RE:Record Q4 and 2021 guidance.Incredible that they paid down debt by $600 million in 2020. And this was with only acquiring Semafo on July 1, and Semafo only firing on maybe 3 cylinders (eventually it could have as many as 8 once Endeavor cleans everything up) . $200 m , I think it was, of that did come from La Mancha as part of the Semafo deal ,and I can't remember what Semafo's cash position was at the time of acquistion, but I vaguely remember that they were net cash at least a little.
So then in 2021, they will have Semafo for the full year and things are getting straightened out, the price of gold could average a fair bit more than in 2020 (or not) , and by mid Feb they will add Teranga which should drive production from 900,000 oz in 2020 to at least 1.5 mil oz in 2021. And La Mancha is throwing in another $100 m with the Teranga deal.
So lots of somewhat unknowns (mostly gold price) but that $600 m could be much bigger in 2021. And it wont be going to debt repayment, or maybe a little to Teranga debt. What are they going to do once they have all the debt completely gone (soon) , and hundreds of millions sitting in the bank? A big dividend is hinted at. Buy back shares? Buy another gold company, this time buy not merge? Building out the next mine will hardly dent the pile they will soon have.
Let's hope the exciting times we have waited for for so long are on the way.