sfm market update with jimmy muyaha harmony gold one of south africa's largest gold producers has reported their results for their financial year end that is of course the financial year ended 30 june 2026 there is a final dividend there there is an income figure that has almost doubled and there is headline earnings figure that is quite eye-watering to any investor we're going to be taking a look at these numbers in a bit more detail with the financial director at harmony gold maybe we pull on the line now to see what we make of their performance always lovely having you on the show thanks so much for taking the time it's even better to be able to catch up at the end of a successful financial year thankful to the gold price for doing its part even though especially given that the business was able to do its own part in maintaining its all-in sustained costs within guidance. How do you reflect on the year that was from a management perspective? Thank you, firstly. Good evening to your listeners. Thank you for having me. Yeah, financial year 26 was really an outstanding year for Harmony. I would peg it down really driven by disciplined operational delivery. We had strong margin expansion and as you mentioned, very strong commodity prices. So it was the 11th consecutive financial year that we delivered on gold production guidance as well as other key operational guidance metrics again as you mentioned all in sustaining cost coming in in line with guidance aswell as our underground recovered gold grade also within within guidance so all in all really that combination and then on top of that the addition of copper in our portfolio really rounded up the year for us let's take a look at that copper edition you and i spoke about it when we caught up around the interim numbers to say it was quite the strategic decision from a business perspective and we said we'd look to see how it is that that has filtered into the business as part of a broader strategy take me through the impact that that is had in this particular year and what it's been able to do for the balance sheet um so i'll firstly start with csa which is an in production operation that we closed last year october 25 so that integration into our portfolio was successful um the mine produce 18,200,000 tons of copper during the eight months that it was under Harmony's ownership at a very good recovered grade of 3.75%. So also coming in within guidance. From a cash cost perspective, that was $2.47 a pound, also below guidance. So all in all, that mine generated 781 million rand towards our free cash flow so you know slowly starting to trickle in is a hill to climb in terms of what we've guided copper production to be in about three years time when we have both csa and our project um eva copper up and running melakova can we take a look at the strategic shift from a business perspective at the moment up to this point uh portfolio progression and improvement have been the key priorities or the key focus areas we are now stepping into a new era for the business where execution and value unlocks start to become that much more important in how the business moves into this next phase. I imagine that stretches across both the gold portfolio, the copper portfolio, and any other assets that then come into the business. How do we see the next couple of years shaping up, understanding that the global macros may currently be in your favor, but we never know how much longer that's going to be on for? So gold really remains the foundation of the business. That's first and foremost. And what copper has done is that it's adding that increased resilience to the portfolio. So we invested in copper. Firstly, it's that counter cyclical and geographic diversification. But you're also seeing, which we have guided for quite some time, a gold gap in production that comes from our Moab Kodzong operation, which is one of our high grade operations. So the move was strategic and it's aimed as I said into that diversification and really improving the overall portfolio of the business. So we anticipate or what we're estimating given current planning that copper will make up to about 30 percent of production by the let's call it 10 years by FY36. It's difficult to estimate now contribution on a revenue line as I mean these are factors out of control commodity prices and the like but that is where we see we see the business going so we say at the moment we're actually the only south african gold producer with meaningful copper exposure so i think from an investment case that differentiates us quite a bit from from our peers before i let you go i want to take a look at the management decisions and the balance the balancing act that comes with being in such a good position yes there was a slight decline of around three percent in the output from a gold perspective but the business still being able to benefit from the likes of your papa new guinea operations and overall still beingable to come back to shareholders into the market and say here's 500 million dollars worth of dividend how does the business then look to maintain that balance and say whilst we have the ability to reward shareholders we still have a long-term objective and a strategic objective to think about and we can't be too reckless or we can't be too loose in how it is we approach our strategy. It's very much always a balancing act, I must say. I mean, we understand investors' concerns around a higher capital expenditure profile, but I think the key point is that we invest or rather that the investment cycle is necessary for us to sustain and improve the business. Mining by its nature is a depleting industry, so we continuously have to replace reserve reserves extend mine lives etc so for us it's not really a choice between shareholder returns and investment or between gold and copper but it's rather just that in continuing investment that is essential to ensure that we're able to to deliver both um to shareholders at at the end of the day so we were quite pleased that we were able to return a significant dividend um this time around. But I think, you know, it's important that we were able to do that, not despite it of instead of, but alongside the growth that we are also delivering. These things go hand in hand from a business operating perspective. It's important to contain costs. It is important to drive strategy. It s important to reward shareholders. And somewhere along the way, the management team has to find a way to keep all of these important factors in perfect harmony. We'll have to leave the conversation on that note. Omni Gold's Financial Director, Weepilo Lukubo, joining us to take a look at the performance of their business over the previous financial year and how it is that that strategy continues to drive forward.