Compañía de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. (NYSE:BVN) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Daniel Dominguez: Carlos, we have already done this in December. And we are expecting in the following months to have an answer from the SUNAT.

Carlos de Alba: Okay. And then my next question is on Yumpag and the permits. You mentioned in the press release that you expect to receive them in the first quarter. How certain are you of this? Do you have any indication that it could — this potentially could be delayed into the second quarter or third quarter? Yes, how confident are you that Yumpag would start really ramping up again in the second quarter?

Leandro Garcia: Well, in terms of permits, that the country, the administration is trying to make efforts to give to all the administrators to have shorter times to run the permits. We are — in a daily basis, we have meetings with the organizations and the authorities to take all the questions that they have to allow us to have this to be granted of this permit as soon as possible. We are making all the efforts to have it before the year — the quarter end of this year. Probabilities, I cannot tell you. But be sure that we — this is one of the — our daily jobs that we have to do, our daily targets.

Carlos de Alba: Fair enough, Leandro. Just my last question for you, Leandro, or maybe, Roque or Raul, how do you envision this new phase of the company with a very relevant second large shareholder that now, my understanding is potentially could receive two seats in the Board of Directors? How do you — how does this change the company? How do you see the company going forward? And what do you expect in terms of this relationship with Antofagasta?

Leandro Garcia: Well, Carlos, as the management and all the corporate, we are very comfortable with the business plan and the strategy we have. Maybe we have not talked with Antofagasta yet. We just received the approval of the shareholders to increase the number of directors. So we will see. We will expect our first meeting. Maybe, Roque, if you want to add additional comment?

Roque Benavides: They are important shareholders, and we respect all shareholders. They suggested a couple of names. Mr. Iván Arriagada and Mr. Andrónico Luksic. And we are proposing those names to the Shareholders’ Meeting for approval. I look forward to an excellent relationship. I happen to know Mr. Andrónico Luksic, the Founder, many years ago. And I think the industry has a lot of respect for Antofagasta. So we hope to work together and in a very constructive way. There is nothing more than that.

Carlos de Alba: Thank you, Roque. Thank you, Leandro.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Today’s next audio question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Tanya Jakusconek: Great. Good morning, everyone and thank you so much for taking my questions. And Roque, if I can just follow up on the Antofagasta, it seems from your comments that you haven’t really sat down with them to see exactly what they want. I mean, we listened to their conference call in terms of what they mentioned. But I’m more interested in if you’ve been able to have conversations with them.

Roque Benavides: Well, we — their interest essentially, being a copper company, is in the Peruvian market and in the copper assets of Buenaventura. As you know, we have Trapiche and we have Coimolache, [indiscernible] La Zanja. Obviously, we have Brocal and we have an equity participation in Cerro Verde. So that is what they have told us that is their interest. And they will participate as any other company — if they want to contribute to develop these projects that we have under development, they will have to participate as any other company as we are talking to people like Sumitomo or BHP in the case of Coimolache. But as shareholders, they will be part of our Board and they will contribute with their knowledge. And I think it is a plus for the company.

Tanya Jakusconek: So they were interested in sort of all of your copper assets. Because as you know, they’re mostly open pit miners. So they’re also interested in the underground operations. And are they interested in Trapiche maybe being — helping on the development like a BHP, like you mentioned? Would they be interested on being a partner on Trapiche?

Roque Benavides: Well, if they are interested, as any other company, we will open and they will have to sign DNA or I’m correct? Yes, NDA, an NDA. And yes, why not? Antofagasta is a first line company and they specialized in copper and, as you say, in open pit mine. So nothing extraordinary, Tanya, nothing extraordinary.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. No, I really, really appreciate that. Thank you so much Roque for that. Can I just ask maybe a couple of things on just some modeling questions from Daniel and then I want to come back to San Gabriel and Trapiche. Just on the modeling side, Daniel, should I be looking at your 2023 level for exploration, G&A and selling expenses and is that a similar level for 2024?

Daniel Dominguez: Yes, Tanya. For explorations, you should estimate around $45 million from brownfield explorations and an additional $10 million for greenfield. The D&A should be similar to the first to third quarter of this year. Remember that in the quarters three and four, we had an amortization of the deferred stripping asset at El Brocal. So if you want to model, you should take the D&A similar to the first two quarters of the year.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. No, that’s very helpful. Thank you so much for that. That’s helpful. And then can I come back and ask about some of the asset sales? When we were at the Investor Day, and congratulations on selling one little asset in the quarter, we talked about selling some of the assets to help fund the balance sheet on top of the Cerro Verde dividends that we’re receiving. Where are we on the Yanacocha royalty sale? I know we had talked about it at the Investor Day, there were 13 potential buyers. Can you just talk about where you see asset sales in Q1?