B2Gold's cash-harvest era: CEO Cinnamond keeps the Goose timeline intact, awaits Mali's permit, and aims buybacks at a claimed NAV discount

B2Gold has entered what new CEO Mike Cinnamond calls "cash harvest mode." Speaking with Mining Network a few weeks after formally succeeding the retiring Clive, Cinnamond framed the next twelve months around two execution goals — returning the Goose mine to full throughput and starting up Fekola Regional in Mali — and one capital-allocation priority: buying back shares while management believes the stock trades far below the value of its assets.

## A stronger balance sheet to start

The company enters this period with fresh liquidity. It sold its Finland assets to Agnico Eagle for US$325 million and repaid the US$75 million drawn on its revolving credit facility (a credit line a company can draw and repay as needed), leaving an US$800 million facility undrawn, as the interview noted. B2Gold ended the first quarter with about US$479 million in cash.

The bigger change is recurring cash flow. B2Gold finished delivering gold into its prepay contracts — sales of future gold production for cash received up front — at roughly 22,000 ounces a month. Cinnamond said the last deliveries occurred at the end of June, freeing close to US$90 million a month from July onward.

## Goose: the fire fits inside the existing plan

An April fire at Goose, the Nunavut mine at the center of B2Gold's growth plan, damaged a small, contained area of the crushing facility. No one was hurt. Cinnamond's message was that the recovery absorbs the blow without moving the timeline: fixing the fire damage and completing Stage 1 of the mill expansion together in Q3 2026 should lift throughput to an expected 3,200 tonnes per day (tpd). Stage 2 — bigger secondary and tertiary cone crushers, new surge bins, and new conveyors — follows in the first half of 2027 and targets a steady state of 4,000 tpd.

The capital needs are modest. Cinnamond cited roughly US$7 million for the fire damage, about US$10 million for Stage 1, and US$20–30 million for Stage 2 — around US$40–50 million in total. A new mobile crusher already on site is helping move crushed material to the final stockpile while the Q3 work proceeds. The quarter most affected, Q2 2026, was budgeted as one of Goose's weaker production quarters anyway, he said.

## Fekola Regional: waiting on the permit

The Fekola Regional permit in Mali remains the gating item. Cinnamond said B2Gold has answered every request for information from the Ministry of Mines and a newly created mining commission — the most recent responses went in the week of the interview — and expects the application to advance to the council of ministers. Management is not aware of significant outstanding items on its side.

He described the government relationship as good, pointing to cooperation since 2014 and the Fekola memorandum of understanding signed in September 2024. Once permitted, he expects about three months of stripping — removing waste rock to expose ore — before incremental ounces appear, so Regional adds little in 2026, with the real contribution landing in 2027.

## Where the cash goes: buybacks first

Management's first use of the new cash flow is its own stock. Cinnamond repeated his view that the shares trade at roughly a 50% discount to internal net asset value (NAV — what the company's assets are worth, less debt), and said B2Gold up-sized its normal course issuer bid (NCIB — a regulated buyback program) in April to as much as 10% of its float per year. With about 1.3 billion shares outstanding, that is on the order of 130 million shares annually if used in full. Buying is opportunistic rather than formulaic, stepping up when the share price looks weak.

The dividend holds at US$0.08 per share per year. On acquisitions, Cinnamond was direct: no cash purchases are planned this year, and the company has enough internal greenfield opportunity. He kept the door open to strategic stakes — meaningful positions of 9.9% or more, alongside holdings such as Snowline, Prospector, Omega and Versamet — and said B2Gold will recycle in and out of that portfolio, with no preset North American filter. Suriname, Guyana and Kazakhstan were named as jurisdictions of interest.

## Q1 costs beat, guidance unchanged

First-quarter all-in sustaining costs (AISC — what it really costs to produce an ounce) came in near US$1,964 per ounce against full-year guidance of US$2,400–2,580, according to the interview. Cinnamond attributed the beat to year-end inventory sold in the quarter, production above budget, and capex timing that should normalize by year-end. Full-year guidance did not change.

## Growth options beyond the two priorities

Brownfield work gets first call on the new cash. Cinnamond flagged potential open-pit expansions at Ojikoto and the Masbate operation in the Philippines at gold prices of US$3,000-plus — below where gold traded at the time of the interview. Next year's Back River exploration budget exceeds US$60 million, roughly half of it at or around Goose and more than US$20 million on greenfield targets including George, where a resource already exists; management wants to show Back River can become a mining district. Total exploration spending this year runs close to US$80 million.

In Colombia, the modified, smaller-scale Gramalote permit and advancing resettlement work set up a mid-2027 investment decision, with the new pro-mining government seen as a helpful additional factor rather than a timeline change. The Nunavut collaboration agreement with Agnico Eagle, part of the Finland sale, covers shared know-how, infrastructure and community programs in the Arctic — and Cinnamond cautioned against reading more into the relationship.

## The re-rate checklist

Asked what closes the discount, Cinnamond pointed to Goose at steady state, Fekola Regional ounces, and visible second-half cash flow. Checkpoints come quickly: Q2 results with a call in the first week of August, an update before the Denver Gold Show, Q3 results, and another update near the end of November.