jaypol I would suggest that you have a look at the recently...

jaypol I would suggest that you have a look at the recently released (21/02/2020) announcement Full Year 2019 Financial and Operating Results and go through some of the Power Point pages there to get some solid official detail of the state of play as at the end of December 2019.

In particular I would suggest that you cast your eye over the figures on page 3 and pages 8 + 9 +10. Then of course page 11 and in particular page 12. Now on page 11 it points out that net debt at the end of December was $179 million.
Then, in my opinion, it is very important to relate that to the graph on page 12 which shows the History of Balance Sheet Management .

• The first thing to note is the level of debt increases to a peak at the height of a new mine's construction phase (e.g. Didipio and then Haile) but then begins to subside as the production phase starts kicking and earnings start to flow.
• So you can look at the yellow line being traced through the graph which is showing net debt. It peaks at a high point with Didipio (2012/2013) and then reduces significantly down to 2015.
• Then as work begins on Haile it peaks again through 2016/2017 before reducing again to a lowish point in late 2018.
• From there it has risen again as more money is spent on further prospects at Macraes and Waihi in NZ I would suspect.

Now the other important detail about all that is that net debt by the end of December 2019 was about 16% compared to total assets if I have read that graph correctly and is still below the twin peaks mentioned earlier at the height of those two construction efforts.

Even better if you look at the blue line which compares the total debt to asset value and it has tracked in a general downwards all the way from the start of the graph to December 2019 where it is now showing total debt to represent about 12% of total assets.
Now is that just a pretty picture or is it telling the truth ?
Is the debt level history a bad news story. I leave you to judge when you have a close look at the information there.

Sure the story could be even better if the FTAA was settled at Didipio. But Haile is supposed to get going this year and I son't think that if Macraes has to stop for 4 or 6 weeks it is going to be that big an issue if you weigh in the period of very high gold prices in recent months.
All in my opinion.