• Padenga Holdings' profit before tax more than doubled to $93.9 million in 2025, driven by a sustained gold price rally and improved production at its Dallaglio mining division
• The mining business benefited from a 63% increase in gold price, averaging $3,448 per ounce, and a 9% increase in gold grade at Eureka Mine, resulting in a 26% rise in revenue from continuing operations to $265.8 million
• The agribusiness segment faced challenges, with revenue down 22% to $14.76 million, but management expects the downsizing exercise to be largely complete and the business to return to profitability in the short to medium term

Harare- Padenga Holdings posted its strongest financial performance in years for the twelve months to 31 December 2025, with profit before tax more than doubling to $93.9 million from $43.8 million as a sustained gold price rally transformed the economics of its Dallaglio mining division and overwhelmed the drag from a structurally troubled crocodile business.

Revenue from continuing operations rose 26 percent to $265.8 million against $211.4 million in the prior year, a figure that understates the quality of the earnings improvement. EBITDA from continuing operations expanded 72 percent to $113 million from $65.5 million, a margin expansion that signals the mining division is now generating cash at a rate that makes the agribusiness segment's struggles a manageable, rather than existential, problem for the Group.

Profit for the year settled at $57 million, up from $42 million, while attributable earnings per share on a headline basis surged 182 percent to 8.23 cents from 2.92 cents, reflecting both the profit growth and the capital restructuring that followed the Dallaglio consolidation.

The engine behind the results was gold. The mining business benefited from a gold price that averaged $3,448 per ounce across the year, a 63 percent increase on the $2,121 per ounce recorded in 2024, driven by investor demand for safe-haven assets as geopolitical tensions across the Middle East intensified and the US dollar weakened against major currencies.

Eureka Mine, Padenga's flagship producing asset, recorded production improvements across throughput, feed grade and recovery, with the group reporting a 9 percent year-on-year increase in gold grade to 1.96 grammes per tonne against 1.81 grammes in 2024, with gold output of 1969 kg from 1811 kg in 2024.

Total attributable gold production for the year reached 2564 kg, 3% lower than 2368 kg produced in 2024.

Pickstone Peerless Mine, transitioning from open cast to dedicated underground operations through the Cordillera joint venture, was a volume headwind, production came in at 2.56 grammes per tonne, 3 percent below the 2.63 grammes produced in 2024, but Phase 3 of the underground project was commissioned in December 2025, opening the 10.5 Level loading station and enabling deeper drilling that management expects will materially lift volumes through 2026.

The Group has budgeted $18 million of additional capital expenditure at Pickstone for the year ahead, bringing the cumulative underground investment to $77 million, and is targeting total attributable gold production of between 90,000 and 95,000 ounces in 2026.

Cash generation was the result's other headline achievement. Cash generated from operations rose 84 percent to $110.2 million from $60 million, a number that matters as much as the profit line because it reflects the Group's capacity to self-fund its capital programme without reliance on external financing.

Net debt, which stood at $55.3 million at the close of 2024, was substantially reduced as the business directed free cash flow toward repaying borrowings. Net cash outflow from investing activities of $29 million reflects the continued underground development at Pickstone and the gravity circuit upgrade at Eureka, the latter expected to commission in Q2 2026 and improve overall plant gold recovery.

The crocodile business was the counterweight. Revenue from the Padenga Agribusiness division for the year ended 31 December 2025 fell 22 percent to US$14.76 million from $18.84 million in the prior year, with the decline driven by a 48 percent reduction in skin sales volumes to the main customer, the consequence of a deliberate but painful downsizing exercise against the backdrop of depressed global luxury goods demand.

Continuing operations generated an EBITDA of $2.47 million against $19.22 million in the prior year, a compression that reflects both the volume reduction and a write-down of crocodile biological assets following the decision to harvest all animals at Lime Crocodile Farm and impair related assets.

The Crocodile segment reported an overall after-tax loss of $19.7 million against a profit of $57.63 million in the prior year, a reversal that would have defined the results in any year the gold business had not delivered at the scale it did.

Management's narrative on the path forward is that the downsizing exercise is now largely complete, that an improving luxury market is beginning to emerge, and that a sales target of 65,000 skins has been set for 2026 before volumes normalise to a 25,000-skin annual production model from 2027 onward. The economics of the crocodile business, if skin prices recover to pre-depression levels, are expected to be restored to profitability in the short to medium term.

The board declared a final dividend of 2.00 cents per share, lifting the total dividend for the year to 3.15 cents compared to 1.06 cents per share in 2024,  a 197 percent increase that signals confidence in the sustainability of the Group's cash generation notwithstanding the agribusiness headwinds. The final dividend will be paid on or around 22 April 2026, with the shares trading ex-dividend from 16 April 2026.

Meanwhile, net assets grew 32 percent to $165 million from $124.8 million, underscoring the compounding effect of retained earnings and the balance sheet repair underway since the Group consolidated Dallaglio in 2020.

Market capitalisation at the reporting date stood at $479 million, a 357 percent premium to net assets that encodes significant investor optimism about the 2026 production target and the gold price trajectory, a premium that will require the underground ramp-up at Pickstone to materialise on schedule to be sustained.

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