Consolidated Annual Report and Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2025
Chairmans Statement
Overview
The year ending 31 December 2025 has been one of continued progress and delivery for First Class Metals, as we have advanced our core assets and maintained a disciplined focus on executing our business strategy.
The macroeconomic backdrop throughout the year remained complex, characterised by ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, evolving monetary policy, and shifting investor sentiment across commodity markets. However, in this environment, gold has continued to demonstrate strength and resilience, supported by its role as a store of value and sustained institutional and retail demand. In parallel, the critical minerals sector has shown early signs of recovery, particularly towards the latter part of the year, with improving sentiment in lithium markets expected to continue in 2026.
Against this backdrop, FCM is well positioned. The Company’s exposure to predominantly gold and critical minerals, combined with a high-quality and strategically located land package in northern Ontario, provides a strong platform for value creation. Our focus remains on advancing those assets with the greatest near-term potential, whilst retaining meaningful upside across the broader portfolio.
Corporate Developments
The early part of the year 2025 was marked by developments relating to the previously announced strategic investment into the company’s equity by an outside investor. Whilst the transaction did not fully complete, the Board responded decisively to ensure the Company retained both financial flexibility and operational continuity. As a result, we were able to maintain momentum across our exploration programme without disruption.
This period demonstrated the Company’s resilience in protecting and advancing shareholder interests. We moved swiftly to secure alternative funding solutions, ensuring continuity across operations and maintaining full control over the Company’s strategic direction. At the same time, ongoing engagement with potential partners reflects the strength of the underlying asset base and the progress achieved during the year.
The Board remains focused on ensuring that the Company is appropriately structured, well financed, and positioned to capitalise on opportunities as they arise, whilst maintaining a disciplined and shareholder-aligned approach.
Operational Review
Operationally, 2025 has been one of the most active and technically progressive years in the Company’s development to date, with a clear emphasis on advancing the flagship North Hemlo and Sunbeam projects.
At North Hemlo, the completion of the Company’s maiden drill programme on the Dead Otter trend represents an important milestone. Whilst the initial results did not return high-grade intercepts, the programme has significantly enhanced our understanding of the geological system. The identification of widespread anomalous gold values, together with associated pathfinder elements, provides a strong foundation for further work and reinforces the prospectivity of what remains a large and underexplored land package of which only a modest portion was covered by the current drill programme.
At Sunbeam, exploration has continued to build strong momentum. The integration of soil geochemistry, geophysics, and structural analysis has refined the geological model and defined coherent zones of mineralisation, particularly along the Roy trend. This work has successfully advanced the project to the drilling stage, and post-period drilling has returned visible gold in initial holes with assay results pending as of the date of writing. We view this as a highly encouraging development and a clear validation of the Company’s systematic and technically driven approach.
Across both flagship assets, the Company has maintained a disciplined and methodical exploration strategy, ensuring that each phase of work builds on the last. This approach is designed to maximise the impact of capital deployed, whilst steadily advancing projects towards key value inflection points.
Portfolio and Strategy
Beyond the core projects, the Company has continued to actively manage and enhance its broader portfolio in line with its strategic objectives. The addition of two rare earth element properties during the year represents a deliberate expansion into commodities that are expected to play a central role in the global energy transition. This strengthens the Company’s exposure to long-term structural demand trends, whilst complementing its existing gold and lithium portfolio.
At the same time, the decision to relinquish the Quinlan option reflects the Company’s rigorous approach to capital allocation and its commitment to focusing resources on those assets with the greatest potential to deliver meaningful returns.
During the year, the Company also announced a potentially significant transaction in respect of one of its assets. At the time of writing the Company is working towards finalising a definitive agreement. Subject to completion, this would represent a significant milestone for FCM and a clear validation of its business model, namely, to generate value through exploration and realise that value through structured transactions, whether by joint venture or sale.
This model remains central to the Company’s strategy. By maintaining a pipeline of high-quality prospects, advancing them through targeted exploration, and positioning them for monetisation, FCM aims to deliver value in a capital-efficient manner without the need to transition into production.
Outlook
The Company entered 2026 in a strong and well-prepared position, both technically and strategically. The majority of the Company’s claims are in good standing, in many cases beyond the immediate term, providing flexibility in planning and execution. The work undertaken during 2025 has generated a robust pipeline of targets, particularly at Sunbeam and North Hemlo, and the focus for the remainder of 2026 will be on advancing these projects through further drilling and systematic follow-up exploration.
In parallel, the Company will continue to progress discussions in relation to the potential asset-level transactions. We believe that the combination of continued exploration progress and improving market conditions provides a supportive environment in which to pursue such opportunities.
From a market perspective, the outlook appears increasingly positive. The continued strength in gold, coupled with improving sentiment across lithium and broader battery metals, provides favourable conditions for companies such as ours with diversified commodity exposure and a growing portfolio of drill-ready assets.
Looking forward, we believe the Company is entering an increasingly exciting phase of its development. The technical groundwork established over recent years is now beginning to translate into tangible opportunities for value realisation. With a clear strategy, a strengthened project pipeline, and growing external interest, we are confident in the Company’s ability to continue delivering progress and building shareholder value.
Closing Remarks
In summary, 2025 was a year of meaningful progress across both operational and corporate fronts. The Company has successfully navigated a challenging environment, including the challenges encountered in the early part of 2025, whilst maintaining strong momentum across its exploration activities and continuing to advance its assets towards key value milestones. Importantly, this has been achieved through decisive action, a methodical approach to capital allocation, and a clear focus on long-term value creation.
We entered 2026 with confidence and a clear sense of direction. The combination of a high-quality asset base, a proven and repeatable strategy, and improving market conditions provides a compelling platform for the next stage of the Company’s growth. We remain focused on delivering further progress, advancing our projects, and ultimately realising value for our shareholders.
I would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support and patience, and to acknowledge the hard work, expertise, and commitment of our team and partners, whose efforts have been instrumental in the progress achieved during the year.
James Knowles
Chairman
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