More than a stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of Toronto’s financial district, in a modernist office overlooking St. James Cathedral, the head of Canada’s fourth largest gold producer is both unassuming and confident. “We never got caught up in this idea that it was a race to be the biggest gold company,” says Sean Boyd, vice-chairman and CEO of Agnico- Eagle Mines Limited. The company has been extremely active in the past three years, adding five new mines in Quebec, Finland, Mexico, and the Canadian Arctic, and doubling its output for the second year in a row. “We’re on a dramatic growth trajectory,” says Boyd. “From our per- spective, we’re just getting started.”
SEAN BOYD - Vice-chairman and CEO
Founded in 1953, Agnico-Eagle has grown from a regionally focused silver, nickel and cobalt mining company (its name is a combination of “ag” “ni” and “co,” the periodic table abbrevia- tions for those three elements) into a multi-mine international player, ranked 10th in the world by market capitalization.
“We’ve grown quite quickly in the last few years in terms of size of market value, based on this expansion program,” states Boyd, who has been with the company 25 years.
Agnico-Eagle’s flagship mine, Quebec’s LaRonde, went into production in 1988. It now mines to a depth of 2.5 km (soon toincrease beyond 3 km), and is likely the deepest gold mine in North America. After five expan- sions, LaRonde’s 10-million ounce deposit makes it Canada’s biggest operating mine by reserves, and the project is what provided Agnico-Eagle with the skill set necessary to identify new opportunities, execute mine-build- ing strategies, and diversify.
The company has subsequently experienced phenomenal growth worldwide. One of Agnico- Eagle’s five new mines is in Finland, where an initial 2004 investment has grown from a deposit containing 1.4 million ounces of gold to 6 million ounces. Meanwhile, the 2006 foray into Mexico has grown fourfold to four million ounces, and the gold mine in Nunavut is the region’s first.
Agnico-Eagle’s success, based on a strategy of finding smaller, early-stage projects in low risk areas and growing deposits through focused and aggressive exploration, has meant billions of dollars of investment in Canada and more than 1,000 new jobs. It’s also been a healthy ride for shareholders, with a five-year share price increase of approximately 300%.
Agnico-Eagle is “one of the few companies that’s never ever hedged on an ounce of gold,” and has paid dividends for 28 years straight, notes Boyd. Clearly, it’s a good place to be.
