Our opinion on the current state of DRD.

DRDGOLD (DRD) was listed in 1895 and is the JSE's oldest listed company. It was followed by SA Breweries which was listed in 1897 and has now been acquired by Anheuser Busch. DRD is now a gold surface treatment operation which is at an all-in sustaining cost of extraction of just over R627247 per kilogram which compares to the average received gold price of R917996. They are re-treating surface dumps which still have traces of gold that can be profitably extracted with modern extraction methods. The benefit of this type of operation is that it is far less risky than underground gold mining operations because it has far less union exposure and has none of the expenses or difficulties of an underground operation. Its life and grade, and hence its profitability, are precisely known. The share tends to be volatile because it depends on the current price of gold, but the company has a debt-free balance sheet and strong free cash flows. A deal was concluded for Sibanye to swap out its surface dumps for an additional 265m DRD shares - which took Sibanye to a shareholding of 38%. Then on 10th January 2020, Sibanye announced that it had exercised its option to increase its stake to 50,1% at a cost of R1086m. The CEO of DRD Gold, Niel Pretorius, wants to join up with other tailing projects on the West Rand to create a massive unified re-processing operation. The company is building a 20mw solar and battery facility. In its results for the year to 30th June 2023 the company reported revenue up 7% and headline earnings per share (HEPS) up 13%. The company said, "At half year we were trending strongly and, but for slow red tape in obtaining a water use license for an emergency spillage dam at Rooikraal and delays in the supply to FWGR of imported equipment and goods through the global supply line, we would quite comfortably have delivered into the higher end of our guidance range of between 160 000 and 180 000 ounces. These dynamics delayed commissioning of these two new sites to May 2023 and July 2023 respectively, and they are only now starting to reach steady state". Technically, the share made a high of 2458c on 9th May 2023 and has been declining since then. It remains a volatile commodity share subject to the international gold price.