New Gold (NGD) reported its second quarter numbers this evening, here’s the NR and by the magic of Bill Gates and Excel once you plug in all the numbers and hit a button a whole bunch of charts get generated and updated. Here are just three of them to get a flavour of NGD version 2q15:
1) Production sucked on a consolidated basis. Here’s gold only (copper’s another 33% of revenues mix, then there’s a bit of silver too). It’s the worst quarter of production since 2012, due to the Peak Mines operation missing badly.
2) So if gold and copper production was weak and prices have been crappy like we know they’ve been crappy, how did NGD manage to improve operating profits?
The answer is for two main reasons: New Afton rocks as a mine, then consolidated depreciation and depletion was lower, mainly due to less mining at Peak in Oz. There are a few minor matters to add on but those two are the rump of it.
3) But the thing is, you can…errr….adjust the P+L on a quarterly basis (and your author is already seeing facile anal yst BS such as “beats on revs” floating through the system) but it’s much harder to get the balance sheet to play along with temporary ebbs and flows.
Magically, NGD makes an operating profit, EBITDA profit and net profit but somehow cash treasury drops by $39m (and working cap by $31.7m, before you ask). If you don’t think that’s important, I strongly suggest you get back to the main hall at the Sprott/Stansberry Conference because it’s your turn to speak next.
Bottom line: New Afton made the company net earnings of $15.2m. Total corporate net earnings were $9.4m. Balance sheet deteriorated further. That’s NGD.