Staff Reporter.
Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) declared a record interim dividend as higher platinum group metal (PGM) prices combined with strong operational performances on mining and refining.
Amplats, which is an Anglo American subsidiary and one of the world’s leading PGM producers, declared a number of financial records for the six months to end-June, with a R46.4bn payment to shareholders in the form of a base and special dividend.
The numbers speak for themselves, with a 28% lift in output, a 128% boost to refined output, and a 29% increase in the rand PGM basket price flowing straight to the bottom line, producing the record interim earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation – a key measure of profit – of R63.3-billion.
Shareholders have been rewarded with a massive interim dividend of R175 per share, or R46.4-billion.
This equates to a whopping 100% payout of headline earnings to shareholders.
“Such a performance directly benefits our wide range of stakeholders,” CEO Natascha Viljoen said. Indeed it has. And it has certainly made Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s job a little bit easier as he crunches numbers and pilchards on his Limpopo farm.
Amplats paid R16.6-billion in royalties and taxes – R14.4-billion more than it did in the first six months of 2020. When President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday that better revenue collection gave the government room to reintroduce the R350 per month social relief grants, the mining sector was clearly the main source of this additional cash. The commodities cycle is also the main driver behind South Africa’s hefty trade and current account surpluses, which have underpinned the rand’s relative robustness and helped keep the lid on inflation.
South Africa’s abundant natural resources wealth has often been a curse historically, but at the moment it is clearly more of a blessing. Kumba Iron Ore is up next for reporting from the Anglo stable, and it is expected to deliver stellar results on Tuesday. Too bad the overall investment climate in South Africa remains so woeful.
Amid all of the cash flowing to Treasury, shareholders and other stakeholders, there is only a relative trickle going to things like exploration and expansion projects. Amplats invested R5.2-billion in capital projects during interim 2021, which is not exactly small change. But its dividend payout was nine times that amount.