Another interesting broadcast by BB regarding the HY results....

Another interesting broadcast by BB regarding the HY results. Mostly the briefing was highlighting the facts of the very good financial results in the Ppt presentation announced to market. Some interesting comments came up in the Q&A session with simple responses that are worth posting here. I will also post some key points made by BB and the CFO during the briefing prior to the Q&A session.

Briefing:
1. $120m p/a extra going to the bottom line at current AUD POG.
2. Forecast $450m op cash flow in the future at 700k oz p/a.
3. There have been a number of parties approach NST regarding sale of Plutonic.
4. Mining costs are deflated across the industry and creating cost savings to operations.
5. EBITDA margin growth has gone from 28% to 42% and the CFO forecasts margins to continue improving.
6. NST has achieved $274m FCF over the past 18 months.
7. D&A has reduced to $288/oz and supports the sustainable growth in profit margins.
8. 34% ROE (annualised) demonstrates the NST priority focus on financial discipline.
9. AISC are in industry bottom quartile with a spread of less than 2% variance over the past periods.
10. Cost savings mentioned in point 4 are expected to flow through to the bottom line in 2HY16.

Q&A:
1. A questioner made the point that Patersons Securities have done their own estimates and valued Plutonic at $100m minimum. BB wouldn't discuss valuations, but stated there has been interest from offshore parties. He reinforced that the offer must be compelling before NST would sell off Plutonic.
2. BB and the COO are very excited about the expanding potential and growth opportunities in the Kalgoorlie operations. Key points are:
- expanding operations at KB and bringing into ops the Millennium project,
- great exploration opportunities at Kundana with Pegasus, Hornet and Raleigh (especially at depth), and
- expect +10 years operations at Kundana will be easily achievable.
3. NST is the 2nd highest div yielding gold stock on the ASX.
4. Groundrush is expected to provide new mineral horizons and extensions to down plunge. Results to be released after drill program assays are finalised.
5. Jundee exploration drive is 72% complete and 3 months ahead of schedule. The plan is to drill out the whole volume of rock containing over 5m oz of resource.
6. NST currently paying effective tax rate of 27%, but use 30% for planning purposes.

BB was obviously in fine spirits during the broadcast. Naturally he was very non committal with information about the Plutonic sale process. He concluded with a final remark, "fantastic results".

Cheers