After six years of investing heavily, 110 billion yuan, Zijin Mining is "addicted" to acquiring mines.

By | Caitian COVER Zhou Xiguan

Editor | Langming

01, Plan to take control of Zijin Chifeng Gold

On March 23, international gold prices saw a rare event. Within a single day, the London gold price sequentially lost 4,500 USD, 4,400 USD, 4,300 USD, 4,200 USD, and 4,100 USD. Although that day the London gold price rebounded to 4,407 USD/ounce at the close, the price had fallen for 4 straight trading days, with a total decline of 12%.

As international gold prices were dropping sharply, on March 23, gold giant Zijin Mining announced a major acquisition: the company plans to pay 18.258 billion yuan to acquire control of Chifeng Gold.

The deal is divided into two steps: first, Zijin Mining’s wholly owned subsidiary “Zijin Gold” will transfer 242 million A shares from Chifeng Gold’s former controlling shareholders at a price of 41.36 yuan per share, costing 10.006 billion yuan; then, at a price of 30.19 HKD per share, it will subscribe for 311 million H shares of Chifeng Gold, which is equivalent to about 8.252 billion yuan in RMB.

In addition to the 19 million shares of Chifeng Gold it already held previously, after the transaction is completed, Zijin Mining will hold 25.85% of Chifeng Gold in total, becoming its controlling shareholder. The 6 operating gold mines, 1 polymetallic mine under Chifeng Gold, and its gold assets in West Africa and Southeast Asia will be formally incorporated into Zijin Mining’s global resource map.

With the boldness to put up 18.258 billion yuan for this acquisition, Zijin’s confidence comes from its exceptionally strong performance in 2025. According to its financial report, Zijin Mining’s full-year revenue was 349.1 billion yuan, up 15% year over year; its net profit attributable to shareholders was 51.8 billion yuan, up 62% year over year, setting a historical record high.

Behind the impressive financial results is a double uplift in volume and price for the company’s core mined products such as gold and copper. Over the past year, gold and copper went through an epic rally. London gold ended 2025 at 4,318 USD/ounce, up 64% from the start of the year; London copper (LME copper) also rose 42% for the full year, with the year-end price at 12,496 USD/ton. As the gold-copper mine products that are the company’s core business, together they contributed more than 70% of revenue. The pricing upside has helped Zijin Mining’s profitability rise in tandem.

More importantly, production volume also moved upward. The financial report shows that in 2025, the company produced 90 tons of mined gold, up 22.77% year over year; mined copper output was 1.09 million tons, up 1.56% year over year. With two key pillars—gold and copper—driving on both wheels, Zijin Mining is raking in substantial profits. “The reasons for changes in revenue are mainly an increase in sales volume and an increase in prices,” Zijin Mining wrote in its financial report.

Coming back to this 18.258 billion yuan acquisition, it is of major significance to Zijin Mining. According to the financial report, Chifeng Gold produced 14.51 tons of gold in 2025, with revenue of 12.6 billion yuan, up 40% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 3.082 billion yuan, up 74.7% year over year. In addition to boosting incremental gold production for Zijin Mining already in the year of the acquisition, it will also help solidify Zijin Mining’s position as a global leader in gold.

The key point is that Chifeng Gold’s mines are mainly located in West Africa and Southeast Asia. These regions happen to complement Zijin Mining’s existing assets, making Zijin Mining’s global gold footprint even more complete.

Before this acquisition, on January 26 this year, Zijin Mining issued an announcement stating that its controlling subsidiary, Zijin Gold International, plans to invest 5.5 billion CAD (about 28 billion RMB) to fully acquire all the equity of the listed gold mining company “United Gold” in Toronto and New York, and to bring the revenues from four of United Gold’s gold mines under its umbrella.

Adding the 18.258 billion yuan spent in this acquisition, in less than one quarter of 2026, Zijin Mining plans to allocate more than 46.2 billion yuan to acquisitions. According to incomplete statistics, from 2020 to 2025, the total amount spent by Zijin Mining on buying mines and acquiring equity stakes at home and abroad reached 65 billion yuan. If the two new acquisitions in 2026 are included, then since 2020 the total amount spent on acquisitions by Zijin Mining will reach 110 billion yuan.

02, “Not afraid” of short-term declines in gold prices

It is worth noting that while Zijin Mining is carrying out large-scale acquisitions and setting record highs in performance, its share price has fallen from the peak of 44.94 yuan on January 29 this year to around 30.58 yuan on March 23, a drop of 31.95%.

With a generally excellent outlook for Zijin Mining, why did the share price undergo a sharp adjustment?

This has to do with the pullback in gold and copper prices. Since February this year, due to multiple factors, prices of precious metals such as gold and copper have weakened collectively.

After London spot gold prices hit a historical high of 5,598.7 USD/ounce on January 29, they began to decline step by step. As of March 23, London gold spot stood at 4,407.35 USD/ounce, down 21.28% cumulatively from the January 29 high.

Copper prices were also not encouraging. London copper (LME copper) fell from its historical high of 14,527.5 USD/ton on January 29 to 12,221.0 USD/ton by March 23, a decline of 15.88%.

With Zijin Mining, whose core fundamentals are based on gold and copper, it may take a considerable hit from this downturn. The financial report shows that mined gold and mined copper together account for more than 70% of Zijin Mining’s revenue. Given how critical gold and copper are to Zijin Mining, if their prices weaken, it naturally will have a negative impact on the company’s future performance and share price.

Although gold prices face ongoing pullbacks, at the earnings briefing meeting, Zijin Mining’s vice chairman and president Lin Hongfu said he was not worried. He stated, “From the short term, gold prices may experience sharp volatility. But from the medium and long term, issues such as the global governance order and the oversupply of credit money have not been fundamentally resolved. Therefore, based on this judgment, the logic that gold will maintain a high price or see further upside has not changed. This is also an important consideration for us in investment and M&A decisions.”

For a long time, the valuation of resource-type companies like Zijin Mining has been anchored within the framework of cyclical stocks, with the valuation level consistently fluctuating around 20 times. Even though the company’s 2025 performance hit a historical record high, its valuation has not seen a substantive breakthrough. This is because, compared with growth stocks such as new energy and technology, cyclical stocks’ valuation depends more on core product prices and industry-cycle trends. Therefore, under market expectations of declining gold and copper prices, Zijin Mining’s valuation cannot naturally be lifted.

Despite pressure on Zijin Mining’s share price, the company has still rolled out a generous cash dividend and share buyback plan: it intends to pay 3.8 yuan in cash for every 10 shares, and combined with the interim dividend already completed, the total annual dividend amount will reach 15.95 billion yuan. At the same time, Zijin Mining announced on March 21 that it plans to use 1.5 to 2.5 billion yuan of its own funds to repurchase A-share shares, with a buyback price not exceeding 41.5 yuan per share.

In addition, at the earnings briefing meeting held on March 23, new chairman Zou Laichang, who will succeed Chen Jinghe on January 1, 2026, said: taking into account factors such as the company’s scale of profitability, cash-flow situation, and its current stage, it will gradually increase the proportion of cash dividends.

03, A new story is already on the way

As of the end of 2025, Zijin Mining has more than 30 large- and super-large-scale mineral resource development bases in 17 countries across China and overseas, including 6 large- and super-large-scale gold mine development bases. Zijin Mining’s business is no longer limited to gold and copper.

As early as 2021, Zijin Mining’s former chairman Chen Jinghe began laying out lithium resources at a large scale, and also established wholly owned subsidiaries such as Hunan Zijin Lithium Co., Ltd. to specialize in lithium mine development. The company’s development strategy was upgraded from a “gold-copper dual engine” to building new momentum for lithium resource growth on the basis of gold and copper, aiming to form a new “gold-copper-lithium” three-engine pattern.

Today, Zijin Mining has formed a lithium resource matrix of “two lakes and two mines + Zangge coordination.” Specifically, it includes Argentina’s 3Q salt lake, Tibet’s Laroguo salt lake, Hunan Xiangyuan lithium mine, and the Manono lithium mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as, after holding controlling stakes in Zangge Mining, development coordination with salt-lake lithium mines under Zangge such as Mami Cuo, Longmu Cuo, and Jietce Tea Ka.

The financial report shows that the lithium resource volume controlled by Zijin Mining exceeds 18.83 million tons. In 2025, its lithium carbonate output reached 255,000 tons, up 96 times from 2024. Management set the 2026 target at 1.2 million tons, up 380% year over year. By 2028, it also plans to realize 2.7 to 3.2 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent capacity, aiming at the top 3–5 global lithium producers.

Although the lithium industry is still in a period of bottoming out for now, lithium carbonate prices have moved away from historical lows and are trading in a wide range in the 140,000–170,000 yuan/ton low zone. However, it still has a fairly long recovery period compared with the time in 2022 when prices were often more than 500,000 yuan/ton. Still, leading lithium companies enjoy a clear growth-valuation premium.

A Dongfang Securities research report shows that one of the leading lithium industry players, Tianqi Lithium, has a forecast P/E ratio of 47 times for 2026. Zangge Mining and Salt Lake Co. have forecast P/E ratios of 23 times and 22 times, respectively. By comparison, an estimate for Zijin Mining’s forecast P/E for 2026 from CITIC? as written) is only 12 times. The valuation of lithium leaders is therefore significantly higher than that of traditional mining companies like Zijin Mining. Although from financial reports, Zijin Mining’s lithium business has not yet contributed actual revenue and profits, the growth value brought by this valuation gap could become Zijin Mining’s new story.

This has also led many institutions to look favorably on Zijin Mining’s potential for “valuation reshaping.” In a research report dated January 28, Zheshang Securities wrote: with lithium prices bottoming and rebounding, the third growth curve is expected to keep contributing incremental gains, driving a notable increase in performance. In the future, valuation reshaping may be achieved.

However, there are also cautious voices that insist on a different view: fundamentally, Zijin Mining is still a “cyclical stock” with gold and copper as its core assets. In a research report issued on January 22, Huatai Securities said that Zijin Mining’s value improvement depends on both volume and price rising for gold and copper. Its valuation is currently highly aligned with copper stocks—such as Luoyang Molybdenum and Western Mining, which have P/E ratios around 21 times. Only its gold business has a potential space for a valuation re-rating; it did not mention lithium-related business.

Regarding the future development of the lithium business, Zou Laichang mentioned in his New Year’s speech on January 1: “to comprehensively form a lithium sector with global competitiveness.” Lin Hongfu also mentioned in the earnings briefing meeting: looking ahead to 2026, the trend of lithium price reversal will start, and the lithium industry is evolving from paper oversupply toward a tight balance; on the demand side, strong support comes from new energy vehicles, energy storage, and AI data centers. On the supply side, there will be incremental supply alongside risks. He believes that in the long term, lithium demand growth is certain, and in 2030 it may exceed 30 million tons.

For the company’s overall future development, in its financial report Zou Laichang said the company will focus on capacity expansion. In the company’s overall work guideline, it will add an “increase production” dimension. It will fully seize the opportunity in today’s market where metal prices are high, striving to complete and put into operation major incremental projects with “results exceeding expectations,” and to accelerate the release of production capacity for major mined commodities. It will also cultivate a batch of new important growth engines.

From ramping up acquisitions of gold mines to expanding into the lithium business, Zijin Mining’s “increase production” path continues.

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