FIRST MAJESTIC SILVER CORP Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the First Majestic Silver Q2 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're participating through the webcast, you can submit a question in writing by using the form in the lower section of the webcast frame on your screen. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may reach an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Keith Neumeyer, Chief Executive Officer of First Majestic Silver. Keith, please go ahead. Well, thank you, and welcome everyone to our Q2 conference call to discuss today's or this morning's news release.

Hopefully, you've all read it by now. Before I get into introducing Samir, I'd like to introduce the people in the room with me here today. Manuel Covarrubias, our President and Chief Corporate Development Officer. We have Dave Howe, our Chief Operating Officer, who's new to the company. He's joined us about three months ago. Samir Patel, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Darrell Rae, and Joel Faltinsky from Investor Relations, Darren Fernandez from our financial leadership team, and our new CFO, Neil Beaumont, who's just recently joined us a couple of weeks ago. We did put a news release out on that and his bio's there.

He was with Canada Pension Plan and KPMG and BHP and has added a lot of depth to the finance role, which we're quite pleased about. I'm just going to pass this on to Samir for comments.

Thanks, Keith. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind you that we will be referring to certain non-IFRS measures in making certain statements regarding First Majestic Silver and its operations that constitute forward-looking statements in accordance with applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, such statements regarding future estimates, plans, or expectations of future performance, constitute forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to future events. These statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political, and social uncertainties and contingencies.

We encourage you to refer to the cautionary language included in our news release that was disseminated early this morning and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures in our most recently filed management's discussion and analysis, as well as the risk factors set out in our most recently filed annual information form. As a reminder, these documents, along with all of our continuous disclosure documents, are available on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty or reliance on any forward-looking statements made during today's call. The company does not intend or assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements or information other than as required by law. With that, I will turn the call back to Keith.

Thanks, Samir. We have a presentation showing on the screen. Some of you hopefully can see it. You've got full control over it. We'll go through it slide by slide on our end. I won't read the entire slides as I'm hoping most people on the call have already gone through our news release, another strong quarter for us. Big revenue number, $416 million, up 53% year-over-year, 3.8 million ounces of silver produced in the quarter, bringing our H1 production numbers up to 7.3 million ounces, which is basically 50% of our revised guidance that we put out in July, which is obviously, as you probably know, about a 10% increase from our guidance that we put out in January. We're looking forward to a strong H2 going forward. EBITDA of $252 million, up 110%.

Strong cash flow of $0.50 a share. Exploration is continuing at a robust pace. We did 94,000 meters across the portfolio in Q2. In the full first six months of the year, we did 160,000 meters of drilling. We're very pleased to see the permits come in from Mexico on our Santo Niño and Navidad portals. Those two discoveries have been well laid out to the public in the form of several news releases over the last couple of years. These two portals, we are actually projecting them to come into development in about 12 or 14 months. We've now started development at Santo Niño in the last few weeks. We're looking forward to doing first blasting there in the next week or so.

Santo Niño is over a year ahead of schedule, which will hopefully bring ore into the mill towards the end of 2027 from that, and slightly later, probably about an 18-month after that, we'll probably see Navidad starting to add ore to the mill at Santa Elena. Those are two very exciting things that are developing at Santa Elena. Looking for extended mine life there as a result of these two new discoveries that were discovered about two years ago now. We did revise our guidance, as I did say already. We did declare our dividend as well. We did a 270% increase in our dividend year-over-year, which is obviously nice for shareholders. We did do substantial share buybacks in the quarter. We bought 1.2 million shares during the period. That program was there for us to use at any time.

Whether or not we do that going forward, I expect that we likely will, but look for further news on that. We ended with a strong treasury at the end of June 30th. We had $1.25 billion in the treasury, which is obviously a pretty nice place to be. I'm going to jump to the next slide. That was all slide three. On slide four, we're looking at the all-in sustaining costs. As everyone knows who's listening to this webinar, our analysts are quite familiar with this. There is inflation, of course, as a result of quite large bonuses going to the workforce, which is quite nice for them. You probably imagine how happy the workforce is these days because their bonuses are tied to silver prices. It's really paying off for the communities in the areas that we're active in.

That's really nice to see from our perspective. We're keeping our costs in line. As you can see on that graph there, our cost per ton are 107. Pretty well compared to the last four years. We are keeping our costs in line on a daily basis as a result of the prominent efforts that are currently underway. Jumping to the next slide, operating cash flows, obviously quite good. You see the Q2 number there of $248 million, slightly down from Q1, that's all price driven. We all know what happens in the gold and silver prices, we are affected by those prices, we're completely unhedged at all times, our shareholders virtually demand that we remain unhedged, which I'm a firm believer of that.

We still have the strong cash flows and still adding cash in our treasury, which is obviously very nice to see. Free cash flow of a strong $195 million as well in the quarter. Moving along. At Los Gatos, we're working to continually reach the 4,000 tons a day. We actually exceeded that number. As you can see, we hit a record of 4,070 tons per day in June, which is great. We're on track to have continuous throughput at Los Gatos at 4,000 tons a day, which is important for that operation. Santa Elena continues to perform extremely well. We now have our throughput where we are getting close to 3,500 tons a day. We expect to have daily throughput at 3,500 tons a day throughout H2. Again, this permits the Santo Niño and Navidad is key for that asset going forward.

San Dimas had a pretty good quarter. There was some labor disruptions as quite common at that mine, as most of our shareholders are aware. Nevertheless, the union is getting paid a lot of money these days, I can tell you, they're quite happy and they're working hard, some of the development rates that we're seeing out of the workforce there are quite good compared to the last couple of years. La Encantada, we had our own fleet now of trucks doing our own ore transport to the mill. That's the changeover from what we did over the last several years. We bought our own fleet, it's really paying off and adding to the throughput, we're starting to hit record throughput levels at La Encantada as we speak, which is really nice to see for that operation.

Both La Encantada and Santa Elena are performing above budget, which is quite nice to see. Jumping to the next slide. Jerritt Canyon, we continually get a bunch of questions on Jerritt. We're pretty excited about it. At current gold prices, it's going to be a big cash flow generator for us. We have initiated underground development and rehabilitation. Drilling is continuing. I don't have the number in front of me, we have substantial meters of drilling in the quarter, and we'll continue to do that to prove up the mine plan and get ready for mining next year. A variety of consultants have been hired to initiate production there. We're on track. We're within budget. A bunch of the key equipment has now been ordered. There's a couple of components that are still being worked on to get orders in the system.

As I said, we're on track to see production at Jerritt Canyon likely in Q3 2027, which will be a pretty exciting event for all of us, including our shareholders. Jumping along to future catalysts. That is page or slide eight for those of you who are following us. Exploration is really key for us this year and last year. You can see that we're adding ounces to our resource base. We had a nice increase in our numbers that we put out in March of this year, we continually discover new structures new ore bodies. Just recently, we've had some good news on San Dimas, which is really nice to see. The drilling in Santo Niño and Navidad are continuing. We continually see nice extensions of the Santo Niño ore body, and we will be updating our resources over the coming quarters.

We're likely to be putting out a 43-101 on Los Gatos in the next quarter or so, and we'll likely be following that up with Santa Elena 43-101 out a bit later this year or early next year. Look for further news on exploration. Look for further news on the Jerritt Canyon restart. I look for the continued cash flow and cash generation and building our treasury, because that's really one of our key focuses right now, really getting ready for the future. We think we have a very bright future ahead with all the great things going on within the company. That's it for the presentation. We'll open the call up for questions.

Thank you, Keith. We will now proceed to the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. If you're participating through the webcast, you can submit a question in writing by using the form in the lower section of the webcast frame on your screen. Our first question is from Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead. Good morning, Keith and team.

How are you? How are you?

Hey, two quickie ones here. Your finished goods inventory, obviously over 1 million ounces of silver, close to 5,000 ounces of gold, as of the end of last month. Do you want to give a little bit of color of where that stands today, what the new baseline is? If I want to go out on a limb here, maybe even where you see this at the end of this quarter and maybe even at the end of the year, just so we can incorporate that into our model.

Yeah, sure. The mint needs around 400,000 ounces in the vault at all times to keep that business operating sufficiently. That should be I think your base. Last quarter, we ended off a little over 600,000 ounces. You're right, this quarter we're over 1 million. The reason really for that is just the precipitous drop in the silver price during a very short period of time. We didn't want to be caught selling silver in the low $50 range, and I felt that there was going to be a bounce, and we are seeing that now. I don't want to give you numbers or false expectations, but I would suggest that that inventory number will drop during the quarter.

Fair enough. Then completely different one. Jerritt Canyon, it seems like things are really starting to happen there, and frankly, they need to, given that we're at this point, what, 17 months away at the very longest of the timeline here with the second half of next year. How many people are working there now? Maybe if you would, a little bit of an inkling of a clue of quarter by quarter capital spent at the site.

Yeah, we haven't put the details out on that yet. We did put the number of $75 million out in February. We're well in line with that number. The sand treat, for example, the deposits have been made and other key components deposits have been made. There's a couple of other key components that are being ordered in the next 30 days, and deposits will be made on those orders as well. A lot of that money is backended. We will be putting out additional capital requirements likely in January of 2027, once we get through the 2027 budget. We don't really expect that $75 million is going to change in 2026 unless there's some changes currently that potentially we may decide to buy additional equipment or something along those lines. Nothing currently is anticipated regarding that.

On the staffing, there was about 40 people that have been there over the last couple of years, and they were there for care and maintenance purposes. We had 45 positions that we needed to fill from the time we decided to start to when we started building out the workforce. Of those 45 individuals, 80% of those positions have now been filled.

Okay. That's good. Very helpful. I'll get back in queue. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

The next question is from Eric Winmill with Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Great. Hi, Keith and team.

Thanks for taking my question. Just wondering here, Santo Niño and Navidad, any comments here in terms of critical path items or sequencing over the next 12 or 18 months as you ramp up to production there?

Let me pass that question on to our Chief Operating Officer, David Howe.

No, I don't see any Good morning. I really don't see any issues. I think we're actually trying to speed some of the ore access up. We're looking at about now revising our mine plan.

Does that answer your question, Eric, or would you like more specifics?

Yeah, anything you can share there in terms of what we should be looking for here in the works program here through the balance of this year and the next?

Well, I think our first blast should be around 15th of August. Then we'll just be pushing ahead. We've got all of our ground control items ordered. Then we'll just push down, spiraling down. I don't see any issues going forward with the development.

Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you very much. In terms of San Dimas or any other mines, any major works programs underway beyond the expansions you talked about?

Dave, did you get that?

Well, right now, no, we're just pushing ahead with our development. Doing very well, as Keith mentioned earlier. Our Union work is doing very well with the long hauling development. No, we don't see any issue at all.

Okay, great. That's helpful, thank you. Maybe just more of a strategy question, obviously, cash balance is building. Any thoughts here on capital allocation when it comes to M&A or dividends and buybacks? Any thoughts for the rest of this year?

Well, in the quarter, we spent $22 million on share buybacks, which is, I think, the most we've ever spent in the history of the company on share buybacks. I can't commit to you on what we're going to be doing for the rest of the year. It obviously is on our list of things to do with our cash. The dividends were upgraded, doubled, in January for 2026. That was really nice to see. It's still a relatively low dividend. I'd like to see it increase further. I like to see the treasury build even more. I know it's a lot of money, $1.25 billion. It's a lot. It is growing, which is really nice to see.

There is a couple of cash items that are on our list that could be large. That's the tax settlement in Mexico with Primero San Dimas, as all our shareholders. I'm sure you're aware about, so are Eric. Once we get that off our plate, which we hope will be resolved by the end of the year. With Jerritt Canyon also, we don't know what the spend is going to be in 2027. We've got some numbers that we're expecting to make public, as I said, in January 2027 to get that finally up and running by the third quarter. Once we get those two big spends out behind us, then we'll look at further capital allocations.

Okay, fantastic. Appreciate the added color. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you.

Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from Alex Taranu with National Bank. Please go ahead. Hey, guys.

Thanks. I have my questions here. Wanted to follow up just on Santo Niño, sorry, well, Santa Elena rather. Keith, you made a comment, and I apologize if I think I may have missed it here, but you're saying Santo Niño targeting to get that first ore from there end of 2027, was that right? Navidad maybe about 18 months after? I just wanted to confirm that's what you're targeting at the moment.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right, Alex.

Okay. All right, good. Maybe can you just remind me, actually. When it comes to metallurgy, I know that Ermitaño ore, a lot of the stuff you're putting through now, gold recovery is good, but silver recovery is a little bit lighter. What's the expectation for Santo Niño ore? Is that the same as Ermitaño, or are we seeing something a bit better there?

Dave, do you want to grab that one?

I do. The recoveries at Santo Niño.

Well, Santo Niño, they should be very good. I don't know. I don't have the number.

I'll pass it on to Danny. He's got the numbers. Santo Niño is behaving similarly to the original Santa Elena, so we're seeing mid-90s.

The metallurgical testing for both Navidad and Santo Niño is showing 95+ for both gold and silver, with higher silver grade as well. We're expecting more contribution of silver from both of them.

Perfect. That's what I was looking to hear. Okay, great. Just my last question, on capital spending, I think you guys are a little bit light. Well, at least tracking so far for this year, your first half of the year is I think it was around 37% of your annual guidance. I guess that implies, obviously, the second half this year is going to be heavier. I'm just curious, is there any projects maybe falling behind a little bit just from just timing perspective or permitting or anything like that, or really just we should expect a lot more spending to pick up in the second half this year?

It is very much back-ended, there's really no issues anywhere there except maybe Los Gatos is a little bit behind on development. It's not materially behind, it is slightly behind budget. The other mines are well within budget, most of the effects are timing.

Perfect. All right. That's it for me. Thank you. If there's anyone else.

I'll now pass the floor.

Sorry. I was just going to say, I'll now pass the floor over to Mr. Darrell Rae, Investor Relations at First Majestic Silver, to take us through questions submitted through the webcast.

Okay, thanks, Gaming. There's a lot of questions that are very similar, Keith, to ones that you've already answered a lot on capital allocation, the dividends, stock buybacks. We'll do that. Maybe a little bit that we haven't talked about is our holdings in other junior mining companies. There's a question here on what are your thoughts and what are your plans for the holdings in these companies such as Silver Storm and Sierra Madre?

Our plan is to continually help those companies evolve in hopefully much larger businesses, we could make some central profits on those investments. That's why we sold those assets to those groups. We're confident that those groups can continually build. We have sold some of the Sierra Madre shares over the last few quarters, just to take a little bit of money off the table. We've now added a larger position as a result of the sale of Del Toro, so we're actually up on that on a per share basis anyways, or number of share basis. Silver Storm, we just lent them $5 million bucks last week. We did that same structure with Sierra Madre as well about two years ago. Sierra Madre just paid the balance of their loan back to us in Q2, which was really nice to see.

Sierra Madre came through with their commitment and paid back the loan. The loan to Silver Storm is the same structure, we're working with them to build out their team in Mexico, we're very supportive shareholders of both those companies.

Okay, thanks, Keith. That's it from the queue for us, Gaming.

All right. I'd like to hand the call back to Keith for any closing remarks.

Okay. Well, thanks everyone for your time today and dialing into our call. I understand this will be also on the website for people to have a listen to it a little bit later. If there are any other questions or comments that anyone on the call or anyone going to be listening to the webcast after the call, please contact our investor relations department for any further answers to any queries that you may have. Thanks again. This brings to a close today's conference call.

You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.