IAMGOLD’s latest quarterly results put its Canadian and West African gold operations in focus. Operational performance and capital allocation frame the discussion heading into year-end.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Renaud Adams, president and CEO at IAMGOLD, about the results and the company’s priorities.
Key Takeaways
- Third-quarter adjusted earnings reached 42 cents per share, beating the 40-cent estimate, while revenue rose 21 per cent.
- Annual attributable gold production guidance remains at 720,000 to 820,000 ounces after third-quarter output of 186,900 ounces.
- IAMGOLD plans to buy out Franco-Nevada’s 7.5 per cent financial interest in the Côté gold mine.
- Operating cash flow rose 64 per cent to 461.1 million dollars, supporting available liquidity of 1.6 billion dollars.
- Côté operated above nameplate capacity in September, while higher-grade underground ore helped Westwood track toward the upper end of production guidance.
Read the full transcript below:
LINDSAY: IAMGOLD reported its third-quarter revenue and profit, beating analyst estimates in its third quarter. The company reaffirmed its annual production guidance and announced plans to buy out a financial interest in its Côté mine. Let’s get more now from Renaud Adams, president and CEO at IAMGOLD. It’s great to have you join us this morning. Thanks for taking the time.
RENAUD: No, thank you. It’s great. It’s a great time at IAMGOLD. So, very pleased to be here, too.
LINDSAY: Well, I mean, you are generating significant cash flow at current gold prices. So we’ll start there because, like, how much of that profitability would remain if gold prices pulled back even to, like, $3,500?
RENAUD: Well, we’re in a pretty good, pretty good position. You know, like, we’ve completed the construction of our main asset, Côté Gold. We’ve ramped it up. We have, we do have, of course, organic growth capital over the next few years. But they’re more optimizations in nature. So we’re very, very well equipped, you know, to, to continue to generate significant free cash flow should the gold price pull back a bit. We’ve made our plan at $4,000, and it’s been, it’s been a very good, a very good free cash flow generation so far this year. And, but no, I think we’re extremely well equipped now with Côté fully ramped up, achieving nameplate, and looking forward to continuing to optimize the asset, which will shave — and on the same basis of continuing to protect ourselves and continue generating good cash flow. So, you’ve seen that we’ve announced a repurchase of — yeah.
LINDSAY: I want to talk about all of that, but I just want to start with the Côté mine because September was your best throughput month ever. Is that a new normal? Was that a one-off? What was going on there?
RENAUD: Well, the asset and the mine were designed, you know, for 36,000 tonnes a day. So, in the very early days, we were extremely successful in achieving the first goal, the nameplate, the nameplate. But there was technically something missing, and we installed new secondary crushing, and that was done at the end of Q2. So Q3 2026 was really our first quarter where we were operating without any additional external contracting, contracting crushing, and we have achieved, we have achieved above the nameplate. So I think now the asset is well ramped up. It’s a matter more of optimization and reducing unit costs down the road. But we’re achieving now the nameplate, and we’re focusing on our first full quarter in Q4 achieving nameplate without any additional external contracting.
LINDSAY: I want to talk also about what you announced on your earnings call this morning. You mentioned it: the plan to buy out Franco-Nevada’s 7.5 per cent financial stake in the Côté gold mine. Why was now the right time to do that, do you think?
RENAUD: Well, this is the right time because of the gold price mostly, and because of extensions of our mine life. So, up to, up to now, the asset was built on the basis of about 10 million ounces of resources and seven million ounces of reserves, and this quarter we’ll be, we’ll be announcing the results of our, of our new, updated 43-101 for Côté Gold, which would highlight a significant increase in reserves and an extension of the mine life. Combined with that, at the time that Franco acquired the NPI, it was at a much lower gold price. So when you combine an extension of reserves, mine life and a higher gold price, it becomes a no-brainer for us to jump on this opportunity that we had secured back in, back in 2025, and we feel very strongly about it. And our partner Sumitomo decided not to participate, which increased even further the benefit for us. We have excess cash flow. We have returned significant cash to our shareholders through the share buyback. We’re looking to potentially initiate a dividend early this year, and nonetheless, we continue to have excess cash flow.
So we make sure that all our assets are very well equipped to unlock the maximum value down the road, and we thought that, as, as excess cash, it was the best place to position it and just buy back more of our main asset in Canada.
LINDSAY: Sumitomo’s decision not to participate, like, how does that affect your relationship with your joint-venture partner going forward? Does it at all?
RENAUD: Oh, absolutely, absolutely no issues. We have a very great partner. We’ve done good and continue to do good things. Everyone, every company has its priorities and cash and capital allocations. What defines us really is the significant free cash flow generation and excess cash, which is not necessarily the case for all industries. But it doesn’t impact it at all, and we remain in a very strong relationship. But we all have different capital allocation priorities. That’s the way we look at it.
LINDSAY: You’ve also reaffirmed guidance of 720,000 to 820,000 ounces for the year. Which operations out of the main three are contributing the most into the fourth quarter, do you think, of your mines?
RENAUD: Well, they’re all contributing very strongly. Côté Gold has unfortunately had a little bit of an operational issue in the first quarter, which has been fixed since then. We had a very good second, third, and the fourth quarter will be by far our strongest quarter. But our two other mines, the second mine in Burkina and Westwood in Quebec, have been performing extremely well, with Westwood trending to the top end of its guidance. So I would say it’s a, it’s a combined effort, but for Q4, we’re expecting Côté to lead the charge with the strongest production.
LINDSAY: But Côté costs did come in above your own guidance range, right? Like, how much of that is a one-time thing versus something that, that really carries into next year?
RENAUD: Well, there’s been a bit of inflation, of course, with the fuel situation. There’s been a little bit of adjustment there on the power as well, a bit of pressure sometimes on the, on, on the labour. But what is ultimately the biggest impact is the gold price. So it goes both ways. It goes on the free cash flow generation, of course, that is significantly higher, but it also impacts, you know, the cost of royalties across our assets. We’re averaging about $370 an ounce this year. So, of course, if you reduce the gold price, it would reduce free cash flow, but it would also reduce significantly. So, along the same topic of reducing costs, so this is another big aspect of buying back the NPI, is to reduce significantly this, this burden on royalties. And so buying back this, this 50 per cent from Franco effectively reduces by $150 or so, starting in 2027, the cost at Côté Gold.
LINDSAY: OK, we’ve got to leave it there. We are out of time. Renaud Adams, president and CEO at IAMGOLD. Appreciate you joining us. Thank you.
RENAUD: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
LINDSAY: You too.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Nov. 6, 2026 interview with Renaud Adams are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
