IAMGOLD Corporation (IAG): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $15.89, IAMGOLD Corporation (IAG) is priced for +1.5% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-06-27.

Generated: 2026-08-10 · Exported: 2026-08-12 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/IAG

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 6: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 11.4% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~4.6pp.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• IAMGOLD is a gold miner whose entire trajectory now turns on Côté Gold, its large new Canadian mine ramping toward steady-state production, alongside its established Essakane and Westwood operations.
• The current numbers are a leveraged bet on the gold price: first-quarter 2026 revenue jumped 116% to $1,030.1 million on a realized gold price of $4,859 per ounce, which means as much of the story is about the metal as about the mines.
• Watch Côté's ramp: the mine hit conveyor-belt failures that pushed its all-in sustaining cost up 28% year over year, and whether IAMGOLD debottlenecks it into the 270,000-to-310,000-ounce 2026 guidance range is the operational question that matters most.

Bull Case

What the standard valuation models miss about IAMGOLD is that gold miners are call options on the metal price wearing the clothes of operating companies. The methods value the business on its trailing earnings and book, and on that basis the price looks fully captured. But the trailing earnings are themselves a function of a gold price that has moved sharply, and the company's leverage to that price is the whole point. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue rose 116% year over year to $1,030.1 million, adjusted EBITDA reached $666 million, and mine-site free cash flow was $525 million, all on a realized price of $4,859 per ounce. A miner converts each incremental dollar of gold price almost straight to cash, because its costs are largely fixed in the ground. That operating leverage is what a trailing multiple cannot frame.

The production base is finally working in IAMGOLD's favor. All three operating mines, Côté Gold, Westwood, and Essakane, delivered year-over-year production improvements, and attributable output rose to 183,600 ounces in the quarter from 161,000 a year earlier. Côté is the swing factor: still ramping, still debottlenecking, but contributing 52,300 attributable ounces in the quarter and guided to 270,000 to 310,000 ounces for the full year as throughput improves through 2026. A new mine reaching steady state turns a high-cost producer into a lower-cost one, and the unit-cost improvement compounds the gold-price tailwind.

The balance sheet has been transformed by the cash the gold price is throwing off. Net debt sits at just $226.9 million against trailing operating income that is now very large, leaving leverage at a fraction of a single year's operating profit and interest coverage above six times. Return on equity runs about 17% on a book of $7.38 per share, and return on invested capital near 17% sits comfortably above the cost of capital, which is the signature of a miner earning real economic returns rather than just spending capital. The methods reflect this: asset value, earnings power, peer multiples, and the growth-DCF lens all support the price, which is unusual and tells you this is a value-and-asset name rather than a stretched growth bet. The bull case is simply continued execution at Côté while the gold price stays elevated.

Bear Case

Frame the bear around what the methods are actually saying, because they disagree in an informative way. The asset, earnings-power, peer-multiple, and growth-DCF lenses all sit near or below today's $16.89 price (June 27, 2026), which on the surface reads as support. But the conservative methods are the more honest read for a miner, and they flash caution where the optimistic ones do not. The earnings-power method, which capitalizes normalized operating profit through the cycle with no growth, lands near $4.53 per share, because it averages out the current gold-price spike rather than extrapolating it. That gap, between a price near $17 and a through-cycle earnings-power value near $5, is the bear case in one number: most of today's profitability is the gold price, not the business, and the gold price is the one variable IAMGOLD does not control.

The operational risk is concrete and recent. Côté Gold, the mine the entire growth thesis rests on, suffered conveyor-belt failures that pushed its all-in sustaining cost up 28% year over year. A new mine ramping into steady state is exactly when mechanical and throughput problems surface, and each setback delays the unit-cost improvement that justifies the capital spent to build it. If Côté underdelivers against the 270,000-to-310,000-ounce guidance, the company's blended cost rises just as the gold-price tailwind would, in any normal cycle, eventually fade. Mining is a business where the good years look permanent and the cost discipline is tested only when the metal price turns.

Dilution is the quiet drag the asset story tends to ignore. IAMGOLD's share count has grown at about 4.8% a year, the opposite of the buyback signal a mature cash generator usually sends, which means per-share value creation has to outrun the new shares being issued. Combined with a profit stream that is heavily geared to a commodity price, the bear read is that a holder is paying a near-fair price for a business whose normalized earnings power is far below its current run-rate, whose flagship mine is still proving it can run reliably, and whose share count keeps expanding. The downside is not insolvency, net debt is trivial against current cash flow, it is that a reversion in the gold price would expose how much of the current valuation rests on $4,859 gold rather than on $17 IAMGOLD.

Valuation

What the price is betting is unusual for this report: not much beyond what the company already shows. The inversion reads IAMGOLD as a value-and-asset name, with the implied growth assumption slightly negative, meaning the price does not require the business to expand at all to be defended. That is the profile of a cyclical producer at a favorable point in its cycle, where the question is not whether growth is priced in but whether today's profitability is sustainable. The current operating margin of about 32% is a gold-price artifact as much as an operational achievement.

The methods are unusually aligned in supporting the price, which is the signal worth reading carefully. Asset value, earnings power, peer multiples, and the growth-DCF lens all land near or below $16.89, so on the surface every family endorses the price. The disagreement that matters is within that support. The optimistic models, the perpetual-growth DCF near $47 and the PEG-based methods near $43, extrapolate recent growth and reach far above the price. The conservative models pull the other way: the through-cycle earnings-power method lands near $4.53, and the sector price-to-sales method near $7.44, because they refuse to treat a gold-price spike as permanent. For a commodity producer, the conservative lenses are usually the more honest, and the spread between them and the optimistic ones is precisely the gold-price-sustainability question. The price sits roughly in the middle of that spread, which is a fair, not cheap, reading.

Solvency is the clear strength and bounds the downside firmly. Net debt of $226.9 million against more than $400 million of liquid assets and very large trailing cash flow leaves leverage at a fraction of a year's operating income, with interest coverage above six times. The company is not burning cash; it is generating it in volume. The one mark against the capital picture is the share count growing at about 4.8% a year, which dilutes the per-share claim on that cash flow. The decisive number for IAMGOLD is the distance between its current-price profitability and its through-cycle earnings power, a gap that is entirely about the gold price and entirely outside the company's control.

Catalysts

IAMGOLD reported first-quarter 2026 results in early May, and they showcased the leverage a miner has to a rising gold price. Revenue rose 116% year over year to $1,030.1 million, adjusted EBITDA reached $666 million, and mine-site free cash flow was $525 million, all driven by a realized gold price of $4,859 per ounce and higher volumes. Attributable production climbed to 183,600 ounces from 161,000 a year earlier, with year-over-year improvements at all three operating mines, Côté Gold, Westwood, and Essakane.

The forward story is Côté Gold's ramp. The mine produced 52,300 attributable ounces in the quarter but hit conveyor-belt failures that pushed its all-in sustaining cost up 28% year over year, and management expects production to increase through 2026 as it debottlenecks and incorporates operating improvements. Full-year 2026 attributable guidance is 720,000 to 820,000 ounces for the company and 270,000 to 310,000 ounces for Côté specifically. The watch items are straightforward for a gold producer: whether Côté hits its ramp targets and brings its unit costs down, and where the gold price goes, because the second variable currently drives the financials more than the first.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

• BDC (BDC)
• FY2025 10-K: …(U.S.), we have manufacturing and other operating facilities in Canada, China, India, Mexico, and Tunisia, as well as various countries in Europe . During 2025, approximately 42% of Belden's sales were to customers outside the U.S. Our primary channels to international markets include both distributors and direct…
• FY2025 10-K: …results, even if the occurrence is unrelated to the use of such products or if the failure is the result of actions or inactions on the part of the customer. General Industry and Economic Risks Inflation and changes in the price and availability of raw materials may lead to higher input and labor costs in a way that…
• NEXA (NEXA RESOURCES S.A.)
• FY2025 20-F: …increase customer engagement across the markets and regions in which we operate. In addition to material excellence, we are committed to delivering enhanced customer experience, providing added value through technical support and an optimized supply chain that improves our customers' working capital efficiency. Our…
• FY2025 20-F: …corresponding intercompany purchases; both are calculated on an arm's length basis to evaluate each segment's performance individually and are eliminated in consolidation. The profitability of our mining segment depends primarily on prevailing world prices for the metals we produce and on our unit cost to produce…
• CRS (CARPENTER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …additional information. (6) Competition: We are leaders in specialty materials for critical applications with over 135 years of metallurgical and manufacturing expertise. Our business is highly competitive. We manufacture and supply materials to a variety of end-use market sectors and compete with various companies…
• FY2025 10-K: …particularly as raw material prices have been volatile. Firm price sales arrangements generally include certain annual purchasing commitments and consumption schedules agreed to by the customers at selling prices based on raw material prices at the time the arrangements are established. As discussed in Note 17 to the…
• CDE (COEUR MINING, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …the loss of any one smelter, refiner, trader or third-party customer would not materially adversely affect us due to the liquidity of the markets and current availability of alternative trading counterparties. Commodities We purchase materials and supplies from third parties to conduct our business, including…
• FY2025 10-K: …the State of Delaware and changed its name to Coeur Mining, Inc. Coeur's corporate headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE 2 - SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES Risks and uncertainties As a mining company, the revenue, profitability and future rate of growth of the Company are substantially dependent on…
• CCJ (Cameco Corp)
• FY2025 40-F: …in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. Emerging growth company ☐ If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting…
• FY2025 40-F: ) Cristina Giffin, Power Resources, Inc., Smith Ranch-Highland Operation 762 Ross Road , Douglas , Wyoming , USA, 82633 Telephone: ( 307 ) 358-6541 (Name, address, (including zip code) and telephone number (including area code) of agent for service in the United States) Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b)…
• CENX (Century Aluminum Company)
• FY2025 10-K: …withstand reductions in price or other adverse industry or economic conditions. Competitive Advantages While we face significant competition, we also have several competitive advantages. We believe our key competitive advantages are: Focus on Primary Aluminum Business. We operate principally in the production of…
• FY2025 10-K: …production capacities as compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. Our net sales are impacted primarily by the LME price for aluminum, regional and value-added premiums, and the volume and product mix of aluminum we ship during the period. In general, our results reflect the LME and regional premium pricing on an…
• KNF (Knife River Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …customers across industrial, commercial and residential developers and other private parties. The mix of sales by customer class varies year to year depending on the variability in type of work. Our top 15 customers accounted for about 21 percent of our 2025 revenue, of which nine were state-level DOTs. We are not…
• FY2025 10-K: …around dependability. Products and Services Our core product lines include: aggregates, ready-mix concrete, asphalt and liquid asphalt. We also perform related contracting services. For the year ended December 31, 2025, our revenue and gross profit by products and services were as follows: Revenue ($ in millions) (%…
• WS (WORTHINGTON STEEL, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: 1,200 customers during fiscal 2025 in many end markets including automotive, construction, machinery and equipment, agriculture, and heavy trucks, among others. The automotive industry is one of the largest consumers of flat-rolled steel, and the largest end market for us. During fiscal 2025, our top three customers…
• FY2025 10-K: …earnings, margins, balance sheet strengths, debt, financial condition or other financial measures; • pricing trends for raw materials and finished goods and the impact of pricing changes; • the ability to improve or maintain margins; • expected demand or demand trends; • additions to product lines and opportunities…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.