Corporate All-in Costs

Euroz Hartley published their quarterly chart of Corporate All-in Costs (CAIC) today.

I like this chart because it leaves nowhere to hide for those who play games with their All-in Sustaining Cost. Too many investors take this AISC number and use it as a proxy for freecash flow (effectively using Gold Price minus AISC and then multiplying by Ore Reserves or Mineral Resources to get an approximate valuation of the company).

What does Corporate All-in Costs include that AISC does not:

1) Development Costs (it's supposed to be development costs for new mines or material increases in production or life (but often abused by some gold companies who put their sustaining costs in here - mainly short mine life extensions on already short lives - that just doing what you need to survive)
2) Exploration Costs which aren't sustaining i.e. those costs looking for new discoveries.
3) Corporate Costs
4) Interest and hedging losses (hedging losses is a big one for a lot of gold companies who have out of the money hedges).

Gold Road had the best margin on CAIC for the March 23 quarter no that its out of the money hedges have finished. CMM and WAF not too far behind. CMM hurt in CAIC by its out of the money hedges.