More Than Just Gold: Initiating on African Gold Miners: Buy AGA, EDV; GFI Neutral

Goldman Sachs initiates coverage of three African gold miners. Following portfolio rationalisation, cost discipline and balance sheet repair, Endeavour Mining (EDV), AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) and Gold Fields (GFI) enter this cycle with strong margins, low leverage and >10% FCF yields (vs ~6% for diversified/base miners), supporting organic growth and >5% dividend yields, plus operating leverage to gold. The commodities team stays structurally constructive on gold with a US$5,400/oz end-2027 forecast, driven mainly by central-bank diversification, while equity valuations assume a long-run real gold price of US$3,800/oz from 2030. We initiate EDV and AGA at Buy and GFI at Neutral: EDV offers the strongest combination of growth (~9% production CAGR 2026-30) and FCF; AGA offers operational consistency with brownfield additions of 300-450kozpa by 2030 and the highest prospective shareholder returns;