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Article Excerpt
OPERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to the Sherritt International Corporation first quarter 2008 results conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS). I would like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded, today, Wednesday, April 30, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michael Minnes, VP Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead, sir.
MICHAEL MINNES, VP IR AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS, SHERRITT INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION: Thanks operator, and welcome to Sherritt International's 2008 first quarter results conference call and webcast. With me today from Sherritt International are Jowdat Waheed, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dean Chambers, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements, and these forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on Sherritt International Corporation's current expectations, and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that are beyond the corporation's ability to control or predict. Actual results and developments may differ materially, from those contemplated by these statements, depending on, among other things, such key factors as business and economic conditions in Canada, Cuba, Madagascar and the principal markets for Sherritt's products. The corporation does not include, and does not assume any obligations to update these forward-looking statements.
I would like to also recognize that this call is intended for the benefit of all investors, or potential investors in Sherritt International Corporation. We will begin with a presentation by management, followed by a question-and-answer session. Questions will be restricted to investment analysts and portfolio managers that have been accepted as such, upon registration for the call. The media and general public have been invited to participate in this call, on a listen-only mode basis. This call will available as a webcast at www.sherritt.com, and we welcome those listeners.
And at this point, I would like to turn the call over to Jowdat Waheed.
JOWDAT WAHEED, PRESIDENT, CEO, SHERRITT INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION: Thank you, Michael. And thank you for joining us today. We are very pleased with the first quarter results, as we were able to take advantage of both robust commodity pricing, and strong operational performance. What I would like to do is to, walk you through some of the highlights for the quarter, and then turn it over to Dean Chambers, our CFO, who will then take you through our financial results in more detail.
Beginning with our highlights, Sherritt had another solid quarter, with revenues of over $314 million, and an EBITDA of approximately $176 million. Good operating production, higher metals sales volumes, and record high coal and oil prices all contributed to strong financial results. Also during the quarter, Sherritt announced an offer to acquire those units of Royal Utilities income fund, that it did not already own. The offer expired on April 28, and we are pleased to announce that approximately 98% of those units, not already owned by Sherritt have tendered to the offer.
To finance a portion of the acquisition, we also did an equity issue of approximately $430 million, which closed earlier in the quarter. The acquisition offer for Royal Utilities will position us as Canada's largest thermal coal company, as well as create a more conservative balance sheet, and internalize important cash flow streams, that will help us to fund our growth objectives over the coming...
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