Fresnillo PLC Stock Soars 325% in 2025: Price Today, Probe Gold Deal and 2026 Forecasts

Published: 2 December 2025

Fresnillo PLC (LON:FRES, OTC:FNLPF) has turned from a slightly sleepy precious‑metals miner into one of the most explosive shares in the FTSE 100 this year.

As of the morning of 2 December 2025, Fresnillo trades around 2,754p in London, down modestly on the day but still showing a 12‑month gain of roughly 325% from a low of 612p at the end of 2024. The stock hit a fresh 52‑week high of 2,850p on 1 December, giving the group a market capitalisation of around £19–20bn, a trailing P/E of about 56x and a forward dividend yield near 1.3%. ^[1]

Against a backdrop of record gold and silver prices, blow‑out cash generation and a transformational Canadian acquisition, investors are now asking the awkward but necessary question: is Fresnillo’s 2025 breakout sustainable into 2026, or has the good news already been priced in?

1. Fresnillo share price on 2 December 2025: where things stand

Market data from the FT and Investors Chronicle show: ^[2]

Last price (LSE: FRES): 2,754p
Move today: about ‑2.3% versus Monday’s close of 2,820p
52‑week range: 612p (31 Dec 2024) to 2,850p (1 Dec 2025)
1‑year change: +325%
Market cap: ~£19.4bn
Trailing P/E: ~56x earnings
Annualised dividend (ordinary): c. 35.0p per share (yield ~1.3% at current price)

After a 7% surge on Monday 1 December, driven by silver flirting with record highs, Fresnillo briefly topped the FTSE 100 leaderboard. Market recaps from Reuters, regional business outlets and Saxo’s daily notes repeatedly highlight the stock as one of the big beneficiaries of the “metals melt‑up” and expectations of future Fed rate cuts. ^[3]

Technical models are equally excited: AI‑driven site StockInvest classifies FRES as a “Buy or Hold” candidate, noting a 20%+ gain over the last two weeks, strong short‑ and long‑term moving‑average buy signals, and near‑term support around 2,498p with a notional “fan theory” trend top near 3,331p. ^[4]

In other words, Fresnillo is no longer a contrarian value pick. It is a full‑blown momentum stock riding one of the wildest precious‑metals rallies in decades.

2. How Fresnillo became a 2025 stock‑market rocket

2.1 A once‑in‑a‑generation gold and silver boom

Fresnillo’s breakout lives inside a bigger story: an extraordinary bull market in gold and silver.

Over 2025:

Gold broke above $4,000/oz for the first time in October, later extending its record run beyond $4,200 as rate‑cut bets, trade tensions and geopolitical stress drove investors into safe‑haven assets. ^[5]
Silver has been even more dramatic, surging to all‑time highs around $58–59/oz, roughly doubling year‑to‑date and handily outpacing gold’s ~60% rise. ^[6]

The rally is powered by an awkward combination:

Chronic physical deficits in silver – the Silver Institute and independent commentators flag a fifth consecutive year where demand outstrips mine supply. ^[7]
Surging industrial demand (solar panels, EVs, electronics) layered on top of classic “fear trade” safe‑haven buying.
Expectations that, even if the Fed stays “higher for longer” in the very short term, real rates will eventually fall, favouring non‑yielding assets like gold and silver. ^[8]

For a company that calls itself the world’s largest primary silver producer and a major gold miner, this macro backdrop is like strapping a rocket engine to the balance sheet.

A long‑form stock forecast piece on Fresnillo published on 1 December summarises it neatly: Fresnillo has moved from “sleepy precious‑metals stock” to “market rocket” as metal prices and profits exploded. TS2 Tech

2.2 Earnings, cash flow and dividends: the flywheel switches on

The macro fireworks showed up very clearly in Fresnillo’s recent numbers:

FY 2024 results (March 2025)
- Profit before tax jumped from $114m in 2023 to about $744m in 2024 – a six‑fold increase – mainly thanks to higher metals prices and flat costs. ^[9]
- Management declared:
  - Ordinary dividends totalling 32.5 US cents per share (~$239.5m).
  - A one‑off special dividend of 41.8 US cents per share, about $308m, paid on 30 May 2025. ^[10]
- In an AGM statement, the board noted that in total $547.5m was returned to shareholders for 2024 – the richest payout in the company’s history. ^[11]
1H 2025 results (August 2025)
- Investor‑facing write‑ups and the interim report highlight a massive swing in profitability:
  - Profit attributable to shareholders leapt to around $394m for the half, versus roughly $79m a year earlier. ^[12]
  - EBITDA margins in the first half moved into the high‑50% range, according to company disclosures. TS2 Tech+1
  - Free cash flow for 1H 2025 was just over $1bn, around five times the prior year, according to Investors Chronicle’s coverage. ^[13]
- The board followed up with an interim dividend of 20.8 US cents per share (about $153m), paid in September 2025. ^[14]

By mid‑2025, Fresnillo was sitting on cash and liquid funds of roughly $1.8bn with a solid net cash position, even after these record distributions. TS2 Tech

That cash pile sets up the next big move in the story: buying growth rather than just sweating existing mines.

3. Q3 2025 production: softer silver, resilient gold, guidance intact

It’s not all champagne and confetti. Fresnillo’s Q3 2025 production report, released on 22 October, is more nuanced. ^[15]

Key points:

Silver volumes down as expected
- Attributable silver production (including the Silverstream contract) was 11.7 million ounces in Q3.
- That’s down about 6–7% quarter‑on‑quarter and roughly 19% year‑on‑year, mainly because of:
  - The closure of the San Julián DOB disseminated orebody.
  - Lower grades and throughput at Ciénega.
  - Ventilation and equipment constraints at Saucito.
Gold holding up better
- Attributable gold output was about 151k ounces, down 4% versus Q2 and 3–4% versus Q3 2024.
- However, year‑to‑date gold production is up nearly 9%, driven largely by strong performance at the Herradura open‑pit complex.
By‑products down, but still material
- Lead and zinc production fell on a year‑to‑date basis as lower grades and the San Julián DOB closure worked through the system.

Despite these wobbles, management reaffirmed full‑year 2025 guidance:

Silver: 47.5–54.5 million ounces (including Silverstream)
Gold: 550–590 thousand ounces, with gold “trending towards the upper end” of the range
Lead: 56–62 kt
Zinc: 93–103 kt
Total production: 91–102 million silver‑equivalent ounces (using an 80:1 gold‑to‑silver ratio) ^[16]

Independent analysis of the Q3 numbers frames the story this way: Fresnillo hasn’t entered a volume‑growth phase yet; instead, it’s extracting very high margins from fairly flat production, helped by the metal price backdrop. ^[17]

That raises a strategic question: where will growth come from when the easy metal‑price gains fade?

4. Strategic pivot: the Probe Gold acquisition and Canadian expansion

The clearest answer landed at the end of October.

On 31 October 2025, Fresnillo announced it had agreed to acquire 100% of Canadian developer Probe Gold Inc. for C$3.65 per share in cash, valuing the equity at about C$780m (≈US$560m). ^[18]

Headline deal terms:

Consideration: C$3.65 per share, a c.39% premium to Probe’s last closing price and around 24% above the 30‑day VWAP. ^[19]
Total equity value: C$780m (about US$560m) on a fully diluted basis.
Funding: Entirely from Fresnillo’s existing cash; no new equity raise planned. ^[20]
Approvals: Unanimously recommended by Probe’s board, with key shareholders entering voting agreements. Closing is expected in Q1 2026, subject to shareholder and court approvals. ^[21]

Strategically, this matters a lot:

It marks Fresnillo’s first move outside Latin America, giving it a foothold in Québec, one of the world’s most mining‑friendly jurisdictions. ^[22]
Probe’s flagship Novador gold project has a resource base of around 8Moz of gold and is expected to support production of 200k+ ounces per year for more than a decade, according to project disclosures and Mexico Business News coverage. ^[23]
Analysts at The Times and elsewhere view the deal as a sensible redeployment of cash that lessens reliance on Mexico and tilts the portfolio further toward gold – even if it reduces room for another outsized special dividend in the near term. ^[24]

If Probe closes on schedule and Novador is built roughly on time, Fresnillo could exit the decade as:

A Mexico + Canada precious‑metals producer;
With higher gold weighting, which historically has attracted higher valuation multiples than pure silver exposure;
And organic growth coming from a large, long‑life asset rather than squeezing ageing Mexican mines.

That’s the bull case. The bear case, which we’ll come back to, is that Fresnillo is paying real money now for growth forecasts that live mostly in PowerPoint.

5. What current analysis and forecasts say on 2 December 2025

5.1 Valuation: consensus targets lag the share price

For all the excitement, sell‑side analysts are notably more cautious than the share price might imply.

Across several aggregation platforms:

MarketBeat (LON:FRES) reports a “Moderate Buy” rating based on 5 analysts: 3 Buy, 2 Hold.
- Average 12‑month target:2,308p
- Range: 1,400p–3,000p
- With the stock trading around 2,754p, that implies c.17% downside to the average target. ^[25]
Investing.com shows a broader panel of 12 analysts, with a consensus rating of “Neutral”: 3 Buy, 7 Hold, 2 Sell.
- Average price target:2,430p
- High: 4,274p; Low: 1,690p
- Estimated downside vs spot: around 12%. ^[26]
TipRanks tracks 10 analysts in the last three months and gives Fresnillo a consensus “Hold”.
- Average target: about 2,494p, roughly 5% below the prevailing price at the time of compilation. ^[27]

For the US OTC ticker (FNLPF):

Fintel and Nasdaq data suggest an average one‑year price target around $28–28.5, based on a blend of Wall Street forecasts, with a range roughly $16–$37. ^[28]
Because these targets were set when the ADR traded at much lower levels, they historically implied very large percentage upside; as the US line has followed London higher (recent notes put FNLPF in the mid‑$30s), that gap has narrowed. TS2 Tech+1

Meanwhile, Simply Wall St – which leans heavily on quantitative valuation models – points out that Fresnillo’s P/E multiple is around 60x, far above the UK market norm where many shares trade on mid‑teens earnings multiples. The service also notes, however, that analysts expect Fresnillo’s EPS to grow by roughly 50% per year over the next three years, versus about 16% for the wider market, which is the main justification for the lofty rating. ^[29]

The gist: earnings expectations have risen, but the share price has risen faster.

5.2 Short‑term technical views

On the technical side, signals are understandably noisy after a 300%+ run:

StockInvest’s AI‑based models flag buy signals on both short‑ and long‑term moving averages, with near‑term support around 2,498p–2,558p and “medium” risk given recent daily volatility of ~4.5%. ^[30]
Intraday ranges are wide: on 1 December the stock swung more than 9% between low and high, a reminder that this is now a high‑beta precious‑metals play, not a sleepy income stock. ^[31]

5.3 Media and newsletter sentiment

Recent commentary from a variety of outlets adds colour:

A TechStock² / TS2.Tech feature (1 December) describes Fresnillo as a “market rocket” whose shares have more than tripled in 2025 and now trade in the high‑£20s, driven by the metals boom, a quadrupling of free cash flow and the Probe deal. TS2 Tech
The Times ran a deep dive in November asking “Can Fresnillo carry on its incredible run?” and ultimately kept the stock on a Buy rating, citing the Canadian acquisition, high cash generation and continued upside if the precious‑metals cycle lasts. ^[32]
Earlier in the year, another Times piece “Should I buy shares in Fresnillo right now?” also concluded Buy, pointing to strong fundamentals and generous dividends while noting that many of the drivers (macro instability and metal prices) are outside management’s control. ^[33]
Motley Fool UK and related Yahoo syndications have published multiple pieces over the last 48 hours using Fresnillo as the poster child for 2025 winners – with headlines along the lines of “£10,000 invested in this FTSE 100 stock last Christmas is now worth…” and “1 FTSE 100 stock to watch before year‑end”. Their writers highlight that while the FTSE 100 is up about 18% for the year, Fresnillo has delivered several times that return, and they debate whether those gains are repeatable. ^[34]

Across the board, sentiment is bullish‑but‑nervous: commentators like the fundamentals and the macro tailwind, but they know the share price has already baked in a lot of optimism.

6. Key risks investors are wrestling with

When a stock enters “story‑stock” territory, the risk list becomes just as important as the growth narrative.

6.1 Valuation and cycle risk

A P/E multiple in the mid‑50s is extremely high for a cyclical miner. Even if analyst forecasts of rapid EPS growth are realised, a future derating back toward a more normal mid‑teens multiple could offset a large part of that earnings progress. ^[35]

And while metal prices are currently setting records, the history of commodity cycles is one long sequence of “this time is different” claims that weren’t.

A recent “higher‑for‑longer” scare around Fed policy in November briefly knocked both gold and silver lower by several percentage points, illustrating how quickly sentiment can swing. ^[36]

If gold and silver simply stabilise rather than continue climbing toward the more aggressive $5,000/oz gold or $65/oz silver targets touted by some banks, the earnings run‑rate could flatten out while the equity is still priced for perfection. ^[37]

6.2 Operational and jurisdictional risk in Mexico

Fresnillo’s mines are still overwhelmingly in Mexico, a country with evolving mining regulations and a long history of community conflicts around land use. While the new administration under President Claudia Sheinbaum is seen as marginally friendlier to mining than the previous government, policy risk hasn’t gone away. ^[38]

A particularly important overhang is the El Bajío / Soledad‑Dipolos dispute:

Courts in Mexico ruled in the 2010s that a Fresnillo subsidiary had illegally mined gold on lands belonging to the Ejido El Bajío community and must either return the gold or pay an equivalent value. ^[39]
A court‑appointed independent review, completed earlier this year and reported by The Times and investigative group SourceMaterial, valued the disputed gold at more than $630m. Fresnillo is challenging the report, calling it technically and legally flawed, and stresses that the valuation is not itself a court ruling. ^[40]
Rights groups and some ESG‑focused investors argue that the potential liability should be more clearly disclosed in market filings and warn that the dispute highlights material reputational and legal risk. ^[41]

So far, Fresnillo has continued to generate large cash flows and dividends while contesting the case. But if the company ultimately has to make a large payment or settle on unfavourable terms, it could dent cash reserves and constrain future shareholder returns.

6.3 Execution risk on Probe Gold and future growth projects

Moving into Canada solves some problems and introduces others:

Fresnillo has no prior operating experience in Canada, and large greenfield projects are notorious for capex creep and permitting delays, even in mining‑friendly jurisdictions.
The Novador project’s ability to deliver 200k+ oz of annual gold production by late‑decade is based on current studies and assumptions about metal prices, costs and permitting timelines that could still change. ^[42]
In the meantime, Fresnillo must continue to manage grades, ventilation constraints and equipment issues at its Mexican mines, which have already shown up in recent production reports. ^[43]

If Probe runs over budget or behind schedule while Mexican assets struggle to grow volumes, investors may reassess how much they’re willing to pay for the stock’s long‑term growth story.

6.4 Dividend expectations vs growth capex

Fresnillo’s 2024 special dividend set a very high bar in shareholders’ minds. The board and several analysts have already hinted that the Probe acquisition will naturally limit the scope for another mega special dividend in the near term, even if ordinary dividends remain healthy. ^[44]

There’s an inevitable trade‑off here:

Use the cash to fund growth projects (Probe, further exploration, Mexico brownfield expansions); or
Continue sending large chunks of surplus cash back to shareholders.

The share price currently seems to assume some of both – a tricky balancing act.

7. Fresnillo stock outlook for 2026: what has to go right?

Pulling the threads together, here’s how the 2026 picture looks as of 2 December 2025, based on public forecasts and commentary. Fresnillo Plc+4TS2 Tech+4MarketBeat+4

7.1 The bullish roadmap

The optimistic scenario for 2026 roughly assumes:

Gold and silver stay “higher for longer”
- Prices don’t have to keep making new highs; they just have to stay in a historically elevated range, roughly the $3,500–$4,500/oz zone for gold and mid‑$50s for silver, as some bank forecasts suggest. ^[45]
Fresnillo delivers on its 2025 guidance and keeps costs contained
- Hitting the upper end of gold guidance and the middle of the silver range would underpin another year of strong cash generation. ^[46]
Probe Gold proceeds smoothly toward development
- Shareholders see tangible progress: updated feasibility work, permitting milestones, and a credible path to first production late‑decade, with no nasty surprises on capex. ^[47]
Mexico risk stays contained
- The El Bajío dispute doesn’t crystallise into a major cash payout in 2026, or if it does, it’s small relative to Fresnillo’s free cash flow. ^[48]

If this script plays out, it’s not hard to build a thesis where the current valuation, while demanding, can be justified by sustained high margins and a visible growth pipeline. That’s essentially the narrative behind the higher end of analyst targets in the 3,000p‑plus range. ^[49]

7.2 The bearish (or just more boring) path

The risk case doesn’t require a disaster; it just requires a normal turn in the cycle:

Gold and silver could consolidate or correct from record levels if the Fed stays tighter for longer or if inflation and geopolitical risk cool off. ^[50]
Q3‑style production headwinds could persist or worsen, leading to flat or slightly lower volumes. ^[51]
The El Bajío dispute could progress in a way that forces a material provision or settlement, hitting both earnings and sentiment. ^[52]
The market could simply decide that paying 50–60x earnings for a miner is a bit generous, and rerate Fresnillo back toward peer multiples, even if profits stay high. ^[53]

In that world, the scenario implied by many analyst models – mid‑teens downside from current levels back toward the 2,300–2,500p range – becomes more plausible. ^[54]

8. Bottom line on Fresnillo PLC stock as of 2 December 2025

On today’s numbers, Fresnillo is:

A FTSE 100 silver‑and‑gold powerhouse whose share price has tripled over the past year. ^[55]
Minting cash at current metal prices, having returned more than half a billion dollars in dividends for 2024 and followed up with a chunky 2025 interim payout. ^[56]
In the middle of a strategy shift – using its war chest to acquire Probe Gold and build a second leg of growth in Canada. ^[57]
Trading at a very rich multiple relative to both its own history and to other miners, with consensus analyst targets sitting below the current price even though most ratings are Neutral or better. ^[58]

The investment debate on 2 December 2025 boils down to this:

Bulls see a rare combination of record metal prices, high‑quality assets, a fortress balance sheet, and a growth pipeline that now extends beyond Mexico.
Bears see a cyclical miner priced like a high‑growth tech stock, with legal and political risks, finite ore bodies and a long list of things that have to go right on projects that are still years from full production.

Whichever camp you lean toward, this is not a low‑volatility, sleep‑well‑at‑night equity. Fresnillo has become a leveraged expression of the “silver is the new rock‑star metal” theme – thrilling when the music’s playing, uncomfortable when it stops.

As always, none of this is personal investment advice. Before making any decision on Fresnillo (or any other stock), it’s crucial to:

Stress‑test your own assumptions on metal prices.
Read the company’s latest results, production reports and RNS announcements in full.
Consider how a position in FRES or FNLPF would fit into your overall risk budget and time horizon.