Copper Turns To Gold

欢迎收听马拉松资产管理公司出品的《资本周期》播客。

Welcome to the Capital Cycle podcast from Marathon Asset Management.

我是爱德华·钱塞勒。

My name is Edward Chancellor.

我是一名金融历史学家、记者，也曾担任投资策略师。

I'm a financial historian, journalist, and former investment strategist.

策略师。

Strategist.

在这些播客中，我会与马拉松《全球投资评论》的作者们聊聊他们当前的投资想法。

In these podcasts, I will talk to the authors of Marathon's Global Investment Review about their current investment thoughts.

今天和我一起的是亚历克斯·达菲，他是马拉松新兴市场基金经理。

So with me today starting, I have Alex Duffy, who's Marathon's Emerging Markets Fund Manager.

我们要聊聊红金、铜，医生。

And we're going to talk about red gold, copper, Doctor.

铜，有时人们这么叫它，最近经常上新闻。

Copper, as they sometimes call it, which has been in the news a lot recently.

上周，《华尔街日报》有篇文章指出，伦敦金属交易所的铜价从二月份上涨了34%，之后又下跌了14%。

Last week, The Wall Street Journal had a piece pointing out that the copper price on the London Metal Exchange had gone up 34% from February before falling 14%.

而《华尔街日报》似乎对铜的前景是看好还是看淡，拿不定主意。

And The Wall Street Journal seemed to be in two minds about whether the outlook for copper was positive or negative.

他们谈到了供应限制，这也是我们要讨论的。

They talk about supply constraints, which we're going to talk about.

但他们也担心非传统铜供应来源的出现，以及中国房地产的衰退等等。

But they also worry about unconventional copper sources coming on and worry about China's real estate decline and so forth.

所以，亚历克斯，我想从你在12月21日写的那篇关于铜矿公司的文章开始。

So, Alex, I want to start with a piece you wrote in December 21 on the copper miners.

你在那篇文章里讨论了二十一世纪头十年初的矿业资本支出热潮，以及之后发生的情况。

You discuss in this piece the mining CapEx boom of the early twenty tens and then what happened afterwards.

我认为，当我们审视行业时，在马拉松分析行业，我们非常关注供应侧动态，特别是资金流入和流出特定行业的情况。

I think when we look at sectors, when we analyze industries here at Marathon, we're very focused on supply side dynamics, and particularly the flow of capital into and out of particular sectors.

投资哲学的一个关键原则很简单，就是我们采取的长期主义。

A key principle of the investment philosophy is quite simply the long termism that we take.

资本周期本质上往往是长期的，公司和整个行业的资本配置决策需要相当长的时间才能影响这些行业的回报，或者影响某种特定资源的价格，比如铜。

Capital cycles tend to be long term in nature and it takes a good while for the capital allocation decisions of companies and indeed entire sectors to have an impact on the returns of those sectors or indeed the price of a particular resource, in this instance copper.

我认为，在2014年之前的十年里，我们见证了一个非常典型的资本周期，其根源在于前一个十年的投资不足，导致价格上涨，因为矿山无法应对来自中国的需求激增。

I think that what we witnessed over the ten year period leading up to 2014 was a very classic capital cycle that was rooted in underinvestment from the prior decade that led to increases in price as mines couldn't respond to the demand boom that came from China.

这不可避免地吸引了资本进入该行业。

And inevitably that attracted capital into the sector.

我清楚地记得那些去刚果的旅行，我们是煤矸石开采带的专家，所有这些独特的采矿资产吸引了大量资本，但最终无法交付，资本开始退出该行业，管理层和股东多年来承受了那次经历的伤痕，随后导致了非常受限的资本支出和投资时期。

And I vividly remember those trips to The Congo and we were experts on the coal waste mining belt and all of these sort of unique mining assets that attracted lots of capital and then were unable to deliver and ultimately capital started to exit the sector and management teams and shareholders bore the scars of that experience for many years that subsequently led to a period of very constrained CapEx and investment.

在那篇较早的文章中，你提到了一个资本周期指标，我觉得很有用。

In that earlier piece, you mentioned a capital cycle metric, which I think is is useful.

你谈到了资本支出占经营现金流比例的问题。

You talk about the capital spending as share of operating cash flow.

你还记得矿业资本支出占现金流比例发生了什么变化吗？

Do you remember what happened with the mining CapEx to As cash

在2012年之前的那种资本支出热潮开始后，我们目睹了高度的过度投资。

that sort of CapEx boom prior to 2012 took off, what we witnessed was a high degree of over investment.

所以公司因为把资本重新配置到新供应上而获得回报，这导致资本支出超过了经营现金流，超过经营现金流的120%都被重新投入到业务中。

So companies being rewarded for reallocating capital back into new supply that led to CapEx in excess of operating cash flows north of 120% of the operating cash flows being invested back into the businesses.

随着这个周期过去，资本支出受到限制，我们经历了一个很长的时期，矿业资本支出大约只占公司现金流的40%，所以这自然导致多余的现金返还给股东，这本身就创造了价值。

As that cycle washed through, then CapEx was restrained, and we've been through a significant period where mining CapEx has been around 40% of the cash flows of the company, so that inevitably led to that excess cash being returned to shareholders, which creates its own value.

通过股息和回购。

Via dividends and buybacks.

股息和股票回购，尤其是在股价估值低的时候特别重要，但也限制了对现有矿山的投资，这造成了今天的局面：这些矿山无法跟上行业所需的矿产供应。

Dividends and share buybacks, particularly importantly at low share price valuations, but also restricting the investment in existing mines that has created a situation today where those mines are unable to keep up with the required mine supply of the industry.

所以你最终会达到一个点，资本投资下降到低于折旧，矿山没有足够的投资来维持基础生产水平，更不用说增加供应和提高产量了。

So you inevitably get to a point where capital investment declines below depreciation, and so the mines are not investing enough to sustain base levels of production, never mind enhance supply and increase output.

你之前提到了《华尔街日报》的文章，显然我们看到的商品价格脱节，实际上只是行业内资本支出周期的结果，以及这些矿山无法应对需求变化的事实。

And you referenced the Wall Street Journal article earlier on, and and clearly what we've witnessed is sort of dislocations in in commodity prices, but that's really just a consequence of the CapEx cycle within the industry and the fact that these mines are unable to respond to the sort of demand responses.

我觉得你写这篇关于铜矿商前景的看多文章是在2021年12月，有意思的是，自那以后，中国的房地产市场一直动荡，而中国是铜的最大消费国。

And I think probably what's interesting about the fact you wrote this quite bullish piece on outlook for copper miners in December 21 is that since then, China's property market has been in turmoil, and China is the single largest consumer of copper.

我想这说明的是，如果你在一个良性的资本周期中买入股票，即使其主要客户遇到麻烦，它也是稳健的。如果我说错了，请纠正我。

I think what this illustrates, tell me if I'm wrong, is that if you buy a stock in a benign capital cycle, it is robust even when its major customer actually runs into trouble.

正是如此。

That's exactly the point.

在需求方面，确实有很多让人担忧的理由，比如……对。

There have been many reasons to be anxious on the demand side of the equation when it comes to Yeah.

我们还可以加上电动汽车需求不足，或者风力发电行业的问题。

We can throw in electric vehicles not meeting demand or problems in wind turbine sector as well.

这些影响及其持续时间很难预测，存在不确定性。

And the impact of that and the duration of it is very difficult to predict and is uncertain.

所以，马拉松资本周期框架的原则是，我们不去担心那些我们无法预测的领域。

And so the principle of the capital cycle framework here at Marathon is that we don't worry about the areas that we have an inability to forecast.

实际上，如果你看供应方面，情况相对简单明了。

And actually, if you look at the supply side of the equation, it's relatively straightforward.

过去十到十五年间，行业经历了整合。

The industry has consolidated over the last ten to fifteen years.

我们看到勘探和生产方面的投资严重不足。

We've seen a dearth of investment in exploration and production.

我能问你一个问题吗，Sainte？

Can I ask you, Sainte?

你在两篇文章中都提到了缺乏绿地扩张，为什么放缓了？

You mentioned in both pieces about the lack of greenfield expansion, why that slowed down.

有哪些障碍？

What are the impediments?

这些障碍是随着时间变化的。

They've evolved over time.

最初的障碍是，由于之前的经历，矿业公司总体上减少了投资。

The initial impediment has just been that mining companies, because of the experience they've had previously, reduced overall investment.

然而，我们开采低成本铜矿储备已经超过五十年了，这些储备现在正在枯竭。

Increasingly, however, we've been mining copper assets for well over fifty years in terms of the low cost reserves, and those reserve bases are now being depleted.

因此，你需要看到在那些从地缘政治角度看更难开采的地区的投资，这些地区在税收结构、监管制度上确定性较低，或者越来越多地是在高海拔的采矿管辖区。

Thus, you need to see investment in areas, either from a geopolitical perspective, which are more difficult to mine, so where you have less certainty over tax structures, less certainty over regulatory regimes, or increasingly mining jurisdictions, which are at altitude.

所以，在阿根廷和智利边境有一个大型新项目，但海拔有5000米。

So there's a big new project on the Argentine and Chilean border, but it's 5,000 meters.

这对你能否真正获取那些储量基础有着巨大的影响。

And that has huge implications for your ability to actually access that reserve base.

此外，环境方面的考量也越来越多。

And added to that has been increasing environmental considerations.

这意味着矿山的开发周期，原本是七到十年，现在远远超过十五年，即使资金到位，也对新矿山能否投产产生巨大影响。

And that has meant that it's taken the development curve for mines, which was once seven to ten years, well north of fifteen years to develop and has has huge implications for your ability to bring new mines into production even if the capital were available.

那么，作为分析师，这些漫长的前置时间是否让你对资本周期有了更清晰的视野？

And that gives you as an analyst greater visibility of the capital cycle, giving these long lead times?

确实如此。

Indeed, it does.

你可以看到资本流向哪里。

You can see where the capital's going.

你可以合理预测这些资本如何转化为未来的产量增长，以及需要多长时间才能实现。

You can reasonably predict how that capital may result in future production growth and the time that it takes for that to come on.

不过，这也影响了我们如何评估该行业内的公司。

It also has implications, however, how we value companies within the sector.

我知道这有点偏离重点，但当你看到资本开支预算增加、资本成本上升、时间跨度拉长时，生产资产的价值相对于绿地项目会不成比例地上升，而且

I know that's a slightly different area of focus, but when you have increasing CapEx budgets, increasing costs of capital and increasing time horizons, the value of producing assets goes up disproportionately relative to greenfield, and

这正是我们目前所看到的。

that's what we're witnessing.

我觉得这点说得很好，这也包含在你最近的文章里，就是说随着开发新矿的成本增加，传统资产的价值也会随之上升。

I think that's a very good point, and this is contained in your more recent piece, which is that as the cost of developing new mines increases, the value of the legacy assets rise in tandem.

你在第二篇文章里似乎在说，你正试图把这个因素纳入你对马拉松铜业控股的估值更新中。

What you seem to be saying in your second piece is you're trying to build that into your updating valuations of the Marathon Copper Holdings.

另外，你提到的另一个点是关于剩余资产的。

And also, the other point you made was looking at residual assets.

你提到卖方分析师有一个三十年的矿业项目电子表格，但他们没有把剩余价值算进去，而你对剩余价值有些兴趣。

You mentioned that the sell side analysts have a thirty year mining project spreadsheet, and they don't put in the residual value, whereas you have some interest in the residual value.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

作为我们投资公司的长期持有者，我们对整个资产基础的内在价值感兴趣。

As long term owners of the companies that we invest into, we are interested in the intrinsic value of the entire asset base.

当你拥有一个非常大型、低成本的采矿资产时，比如南方铜业在墨西哥和秘鲁的铜矿，三十年的DCF模型无法捕捉到的是，在DCF期结束后，你还有至少五十到一百年的矿产储量。

When you have a very large, low cost mining asset, Southern Copper's copper mines as a case in point in Mexico and Peru, what the thirty year DCF fails to capture is the fact that you have another fifty to one hundred years at least of mining reserve at the end of the DCF period.

那么，这部分价值怎么处理呢？

So what do you do with that value?

有趣的是，许多我们所谓的一级资产，即大型、低成本的铜矿，其产量往往远低于储量基础的潜力。

And interestingly, a number of these, what we call tier one assets, large, low cost copper assets tend to produce well below the potential of the reserve base.

对。

Yeah.

你说南方铜业只发挥了其潜力的50%。

You say that Southern Copper is only operating at 50 of its potential.

没错。

Correct.

它每年大约生产一百万吨铜，但如果能把这些项目投入生产，显然可以将产量翻倍。

Delivers roughly a million tonnes a year of copper output, but clearly has projects if they were able to bring them into production, would be able to double that output.

从净现值角度看，这种价值的回溯意味着当前股价并未真正反映地下储量的价值。

And from an NPV perspective, the backdating of that value means that the current share price doesn't really reflect the value of the reserves in the ground thereafter.

你在文章里说，南方铜业从表面上看，市盈率、市净率什么的，可能估值挺高的。

What you say in the piece is Southern Copper might look optically, reasonably highly valued on what price earnings, price to book or whatever.

按当前的现金流来看，确实是这样。

On a current Okay, cash flow

但在你的模型里，如果把长期储量考虑进去，那它看起来还是定价合理的。

then on your model, when you factor in the long term reserves, then it looks still reasonably priced.

完全正确。举个例子，在当前环境下，建一个新矿，每吨产能的成本大概要两万五到三万美元。

Absolutely, so to put that into context, it would cost roughly $25,000 to $30,000 per tonne of production to build a new mine on a good day in this current environment.

如果你用这个估值框架去算南方铜业三十年DCF期末的储量，你会发现股价里有很多被低估的价值。

And if you were to apply that valuation framework to the reserve base at the end of the thirty year DCF of Southern Copper, you get significant sort of underappreciated value in the shares.

你在12月21日的文章里提到了南方铜业，我觉得有意思的是，我后来看了它的股价表现，跟铜价走势对比，还有我们之前讨论过的中国房地产市场的崩盘。

So you mentioned Southern Copper in your December 21 piece, and what I thought was interesting is I then looked to see how stock had performed against the copper price, movement of the copper price, and bearing in mind what we've also discussed, the collapse of the China property market.

那你会说，南方铜业的表现印证了你对资本周期的乐观看法吗？

And so you'd say that Southern Copper is sort of bearing out your positive positive view on the capital cycle?

嗯，我觉得是这样，而且我们在整个铜行业都看到了这种情况。

Well, I think so, and we've seen that across the copper complex more more broadly.

不过，南方铜业资产组合的独特之处在于，它在已知资源中处于运营成本和资本开支曲线的最低点。

The the unique thing about a Southern Copper asset base, however, is that it's at the bottom of the opex and capex curve in known resources.

所以这不是我们不了解的地质情况。

So this is not geology that we don't understand.

它不需要新的采矿方法。

It doesn't require new mining methods.

资本开支成本相对明确，相比之下，那些处于成本曲线顶端的增量供应，在运营成本、资本开支、税收制度等方面面临更多变数。

The CapEx cost is relatively well understood versus incremental supply that comes in at the top of the cost curve that's exposed to far more variability in terms of OpEx costs, CapEx costs, tax regimes, and so forth.

因此，我们认为南方铜业资产组合回报指标更高的确定性，应该采用较低的折现率，并且具有更高的价值。

And so we think that that greater certainty in terms of the return metrics of Southern Copper's asset base warrants a lower discount rate and has greater value to it as well.

对。

Right.

在第二篇文章中，你提到了著名的资本周期格言：高价格的最佳解药就是高价格，意思是高价格会带来新的供应。

In that second piece, you mentioned the famous capital cycle adage that the best cure for high prices is high prices, the idea being that high prices will bring on new supply.

但你说铜周期看起来仍然可能是良性的。

But you're saying that copper cycle still looks potentially benign.

我们看到这个领域很热闹，比如必和必拓收购英美资源失败了。

We've seen excitement in the area, the BHP failed bid for Anglo American.

你想简单聊聊这个吗？

Do want to discuss that briefly?

这向你传递了什么信号？

What that signaled to you?

我觉得我们也看到了投资者和媒体对铜这种资产类别的关注度在增加。

I think that we have witnessed increasing investor attention, media attention on copper as an asset class as well.

而且我认为，如果矿业公司能够通过绿地项目向市场供应新产能，他们很可能会这么做。

And I think that if mining companies were able to bring new supply to the market in terms of greenfield, they probably would do.

但股东们仍然对矿业公司大规模资本支出持保留态度。

There's still reticence on the part of shareholders for mining companies to go on on CapEx splurges.

但是，当你把资本成本通胀、环境许可流程、投产时间等因素加在一起，很明显，从经济角度看，收购资产比新建项目更合理，嘉能可收购泰克、必和必拓收购英美资源的行为也证明了这一点。

But when you add together the inflation of capital costs, the environmental permitting process, the time to first ore in terms of production, it's quite clear and evidenced by the behavior of Glencore's bid for tech, BHP's bid for Anglo, that it's far more economically rational to buy assets than it is to build new ones.

总的来说，这是一个积极的信号。

Which is on the whole a positive sign.

所以最后一点，《华尔街日报》，就像我说的，在铜价下跌15%后一直持观望态度，他们试图制造一些负面情绪，为价格下跌找理由。

So final point, The Wall Street Journal, as I say, was sitting on the fence after the copper price fell 15%, and they tried to drum up some negative thoughts, justify the decline in price.

他们提到废铜的供应可能会超出预期。

And they mentioned the supply of copper scrap might exceed expectations.

他们还提到了锂。

They also drew attention to lithium.

你知道，锂已经崩了。

Now as you know, lithium has collapsed.

而且那边已经新增了供应。

And there, there have been new supplies brought on.

我觉得镍也是这样。

And I think it's true of nickel too.

我说得对吗，现在印尼的产量？

Am I right in saying in Indonesia, production today?

所以简单说说，铜在这些其他能源转型材料中是如何脱颖而出的。

So just briefly how copper stands out against these other energy transition materials.

对。

Yeah.

所以我觉得关键的区别在于，锂的供应，以及在某种程度上，印尼出来的镍生铁，它们的供应限制实际上是资本限制。

So I think the key distinction is that lithium supply, and to a degree, the nickel pig iron that comes out of Indonesia, that supply constraint is really a capital constraint.

锂的储量很丰富，已知的锂储量很多，只是之前没有开发，因为直到最近，随着电池技术的进步和围绕这个领域的大量炒作，才出现了对这种商品的需求或用途。

There's plenty of lithium, known lithium reserves, they just haven't been developed because there hadn't been a need or a use case for the commodity until recently with the advancement of battery technology and lots of excitement around that particular area.

所以这是一个资本问题。

And so it's a capital issue.

铜的区别在于，它真的是一个地质问题和环境许可问题。

The distinction with copper is that it's really a geological issue and an environmental permitting issue.

所以是的，资本会进入这个行业，我们非常清楚这个风险，并且密切关注，但资本真正转化为新产量的时间框架比锂要长得多。

So yes, capital will come into the sector and we're acutely aware of the risk of that and follow it quite closely, the timeframe to bring for that capital to actually result in new production is far more extended than what we find in lithium.

而且我认为，你也看到了，这就是为什么你之前提到的嘉能可，他们一直强调锂没有资源限制，而铜有资源限制。

And I think that, you've seen that that's why Glencore, who you referenced earlier on, they've always made this point that there's no resource constraint in lithium, whereas there is a resource constraint in copper.

所以让我们更担心一点的是技术变革。

And so what makes us slightly more nervous would be technological change.

是的。

Yes.

在电力传输方面。

In electricity transmission.

对。

Yeah.

我们还没看到这种情况。

We don't see that yet.

我们还没看到这种情况。

We haven't seen that yet.

所以在某些价格下，确实会出现用铝替代的情况，但铜作为电导体的特性，我们还没有找到更好的替代品。

So at certain prices, do get substitution into aluminium, but the properties of copper as a conductor of electricity, we haven't yet come up with anything better.

越来越多地，当你看到这些应用，无论是数据中心、人工智能还是其他地方，它们都需要高强度的能源消耗。

Increasingly, when you look at the applications, whether it's data centers or AI or elsewhere, they require high levels of energy intensity.

最后，不仅仅是你在马拉松公司押注铜，其他一些投资组合经理也在他们的投资组合和其他地区押注铜。

Finally, it's not just you at Marathon who takes a copper bet, some of the other portfolio managers also have copper bets across their portfolios and other regions.

是的，没错。

Yes, exactly.

我们今天在讨论新兴市场时提到了这一点，但显然铜的资本周期是一个全球性事件，所以我们在各个地区的投资组合中都有相关敞口，无论是发达亚洲、欧洲还是美国投资组合。我认为，通过我们公司运营的多顾问模式，这确实放大了我们客户对资本周期的敞口。

We've talked about it today in the context of Emerging Markets, but obviously the capital cycle in copper is a global event, and so we have that exposure across our various regional portfolios, whether it's the developed Asia portfolios, European portfolios, or indeed The US portfolios, and I think that that really amplifies the capital cycle exposure for our clients through our multi counselor model that we operate here at the firm.

非常感谢，亚历克斯。

Thanks a lot for that, Alex.

感谢你今天抽出时间。

Thank you for your time today.

希望你会收听下一期的《资本周期》。

I hope you will listen to the next edition of the Capital Cycle.

本通讯仅供参考。

This communication is provided for information purposes only.

请参阅马拉松的网站和《全球投资评论》以获取更多信息，包括重要披露。

Please refer to Marathon's website and the Global Investment Reviews for further information, including important disclosures.