Case Name :      Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.

Authors :           George Athanassakos, Dan Buffery

Source :             Ivey Publishing

Case ID :            907N11

Discipline :        Finance

Case Length :    27 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

The senior portfolio manager at National Securities Inc. (National) is concerned about the recent decline in shares of Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd (AEM), a Canadian gold producer with several years of precious metals mining experience that was considered one of the portfolio’s strongest performers. The senior portfolio manager and his team recently spent time at one of AEM’s mines and believed in the operational potential of the company. National’s research department had prepared free cash flow forecasts for AEM, which the senior portfolio manager reviewed and modified, following their visit with the company. He knew that despite his team’s belief in the future prospects of AEM, the stock may have become overvalued from a fundamental view point. The senior portfolio manager asked his team to perform a fundamental valuation of the equity of AEM. As normally, this meant the team would use the discounted cash flow (DCF) methodology, with financial assumptions that had been carefully examined. However, he knew that DCF valuation would likely undervalue resource companies, such as AEM, as the DCF valuation tended to overlook the flexibility provided at decision nodes during the life of the company with regards to extracting commodities from the ground. As a result, the senior portfolio manager reminded the team that the DCF method, when applied to a mining company, had to be expanded to explicitly include the value of the unmined metals. The underground unmined gold would need to be valued as a real option, using an adjusted Black-Scholes model.