South32 Limited (SOUHY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

SA Transcripts158.43K FollowersFollow5ShareSaveCommentsPlay Earnings CallPlay Earnings Call South32 Limited (SOUHY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call February 11, 2026 7:00 PM EST Company Participants Graham Kerr - CEO, MD & Executive DirectorMatthew Daley - Deputy Chief Executive Officer Conference Call Participants Ian Rossouw - Barclays Bank PLC, Research DivisionMyles Allsop - UBS Investment Bank, Research DivisionAlexander Pearce - BMO Capital Markets Equity ResearchJ. Clark - SBG Securities (Proprietary) Limited, Research Division Presentation Graham KerrCEO, MD & Executive Director Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. On the call with me is our Deputy CEO, Matt Daley; our Chief Financial Officer, Sandy Sibenaler; and our Chief Operating Officer for Southern Africa, Noel Pillay. I'd like to start with safety, where we're seeing improvements in key measures following our sustained effort to improve performance through our global safety improvement program. During the half, we achieved further significant improvement in significant hazard frequency, which demonstrates improved hazard awareness and a more proactive reporting culture. We've also seen positive reductions across our lagging indicators. While the data is encouraging, we're determined to continuously improve our safety performance. Moving to our financial results. I'm pleased to say we have delivered strong financial results for the half, underpinned by our operating performance and higher prices for base and precious metals. Our FY '26 production unit guidance is unchanged across our operated assets off the back of our continued focus on delivering safe and reliable operating performance. This performance enabled us to capture the benefits of the positive market conditions for our key commodities. We've delivered underlying EBITDA of USD 1.1 billion with group operating margin of 28.2% and growth in underlying earnings of USD 435 million. Our balance sheet remains strong with net debt of USD 25 million at the end of the period, enabling us to invest in both high returning