Klein told delegates at Diggers & Dealers that Evolution's modus operandi was building a business that would profit during the good times and the bad times.

"This means a strong focus and discipline on upgrading the asset base by selling lower quality assets in the upturn and acquiring higher quality assets in the downturn," he said.

"It also requires having the courage to swim against the tide - when things are at their darkest for the sector is when you should be growing and when everything seems too good to be true, then maybe it's time to sell assets."

Since inception more than six years ago, Evolution has acquired Mungari, Cowal and a 30% stake in Ernest Henry, but also offloaded Pajingo and Edna May.

Klein said the company had a strong view that gold companies were not scalable.

"Whilst that hasn't stopped advisors and bankers peddling the view that there are benefits of having a large portfolio of assets in multiple jurisdictions, we think it's a myth - it's a strategy that has been tried, tested and failed," he said.

"Therefore, we have set ourselves a discipline of having no more than 6-8 assets reflecting the reality that selling assets is as important as buying them."

Evolution currently has six assets, all in Australia.

Klein has said the company could handle one other jurisdiction outside Australia and expressed a preference for North America.

Two years ago at the same conference, Klein described gold miners as "rock stars" but warned the sector not to become complacent.

"The good news is that we've kept our heads and have had another two great years since then," he said.

But Klein repeated the note of caution.

"We need to keep our feet firmly on the ground - something that is so well captured in this quote from the world's largest retailer and the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos when he said: ‘A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny because shiny doesn't last'," he said.

"At Evolution we understand and know this - we recognise that the industry globally and domestically is facing headwinds and that we need to work even harder to offset their impact.

"We need to win back the confidence of the generalist investor and the frustrated global gold investor and we will only do this if we are transparent, open and honest and continue to demonstrate that gold mining, and for us specifically at Evolution, is a highly profitable, cash generating, dividend paying, sustainable business that inspires its people."