Ann: WAF produces record 82koz gold in September Quarter, page-60

I always see the discussion of a payment dividend as a healthy sign with newly producing company, where a company is emerging from a speculative punt on the gold price and the slings and arrows of success of exploration at the mercy of the drill bit, towards a professional manager of its growing cash flows and your money, in other words, becoming an adult, with professional investors/institutions appearing on the share register. Don't forget, rather than picking a number for the dividend out of the ether, firstly, the Board needs to settle on and iterate a dividend policy, which shows you have a two way street with your shareholders, whereby you return money to them, instead of the traditional one way street where gold companies historically, just pass the cap around for never-ending equity raising. Shareholders are much more likely to stump up, if you ask for cash from them, if you regularly service your equity, and pay a regular dividend. This dividend also takes some of the volatility out of the share price, because it anchors the share price with a dividend yield.

I envisage the likely WAF EPS around 20cps for calendar 2021, so if the Company settled on a dividend policy of paying out 50% of earnings, you could theoretically pay a 10cps dividend, maybe management would see that as too early and too aggressive. Another route is to pay out of free cash flow, which is real money, rather than earnings. The 10cps div might not be likely, due to WAF desiring to clear the debt fully, but a maiden dividend of 5cps, early in 2022, costing approx A$45m, would be a powerful statement of intent and a surprise to investors ........ just imagine, a gold equity with a 5% dividend yield, anchored by its div. yield at $1/share on the downside, with all the various growth options, providing capital growth upside, to fill out and lift the future announced decline in production profile - I think you have to think like this if you foresee a falling US$ gold price over the years ahead.

MiningTragic