The head of Endeavour Mining says the gold producer, which operates mainly in West Africa, will continue to return significant capital to its shareholders while growing its portfolio of low-cost, high-yield mining assets in the region.
“We’re a big player in the world’s largest producer of gold,” Ian Cockerill, the U.K.-based company’s CEO, told BNN Bloomberg in a Wednesday interview.
“In the last eight years, we’ve delivered five projects on time and on budget, much quicker than anywhere else, so in terms of a place to work and operate, it’s great. We have delivered good returns to our shareholders over that period as well. It all comes together in that part of the world.”
Cockerill said that despite strong results in recent years, some investors are wary of companies that do business in West Africa, where violence and political instability has historically been more common than in other gold-producing jurisdictions.
Endeavour, which lists its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has lagged behind the broader TSX gold index over the past five years.
“Clearly there’s a view about West Africa in some people’s minds; they don’t particularly like it. I think what we’ve shown is that despite the challenges of working there, we have returned good money to shareholders,” Cockerill argued.
“Certainly, over the last four years since we’ve had our shareholder return program, we’ve returned about $1.4 billion to shareholders in terms of dividends as well as buybacks.”
Cockerill said that the company is in a “really unique position” going forward, as it’s both a growth and a yield play for investors. Most gold companies are either one or the other, he noted.
“Because of the fundamental underlying quality of our business, we’re both a yield play – returning five or six per cent to shareholders – and we’re a growth play,” said Cockerill.
“Because between now and the end of the decade, we’re talking about a 35 per cent increase, organic increase, in production from our own assets between now and 2030.”
Endeavour’s growth in the coming years is expected to come predominantly from a new mining project in eastern Côte d’Ivoire, Cockerill said.
When it comes to the company’s gold production guidance for the current fiscal year, Cockerill said he expects Endeavour to hit its target of between 1.1 million and 1.26 million ounces “very comfortably.”
