Nick Holland on the decisions that reshaped Gold Fields

Hi, I'm Nkateko Manthosi. I'm an Equity Analyst covering the precious metal stocks. I'm also Head of Research here at Investec.

Welcome to Investec Minds. In each episode, analysts from the equity research team at Investec Corporate and Investment Bank sit down with a former chief executive who helped define their industry at a critical point in its history.

Our guest for today is Nick Holland one of the most respected CEOs in the mining industry, best known for his transformative tenure as the CEO of Gold Fields, and the pivotal role he played in the formation of Sibanye Gold, now Sibanye-Stillwater. 

Nkateko: Nick, welcome to our podcast.

Nick: Thank you very much for letting me join you today.

Nkateko: I have a very standard opening question for all our guests. We want to know how life is post the CEO position. I'm always hoping that you're out there living your best life and that you're a man of leisure. What is this chapter about for you? Where are you? What is occupying your time?

Nick: I would say that I'm semi-retired, so I'm not completely retired. I now have a farm in Franschhoek, and we make some wine and we make olive oil, so that's keeping me busy for some of my time. The other part of my time is my wife, and I have a home in Spain which is where I am today on the beach here on the Costa del Sol. It feels very much like South Africa when we're here because the weather is nice and warm.

So, we like to come here for a few months a year, and then we go back to our farm in Franschhoek. And in between we like to travel and get around to different places. I play a reasonable amount of golf. I stay in touch with friends from the industry on a casual basis. But I think life is fairly full, so we're fairly occupied with what we're doing at the moment.

Nkateko: It's a beautiful life, and a well-deserved one after all those years in executive roles. So, Nick your journey gives us a very unique perspective on mining leadership. Your first day as CEO of Gold Fields was marked by a tragic loss of lives at South Deep. And you subsequently said, "We will not mine if we cannot mine safely." How did it shape your leadership going forward?

Nick: One of the things that, came through to me very clearly after that tragic first day as CEO is that I felt we weren't doing enough on safety and we needed to do something different. One of the things that I had seen is that often, we have a tragedy like a fatality or a serious injury, but we don't always actually go into the operation, stop and check what we're doing.

So, I said to the guys, one of the things we have to do here and practice it more frequently is to actually stop mining when there's a serious accident and go and assess exactly what the issue is, fix it, verify that you've fixed it, and then you can start mining again. And don't just go to the area where the accident happened. Go across all of the operations, across all of the working places, and check everything.

I remember stopping our mines for four days and taking 35,000 people out of the operations, which cost us a huge amount of production, to actually stop and fix things and make sure it was a safer environment. I have to say, I think in the long run, financially, as well as obviously from an ethical point of view, it made tremendous sense because it showed you cared, it showed that you put people first, and they in turn were more committed to the business in the future.

So, for me, the lights went on with that tragic day. Looking into the faces of the families at the funeral, who've lost their loved ones, a father's been lost, a husband's been lost a wife has been lost. It's a terrible scenario, and I really felt that there was something more we had to do. Hence the slogan, if we cannot mine safely, we will not mine. Which doesn't mean we all pack up and go home. It means we stop, identify the problem, fix it, verify that we fixed it, and then we can move on.

Gradually over time, we looked at the stats, and we felt that we were really getting improvements. Leading indicators like stoppages, minor injuries in turn led to a reduction in serious injuries, and obviously we wanted to eliminate fatalities completely. That was our goal, and I think we made tremendous progress over a number of years in that direction.

Nkateko: I completely agree. The work that was done by yourself and the other CEOs during that period has made tremendous progress. We're still far away from zero harm, but if you look at South Africa safety mine safety, it has improved. Fatalities have improved significantly.

I also want to touch on your experience a little bit more. We typically see mining engineers rise to the top position. You have a finance background. I want us to talk about the advantage that your finance background gave you in being a CEO of a mining company, the success that you achieved at Gold Fields, and how you managed the major trade-offs.

Nick: It’s an interesting question and a very pertinent one too. One of the things that I noticed, having been in the industry for a number of years before I came to Gold Fields, miners tend to sometimes be quite limited in what they're thinking about. They're thinking about, "let's move tonnes. Let's move volume. Let's increase volume." And then sometimes you don't always see the financial rewards, and the conventional logic is sometimes, economies of scale. "Let's make a mine bigger. Let's make an open pit bigger and deeper. Let's move more volume."

Often that didn't always lead to the most optimal financial results for the entity. One of the things that I got our guys to think about more seriously is to say, what is the sweet spot? What is the right sort of level of production for an operation? Because bear in mind, when you crank up an operation and you're moving more tonnes, then the pressure is on to keep those tonnes at the same level, to keep the output at the same level. In this industry, for every tonne of ore that you move, you have to move significantly more tonnes of waste, particularly in open pits, but also in underground operations. So, it can become a serious financial burden to try and crank up an operation and maintain it.

So, I got the guys thinking more about, we're here to make money. We're not here just to move tonnes. At the end of the day, why are the investors buying our company? They're buying our company because they want us to make profits. They want us to make cash flow. They want us to pay more dividends. Now, let's find the most optimal way to do that and to do it sustainably year after year, and it's not just about cranking up volume.

So, I do believe I got the team to think more about that. The other thing is every ounce and every ton had to make a contribution. That can reshape your mining model quite a bit, as opposed to let's mine everything even though some of the tonnes, we're mining are not making a contribution. In fact, they may not even be covering their direct costs.

So over time, we started thinking about mining more as a business that makes money sustainably. The one thing that I introduced in Gold Fields is to say, we need a minimum margin per ounce at a conservative gold price. So, at a set gold price, we need to make at least 15% free cashflow. That will go back and recalibrate all of the models. It'll change the cutoff grades. It'll change the mining design. But what it will do is to make sure that even if prices go down, you are still making money and you have a buffer, you have a margin of safety, as opposed to you crank up the operation to a high level, the gold price goes down, or the rand strengthens, and all of a sudden, you're scrambling. You have to lay off workers, you have to change the mine plan.

It's like moving a big ship. When a big ship changes direction, it takes a long time for that ship to hit the new pathway. And of course, it's preferable not to be in that scenario because it's very expensive to do so. So that's one of the things that over time I believe we've managed to get into the minds of the senior management teams on the operations.

Nkateko: That is interesting indeed. I want us to shift and actually talk about some of the defining strategic decisions. We have Sibanye-Stillwater today as a result of your leadership. It is a diversified precious metals company today with a market cap of circa R110billion.

I want us to touch on that, reflect a little bit on that decision, which was initially met with quite a bit of skepticism.

Nick: I'd agonised over this major decision for some years. As you know I came into the role of CEO in 2008, but we only did the unbundling at the beginning of 2013. What I thought is the right direction for the company to go, if you take a five 10 even a 20-year view, is the future of mining was not, in my opinion, in handheld labour-intensive mining, which is what had been done in South Africa for 100 years.

But in fact, had been stopped in most other countries, like Australia and Canada, had stopped that kind of mining by and large quite some years before. One of the reasons they had stopped, and it comes back to the earlier conversation we had about safety; you can create a much safer environment and a more productive environment by embracing mechanised mining. That way, you can actually take the man away from the danger zone. You can take the man or the woman away from the rock face, and you can make it safer for them and make it more productive.

So, I felt the future for Gold Fields lay in mechanised mining, whereby we would actually improve safety, we'd improve productivity, and also, we'd position Gold Fields as a major international player in the industry. A lot of my conversations with investors around the world prior to the unbundling and the creation of Sibanye was, why does the production keep coming off in the South African mines? The mines were getting deeper. The mines were becoming more expensive. The grades were declining, and that was a trajectory that was very clear.

We felt that by splitting off those assets and creating something new, you could get a new management team that only focused on those assets to get the very best out of them and not be distracted by an international strategy. Two, you could create a mining conglomerate in South Africa whereby those assets were the springboard for diversifying into other metals.

I remember delivering a presentation on this about the end of 2012, and I pulled out the slides a couple years later and I couldn't believe it was very prophetic that in fact, that's what happened. So, Sibanye delivered those values. The important thing is that what we did is for every share that a Gold Fields shareholder had, we gave them two shares in exchange. We gave them a Gold Fields share ex-Sibanye, and we gave them a Sibanye share. Now, had those shareholders retained both of those shares over the next 10 years, they would've outperformed the mining industry in terms of the returns they got on their investment.

So, I think it worked out well for all involved. It created a new catalyst in South Africa to consolidate and create a new mining conglomerate. It allowed Gold Fields to pursue an international mechanised mining strategy, and it provided returns to shareholders at the same time. So, I'd like to believe it ticked all the boxes. As you've just said, I think even if we look today the values of both companies, I think, justify the exercise that was undertaken at that time.

Nkateko: 100%. It certainly has paid off. What lessons does the Sibanye story hold for CEOs today facing the pressure to maintain status quo, in your view?

Nick: I think the problem that you have sometimes is that companies try and get too complex. They look at other metals. They try and operate in too many jurisdictions. They go upstream; they go downstream. I think the one lesson that one can take away from the unbundling and creation of Sibanye is focus on your core strengths and don't get distracted by trying to do too much at once.

It's impossible to be good at everything at the same time. You'll never get it right. So, try and focus rather on the things that you can do well. This helped Gold Fields in particular. Overnight, we suddenly dropped our production by half. We were operating fewer mines. It enabled us to get much more focus and attention and get the very best out of those operations at that time.

So, I think that's the lesson for CEOs. Don't get too big. Don't get too complex. And remember the other thing, if you become like a three/four-million-ounce producer of gold, every year you are depleting four million ounces of gold. You have to find four million ounces of gold every year. That's very hard to do. How are you going to do it? Are you going to acquire it? Are you going to explore for it? And remember, even on exploration, the success rate is something like 5/10% of all of the stuff that you look and turn over. So, it becomes a very difficult job, and you're chasing your tail to try and maintain that level of production.

By becoming smaller and simpler, you can sustain levels of production. You can sustain profitability. You don't have to make big bets. 

Nkateko: Maybe sticking with reserve replacement, which is one theme that you've spoken extensively about during your tenure. Do you think the industry has become more reliant on acquisition rather than discovering ounces?

Nick: Absolutely. And I think the problem we've got is that when you look at the more popular jurisdictions, like Australia and Canada where geopolitical risk is considered to be lower, it's really a rush to try and get ounces. There are so many other players in there that if you find stuff you're going to overpay for it, and the chances are you won't find it.

So, I think it's pushing people to acquisitions, but I still believe that the best strategy is look around where you're mining at the moment, and you're going to find more gold there. This is one of the things I think Gold Fields did well in Australia. They had mining leases that were quite extensive, and we knew pretty much that there was more gold out there, but you just had to find it.

It's not like the Wits Basin where you have one continuous load of gold. These are more discrete deposits and they're undercover. You don't always find them easily. But in time, if you're patient and you allocate resources and capital, you'll be successful. I think today you're seeing that, not just for Gold Fields, but for other producers who've pursued that strategy. The best place to find gold is where you're mining it.

Believe me, there's a lot more out there than people would otherwise think. That's not to say that you mustn't open up new jurisdictions in time. I think you can't close your eyes to that, but you have to be very cautious. Opening up a new jurisdiction is very difficult and time-consuming, and we did that in Chile. You've got to be patient and it takes a lot of time, but you can't rule that out as a strategy on top of looking around the existing mines.

Nkateko: And I want to challenge the tier-one jurisdiction a little bit. It's something I've been thinking about for quite some time. That as we see the traditional tier one jurisdiction, we see costs start to rise, we see grades, which is more important, start to decline, and labor shortages has been a, a big deal.

Are we not in an environment where some parts of Africa could transition into being seen as tier-one despite the regulatory uncertainty?

Nick: Absolutely. The one thing to remember, if you look at the geological database that's available today in all metals, about 40% of global metals in the ground still not mined are in Africa. Africa can't be ignored. Africa is going to have its place in the sun, particularly for companies that have a 20/30-year view. So yes, Africa must be looked at.

I think the one issue in Africa that's becoming very relevant today is that you have to come up with a new structure with governments in these countries whereby you get the security of tenure for the long run. But in return, there's got to be demonstrable benefits for the country you're operating in, in-terms of the socioeconomic impact, the multiplier effect, the creation of jobs and generation of local procurement demonstrable taxes in the fiscus etc.

I think the time is now for those conversations to be had and to come up with a solution, whereby everyone can relax and know that they have a long-term agreement. An agreement that's not just regulated by local laws but regulated under arbitration rules internationally. So that if there are changes in government, that the mining company doesn't have to rush to its shareholders and say something went wrong here, or go back to the government.

And so, I think the time is now very opportune to relook at this whole dynamic in African countries that are well-endowed with resources. We're going to need those resources as a global economy. We're going to need them for the critical minerals drive that's becoming relevant today, and there's no time to waste.

So, I do hope the industry will collaborate and work together on this, because I don't think one company can do it alone. It's going to take a targeted effort by industry forums to go and have these conversations, have these negotiations with governments, so that they can see the benefits, where it's a win-win scenario. The only way this is going to work is everybody wins. The country wins. There are jobs created. Shareholders win. The one thing about mining, the multiplier effects are huge, both upstream and downstream. So, let's hope something happens soon. 

Nkateko: And what would be your advice to the different African governments especially in this environment where gold prices are high, metal prices are high?

Nick: They must set the rules, set them clearly up front, and stick to the rules. Don't change the rules. Stick to the rules. Have something that will last the test of time and give assurance to companies and their investors that these are the rules. I had this presentation I did to the United Nations in Geneva, and it was called Growing the Pie, Growing the Mining Pie.

Come up with a scenario where everybody wins. There are more taxes in the fiscus. There are more jobs created. There's more revenue generated for the companies that have invested. Everybody wins. But the rules must be clear. There must be a proper mining code. There must be project development agreements. There must be clear rules on level of royalties, levels of taxes import costs, procurement issues and local labor issues. It's all got to be set out clearly and in a way that is understandable.

So that would be my advice to African countries and governments who are looking to benefit from the mining boom that we see today, from the commodity prices we see today. Look at gold. Look at copper. I remember us doing feasibilities in Peru on our gold copper project at copper prices of $2 a pound. We're looking now at $6 a pound. So, everyone can win in this price scenario, and I don't see this changing anytime soon. So big opportunity out there.

Nkateko: So, in this pricing scenario, do you see an opportunity for South Africa gold industry, potential heavy investment into the industry and a revival of this sector considering that we still have a third of the world's gold reserves?

Nick: I think the problem we have in South Africa, unfortunately, is that the ore bodies have largely been mined out where they're economically viable to mine. You got ore bodies now going down to three and a half, four kilometres. Once you get past four kilometres, the problem you've got is seismicity increases progressively, so your current mining methods won't hold up. Virgin rock temperatures increase. I don't know if you can really send people down to that kind of depth.

I think you're probably going to need to have some kind of robotic mining. You're going to maybe have some kind of breakthrough with AI. I'm not saying that this is not possible, but I think we're some ways away from that happening. That's the unfortunate reality. South Africa's had a wonderful 150 years of gold mining, but unfortunately, the easy stuff has gone.

And in all honesty, when you're sitting and looking, do you go down four or five kilometres in South Africa, or do you go to West Africa and actually dig it off the surface, so I think the answer becomes clearer when you look at those opportunities. It’s not to say it's gone forever. It's there. There's an option value on it. It might be an out of the money option at the moment, but we need a technical breakthrough to be able to liberate that kind of opportunity.

I know people are working on it. But I think we're some years away. Now, in the meantime, obviously, it's not all doom and gloom because obviously the rand gold price is now at a level that we all dreamed of. It's given a new lease of life for the existing mines. It's opened areas that were previously uneconomic, and it's good to see a resurgence in some of the local gold companies. I believe under Johannesburg, they're looking at opening some old areas that haven't been mined for decades.

So, it's not all doom and gloom but the big prize is still some way away. I think we've got to be prepared in South Africa to invest some money as an industry in R&D and look at how we can liberate those opportunities in time.

Nkateko: And I want to take us back to your internationalisation strategy when you were CEO of Gold Fields. There's a saying that says "Society grows when old men countries whose shade they know they will never sit in." I think it rings very true for Salares Norte, which you backed during your tenure.

When I look at it today, it is the biggest free cash flow generator for Gold Fields. Can we talk about that decision and the conviction that you had on the asset, even though you knew you would not see it right through to the end?

Nick: Absolutely. The one thing that we strive for, and I strive for as CEO, is if we could have a discovery, an exploration discovery of substance, if we could find it ourselves and not rely on juniors to find it and then buy the junior. If we could build that ourselves and then operate it ourselves and see the benefits, that would show that we as a company had the expertise right through the value mining chain to realise the value.

I realised this was probably a 15-year bet. In fact, it was longer than that. It's more like a 20-year bet. That's the commitment in time that you have to make to these kinds of grassroots discoveries. But I have to say, when we did our first few drill holes in Salares Norte and we looked at the results of the drill core, I think that we were all terribly excited. I remember at the time saying to the guys, "how do we know, though, that this is uniform? I would like you to bring the rigs and do some more infill drilling around these wonderful drill holes, and let's see if it holds up as an ore body."

I got the explorationists to do this and believe it or not, they came back with even more impressive infill drill results. So, I think we knew we were onto something very special, and it's great to see that even though I didn't see the benefits of this, that I can sit here today and feel satisfied that, that decision was the right decision.

And full credit, to the team at the company today, for having the wherewithal to build a project, finish it. It's not an easy jurisdiction. It's 5,000 metres up. The climates in winter aren't easy. They stayed the course. They got it to production, and it's generating the value that we could see 15 to 20-years ago. So, I think it's a very exciting venture, an exciting result, and let's hope that they can find more.

But I think it shows the industry in particular that is the best value you can achieve for your shareholders by doing grassroots exploration, finding a good ore body, building it, and then generating the returns. And I think you'll find they'll get their money back on this project many times over.

Nkateko: The timing couldn't have been more perfect with its significant endowment of silver and the silver price also doing very well. So significant value created for shareholders, but I also want to talk about the significant value that was created for employees. If we look at the employee share ownership scheme that was put in place during your tenure, it reached its 15-year maturity last December at a reported value of R11.1billion.

If you can, if we can talk a little bit, and maybe your advice to current CEOs regarding employee ownership schemes, especially the balance between long-term value creation and employees' needs for immediate benefits.

Nick: First of all, when we devised that scheme under my leadership, for me, the most critical thing with these schemes is they had to be self-funding. That's the first thing. And the second thing is they had to be an appropriate gain share. So, in my mind, I was looking at a gain share even on the blowout scenario, where the guys hit everything, that it couldn't be more than 10% of value created.

That way, I think employees, and particularly senior employees, could actually enjoy the benefits that shareholders themselves were getting 10 times over. I think some of these schemes were put in place when the share price was something like, I don't know, R60 a share, R70 a share. As you saw, Gold Fields got as high as R800 a share and is now somewhere around about R600 a share.

So, I think it's clear that, notwithstanding the amount that's been paid out over that period of time, the value gain for shareholders has been extraordinary and is many multiples of that. The metrics we looked at was things like cash flow, was production levels, its costs, doing it safely, doing it sustainably. So, these were all the moderators that were factored in, and you couldn't just do it for one year and have a one-year wonder. You had to do it over a number of years. You couldn't just have one year of benefits because we were looking for sustainable generation of value for shareholders.

I think the one thing that I would advise today is that when it comes to share ownership schemes, you should really give them to your very senior employees, to a smaller nucleus. Rather put the middle management onto a more shorter-term cash generation scheme with a shorter line of sight than what you put in place for the senior employees. Because what you want the senior employees to do is to be more strategic and to be more long-term in their focus.

I think with these schemes, the one thing one learns about them is you keep on changing them. Every year new things that maybe lead you to moderate them, because every three years we would probably change the rules or moderate the rules. It develops over time. It's not one thing. And don't be afraid to change but make sure you communicate the changes clearly to all stakeholders, and particularly your employees, so they understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, and why they should still feel attracted and empowered.

I remember there was a time when we were looking at these schemes when there was a massive competition for skills, and so we needed ways to attract and retain people. So, we probably were a little bit more aggressive on the scheme maybe than is the case in later years. But every company must decide where the sweet spot is for them with these schemes and make sure that they are self-generating in the value, that they're self-funding. You can cover the cost many times over. That would be my advice to CEOs today. 

Nkateko: I want us to do the last few reflections as, as we wrap up. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is that with the benefit of distance and not being bogged down by day-to-day operational or executive decisions, what perspective has distance given you that you wish you had when you were CEO?

Chris: It's interesting. I thought about this one for a while. Having been out of the game now for five years, and looking from a distance, as you say, at the industry, I still feel fairly clear that the strategy of generating sustainable returns and cashflow for shareholders is still the right strategy.

This concept of trying to grow production, I think can be value destructive, and I think one must be extremely careful in doing that because, as I said earlier, it means that you have to replace reserves at a higher level. You have to invest more money, maybe just when you're making money, you have to invest most of that money back. But I think the key lesson from all of this is pick a strategy that is sustainable over the test of time, and don't get distracted, particularly by shareholders and investors.

The one thing about shareholders and investors, they are here today, and they're gone tomorrow, but you're still there running the company. You're still there accountable. So, they can come in, they're in the share register for a year. They'll come and tell you what to do this and do that and then they're gone. They have a different horizon than what you have. They may be in for six months. You're in for years and years. So, you can't really be too distracted from what investors are wanting you to do.

You've got to come up with a strategy as a company that is very clear. You communicate it. You say why it's your strategy, and stick to it. Don't keep chopping and changing on the pressure from the markets, investors, etc. And I think that is the best way for CEOs to run their companies because otherwise you'll be chopping and changing all the time, and you're going to make mistakes. So that is the key lesson today.

Nkateko: Nick how do you hope to be remembered that has nothing to do with production and share prices?

Nick: I'd like to believe that what I was able to do in my time was to empower people, is to create a scenario where people right down to the rock face felt they were involved. I'm a great believer in allowing a level of decentralisation whereby people who are operating the assets in the jurisdiction they operate in them should have a key say in what the strategic direction is. But that also has to be reconciled with the strategic direction of a corporation.

So, it's not the corporation sits at the top and just allows a decentralised model completely whereby regions or mines decide what to do. Not that, but whereby it's like a federal system where they're involved, they feel that they're part of the decision-making.

Remember, if you're mining down in Australia or in Ghana, wherever you might be mining, or any other country in the world, in any company, the people who are mining down there, they know what's going on. They have a pretty good idea, and you in the centre may think you know everything, but the chances are that they understand the risks, the opportunities, and the threats better than you do. So, use that knowledge, use that information. Empower those people and those teams to be sitting at the table with you and co-determining the way forward.

So, I found under my time that that was a very good strategy and it worked, and I believe the company did well under that kind of model. But look, everyone has their own views on the best way to run things, but I felt for me to be remembered would be to say that we got everybody involved. We felt that we were a team. We felt that we worked together, we collaborated, and we enjoyed the success of our time together as a team. And that for me is probably the thing I'll remember the most.

Nkateko: So, some quick-fire questions as we finish off. Biggest risk that paid off?

Nick: South Deep was obviously a very tough nut to crack, and obviously we had a lot of misses on production. We had a lot of issues on the operation. And one of the things that I felt we needed to do is forget about long-term targets, a build-up plan, and rather have a very short time horizon.

Let's fix the issues today. Short range goals, short range objectives. If we can fix the things over the next day, over the next week, over the next month, over the next quarter, the chances are we'll create a much better platform for us to go forward. So, I agonised about whether South Deep was going to make it or not, but in the end, I'm very pleased that we made the decision to soldier on. And the other thing with a long-life ore body that people must remember, it's a call option on the gold price.

So having a long-life ore body, doesn't matter where it is, even if the prices may not always support long-term production, because it's a long-term option on the gold price, you probably going to have greater determination to make it work. Look at the rand price today R2million a kilogram plus. A good decision. The long-term option on the gold price paid off, and it came through. That's the biggest risk I think that's paid off.

Nkateko: The one-word colleagues would use to describe you.

Nick: Fairly determined. Hopefully very clear and unambiguous in what we needed to do. But also, I'd hope to believe that they felt I was caring and was prepared to support people over time. So that's what I would hope people thought today.

Nkateko: Copper or gold? Gold is gold.

Nick: Gold is the ultimate hedge against financial markets. A couple of years ago, a couple of guys out of Canada, gold bugs, said gold is going to $5,000, and I think gold at the time was about $1,700. A lot of people came back and said they're mad. It's already been there, and it'll get there again.

I think as you see more pressure geopolitically across the world, globalisation has broken down, I think gold is going to be a very good investment for people to hedge. The AI boom has driven the stock markets as we've all seen. Probably it's going to take longer for the E to match the P in the PE ratio. There may be some corrections along the way. So gold is there. Central banks are buying gold. They're diversifying away from the dollar.

So, I think gold definitely, but copper I think will be an important metal in terms of the whole drive for AI and technology improvements. So, if you can have both in your portfolio, I don't think you'll be doing too badly. 

Nkateko: It's both, but gold is gold. Nick, it was such a pleasure talking to you. You really have transformed Gold Fields, but that is apparent to everyone. I think out of this conversation, the one thing I realised is you created value not only for shareholders, but for employees, for governments. Look at Salares Norte.

Part of the reason we have this podcast is actually to have these conversations, but also to give you your flowers. My clients had been asking me to actually have this conversation with you, and it has been absolutely phenomenal. So, thank you so much for joining us.

Nick: Thank you very much indeed. I really enjoyed the conversation. Take care.