods are no longer appearing on the market. but of course there it's a constraint supply anyway so I hope that's at least a little bit helpful to you.

Yeah no that's great thank you yeah so it's a significant amount and just another question on operating costs you've kept the guidance for the full year for the well production and costs I just wondered if you were being particularly conservative given you did have a good um you know first half costs are very good i mean and and i know production is going to be down so the denominator will be less but yeah your your views on sort of where you might be in the range that you you've guided to so we we you know i really the team at let's sing um have been outstanding um uh in in tracing every single contract in turning everything over

There is a bit of diminishing returns here because we've been at this really aggressively now over, as you will have seen from those trends in the graphs, for a number of years. And I would say that it's difficult to keep going at this. You know, we've cut the fat away. We've got into muscle now. You know, we don't want to get into bone. So I think it is fair to put that guidance there. And we would be, you know, confident that we'll get there. There just are no longer any, you know, glaring opportunities to attack, I'm afraid.

Okay, that's great. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, keep going if you have any more questions.

No, no, that was good. I mean, I suppose on an absolute level, it's still, you know, if we look at it on a dollar millions basis if it does assume significantly more in the second half if we if we in that range so i was just wondering if you would you know if ideally you're going to um be trying to track at the same similar level going forward rather than necessarily taking out further costs whether you're hoping to sort of maintain that that absolute level that is our our hope and of course the maths does throw up some sort of slight anomaly there.

But, you know, this is where we're comfortable. We've got to, we think it's sustainable. And, you know, we hope to continue at this level. Of course, inflation is always chasing us and eating away at us. The fuel, there's been an increase in fuel price now. So, you know, we're always fighting that. But the exchange rate, you know, is quite on the one you gain and you lose because some of our dollar based expenses, obviously, with a stronger exchange rate, it's helpful. But of course, then on the revenue side, and we've got lots of local costs, which, you know, it helps with a weaker exchange rate. So, you know, it's a complicated formula, but we just try and really go after the controllables and then, you know, what we get on exchange rate. Unfortunately, we've got no control of that.

Great. Thanks very much. That's all from me. Thanks, Clifford.

Okay. There's just two written questions here. If the profits continue, will the board consider paying a dividend? Yeah, look, we would love to do that as soon as we possibly can. I would think, you know, it's probably too soon to make forecasts on that, but that's definitely the intention. We have a dividend policy. We want to get dividends to our owners, and certainly, you know, that's where we're going to go. So diamond prices recover. What do you expect this to do to EBITDA? I think, you know, the model is you can model that pretty, you can see what happens in terms of our predictions in respect of carrots. We've been pretty accurate when we, because we know where we're going to mine. We've got a very good idea of grade. And therefore, you know, forecasting our revenue, if we hit the carrots recovered is reasonably easy to do. And Duncan, I'm sure, has got his reports out as to what he thinks may or may not happen. But in terms of the predictability of diamond price, it's not so easy to predict because quality can really impact that. But I think that, you know, you can make a stab at the EBITDA relatively accurately given, you know, what we are forecasting with respect to carrots recovered for the balance of the year.

Any other questions, either written or verbal?

Yes, the presentation and the recording will be available on the website shortly. and the presentation is already available and the webcast recording will be available just a bit later today right i don't think we have any other questions okay well then thank you again everybody appreciate you being here and thanks for the support um over the years um would you sell your house to buy the shares here you should have done that yesterday then you could have bought your house back and kept the share um right thanks everybody and uh look forward to

seeing you again soon okay