Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, and I am the Chair of your Board of Directors. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Shareholders of Kinross Gold Corporation.
Kinross has decided to hold this year's meeting virtually so that we may continue to provide flexibility and opportunity for shareholder participation irrespective of their geographic location and share ownership. Improvements in conferencing technology have also made it possible to hold virtual meetings with greater reliability and cost efficiency. As a result, Kinross has determined that it's expedient to hold the meeting virtually via a live audio webcast.
We thank you for attending our virtual meeting. I would like to note that Kinross is permitted to hold a virtual meeting of its shareholders both under the Ontario Business Corporations Act and our bylaws.
Voting on items of business to be considered at the meeting has been open from 9:45 a.m. and polls will remain open until the formal business of the meeting is completed, at which time I will declare the polling closed on all items of business. I will also pause briefly for you to vote as we go through the items of business today. Shareholders who have voted in advance are not required to vote again during the meeting unless they wish to change their voting instructions.
Shareholders may submit questions for the Board or management through the question box on the virtual meeting page. Instructions on how to ask questions and the voting procedure will appear on your screens. The moderator will relay the questions and they will be addressed after the CEO presentation.
Joining me electronically this morning are the other director nominees; Paul Rollinson, CEO of the company; members of the senior leadership team of Kinross; and Luke Crosby, the Corporate Secretary of Kinross. Also joining us is Mr. David Oldham, Partner at KPMG, the company's auditors.
Recording of this meeting will be available on Kinross' website and on this meeting portal after the meeting.
Pursuant to the bylaws, I, as Chair of the Corporation, will chair the meeting, and I will appoint Luke Crosby, Corporate Secretary of the Corporation, as Secretary of the meeting. I further appoint Computershare Investor Services Inc. through its representative, Daniela Munoz, to act as scrutineers.
The notice calling this meeting of shareholders was mailed on April 2, 2025 to all the shareholders of record on March 12, 2025. The Secretary will attach to the minutes of this meeting the declaration of Computershare Investor Services Inc. confirming the mailing of the notice of meeting.
The scrutineers have submitted their preliminary report on attendance, and it shows that holders of more than 936 million common shares, representing approximately 76% of the outstanding common shares, are represented at today's meeting. As a result, we have a quorum for the meeting.
In order to expedite the formal part of the meeting, I have asked Victoria Barrington and Cassandra Spezza, both shareholders of the corporation, to move and second each motion. Notice having been given in accordance with the bylaws and a quorum being present, I declare the meeting is duly constituted for the transaction of business. The minutes of the previous annual meeting of Kinross held on May 8, 2024 may be requested by contacting the Corporate Secretary of the corporation.
Prior to commencing our items of business, I would like to report that the consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 including the balance sheet and accompanying statements, together with the auditor's report, are all contained in the annual report previously made available to shareholders. Printed copies of the annual report may be requested by contacting the Corporate Secretary of the corporation.
The first item of business is the election of 10 directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. At this time, I would like to take the opportunity to name the other director nominees who are present on this call. We have George Albino, Kerry Dyte, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Michael Lewis, Elizabeth McGregor, Kelly Osborne, Paul Rollinson, David Scott and George Paspalas joining us.
I will now request a nomination for the 10 nominees named in the management information circular for today's meeting.
I nominate the 10 nominees named in the management information circular for election to the Board of Directors of the corporation.
I second the director nominations.
If you have not already done so, you may now vote for the election of directors.
[Voting]
As the number of nominees is equal to the number of directors required to be elected, I now declare George Albino, Kerry Dyte, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Michael Lewis, Elizabeth McGregor, Kelly Osborne, Paul Rollinson, David Scott and George Paspalas elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed.
The next item of business is the appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as auditors of the corporation until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders and authorizing the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration.
May I have a motion to approve and second such appointment?
I so move.
I second the motion.
The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you may now vote your shares for the election of auditors.
[Voting]
The last item of business is an advisory resolution respecting Kinross' approach to executive compensation. Details of Kinross' approach to the compensation of its executives and the text of the proposed advisory resolution are included in the management information circular.
May I have a motion to approve such resolution?
I so move.
I second the motion.
The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you may now vote your shares on the advisory resolution with respect to executive compensation.
[Voting]
I now declare the voting closed on all items of business.
The scrutineers have completed their preliminary count of the votes cast, and I have received the results and I declare that all motions have passed. A report on all matters voted on at this meeting will be filed on SEDAR+.
This concludes the formal business of the meeting. Before handing it over to Paul Rollinson for the CEO remarks, Kinross has had an excellent year in 2024. The Board continues to be pleased with the company's performance, achieving the results that generate value for shareholders and ensure a sustainable future for the company. Reliable and consistent performance is one of our defining characteristics, and I'm pleased to see us carrying this momentum into this year.
On behalf of the Board, thank you for your continued support and engagement. And to senior management and our global team, thank you for all your hard work towards safely delivering on our shared goals.
Today after 20 years on the Board, including 6 years as Chair, will be my last day with the company. During my tenure, Kinross' production grew from 1.6 million to over 2 million gold equivalent ounces annually while strengthening core assets and growth projects. Key achievements include acquiring the Great Bear project, promoting diversity, focusing on sustainability, strengthening the balance sheet as we have significantly reduced debt and are approaching a net cash position and also returning capital to shareholders.
I thank my fellow Board members and the senior leadership team for their collaboration and success. I am confident that the new Chair, Kelly Osborne, with his extensive industry experience will lead Kinross with integrity and vigor.
I would now like to turn the meeting over to Paul, who will provide an overview of the company.
Thank you, Catherine, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning.
I'd like to start this morning by acknowledging Catherine and her significant Board contributions to Kinross for the past 20 years, including serving as our Chair for the past 6 years. I'd like to personally thank Catherine for her clear direction and guidance to our company, which has been central to Kinross' success over the last 20 years. Catherine has been a champion of diversity at all levels of our company, including at both the Board and senior leadership team.
Catherine's contributions have also supported the reshaping of Kinross' portfolio as we have both exited and entered new operating jurisdictions, extended mine lives and focused on balance sheet strength. For the past 20 years, Catherine has supported us through every new challenge, and I would like to thank her for her leadership and counsel throughout our years of working together.
I now look forward to working with our new Chair, Kelly Osborne, who has been an independent director of Kinross since 2015. I am confident that working together, we can continue to deliver value for our shareholders.
Before I make my remarks about our company, let me call your attention to our cautionary statement on forward-looking information. As a reminder, shareholders may submit questions through the messaging icon on the screen, and we will address them at the end of my remarks.
I'd like to begin by noting that all members of our senior leadership team are on the call today. Today, I will discuss our performance in 2024, our operations and development pipeline, highlights from our first quarter results, our ongoing commitment to sustainability and close with our strong outlook.
2024 was another excellent year for our business, underscored by consistent operational and financial performance. We delivered on our market commitments, once again meeting all key guidance metrics. This, combined with strong gold prices, drove record free cash flow of more than $1.3 billion, more than double that of the prior year. With record free cash flow, we continue to invest to maintain our asset quality and reliability and strengthen our balance sheet by paying down debt. Importantly, these accomplishments were achieved while operating at the highest safety standards across each of our sites and with a strong focus on mining responsibly.
To sum up our performance in 2024, we delivered production of over 2.1 million ounces with robust operating margins that outpaced the relative increase in the gold price, demonstrating our strong focus on maintaining rigorous cost discipline. We generated more than $2 billion in operating cash flow and, as I indicated, a record $1.3 billion in attributable free cash flow, achieving best-in-class free cash flow per ounce of gold production. We strengthened our investment-grade balance sheet, ending the year with over $600 million in cash and approximately $2.3 billion of total liquidity.
We repaid an impressive $800 million against our term loan in 2024 and, after making a subsequent repayment of $200 million in Q1 of this year, our term loan has now been fully repaid. With the term loan gone, we have now fully paid for the acquisition of Great Bear but, importantly, with fewer shares outstanding today versus prior to the transaction. We also returned approximately $150 million to shareholders through our sustainable quarterly dividend, and all of this contributed to our strong share price outperformance.
From an operations perspective, our portfolio delivered strong results across the board in 2024. Our two largest assets, Tasiast and Paracatu, were both standouts, together accounting for more than half of our production. Tasiast had another excellent year delivering record annual throughput, production and cash flow. Paracatu delivered full year production exceeding 500,000 ounces for the seventh consecutive year. At La Coipa, we delivered on full year production guidance. In the U.S., full year production and costs were as planned, and we poured first gold from Manh Choh in early Q3.
With respect to our pipeline of development projects, we continue to make excellent progress in 2024. At Round Mountain in Nevada, the life of mine extension and grade strategy continues to advance on plan. At Bald Mountain, we unlocked additional value from the large multimillion ounce resource base. We also continue to advance work on our Curlew project in Washington State and at Lobo-Marte in Chile.
At Great Bear in Ontario, we reached an important milestone in September with the release of the initial PEA and an updated project resource. The PEA confirmed the top-tier potential of this asset. It guides to an estimated average annual production of approximately 500,000 ounces a year at an impressive all-in sustaining cost of approximately $800 per ounce.
Turning now to our first quarter results, which we announced yesterday. We continued our strong performance in Q1. Production of 512,000 ounces was on plan with solid contributions from both Tasiast and Paracatu, which again provided over half our production. La Coipa and our U.S. assets also delivered as planned. Cost of sales of $1,043 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,355 per ounce resulted in strong margins and free cash flow.
Once again, our cash and liquidity position improved during the quarter to approximately $700 million of cash and approximately $2.3 billion of total liquidity. In Q1, we reinstated our NCIB and have commenced share repurchases with $60 million purchased since the start of Q2. Assuming current gold prices, our intention is to return a minimum of $500 million via share repurchases this year.
Turning now to sustainability. Our strong track record of sustainability performance continued in 2024. Our annual sustainability report, which is now in its 17th edition, will be published later this month. The report will provide a comprehensive update on the progress we made in 2024 and what we aim to accomplish in 2025 and beyond.
Some notable highlights from the report that we look forward to sharing include. We were the top scoring gold mining company in The Globe and Mail's annual corporate governance ranking, ranking in the top 10% of all companies in Canada. We spent approximately $2.5 billion on goods and services in our host countries and made approximately $13 million of monetary and in-kind contributions. We maintained our strong focus on tailings management with 32 years of zero reportable tailings incidents. We completed 19 projects to improve energy efficiency across our sites, providing 15 million liters in fuel savings and $13 million in cost savings. And we remain on track to reduce emissions intensity by 30% compared to our 2021 baseline emissions.
In addition, in 2024, we also implemented our newly developed safety excellence program across all our sites. This program empowers our employees and business partners to take ownership of safety, which remains our top priority and a key guiding principle in how we operate our business.
I'd now like to share a brief video further outlining our progress in this important area.
[Presentation]
After a successful 2024 and first quarter of 2025, we are well positioned for another strong year. Our business is in excellent shape and is expected to once again deliver strong shareholder value this year through our strong track record of operational and technical excellence and rigorous cost and capital discipline, our strong exploration and project development pipeline, our strong cash flow outlook, compelling free cash flow yield and attractive relative valuation, an attractive return of capital through dividends and share buybacks and our leadership in sustainability. We believe that delivering on our commitments with our attractive relative valuation, we will continue to see strong share price performance.
With that, we'll now open up for questions from shareholders.
There are no questions at this time.
Okay. Thank you, Victoria. Given that we don't have any questions, I'd just like to thank everyone for joining today's meeting. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you.
