McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE:MUX) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Rob McEwen - Chairman and Chief Owner

Perry Ing - Chief Financial Officer

William Shaver - Chief Operating Officer

Michael Meding - Vice President and General Manager, McEwen Copper

Stefan Spears - Vice President, Corporate Development

Jeff Chan - Vice President, Finance

Conference Call Participants

Jake Sekelsky - Alliance Global Partners

Marcus Giannini - H.C. Wainwright

Joseph Reagor - ROTH Capital Partners

John Tumazos - Very Independent Research

Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the McEwen Mining’s Q1 2023 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Present from the company today are Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner; Perry Ing, Chief Financial Officer; William Shaver, Chief Operating Officer; Michael Meding, Vice President and General Manager of McEwen Copper; Stefan Spears, Vice President of Corporate Development; Jeff Chan, Vice President of Finance.

After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir.

Rob McEwen

Thank you, Operator. Welcome and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll make this quick. We have gotten our mojo back. From September 1 of last year to last Friday, May 5th, our share pricing has increased by 200%. That represents an increase 4 times greater than the GDX and the GDXJ indices, 11 times greater than the price of gold and 15 times greater than the price of copper, and isn’t it about time and we still have much to regain.

This outperformance was driven by a number of factors, which you’ll hear in greater detail as we go on today. But the big ones were a ARS30 billion investment in McEwen Copper by Stellantis, who is the world’s fourth largest automobile manufacturer and also an investment by the world’s number two mining company, Rio Tinto, their technology arm. They increased their investment by $30 million to $55 million.

Also factoring in was our increase in gold production and decreasing cost per ounce at our Fox and Gold Bar mines. We also had encouraging drill results from Fox and Los Azules, and we benefited from an improving gold, silver and copper price.

We’re going to be improving our balance sheet, deleveraging it by reducing our debt by 38% on Friday of this week and I believe the best is yet to come.