Amplats revives dividend after 6-year pause as debt drops

The company, controlled by Anglo American [JSE:AGL], will pay R3.49 a share, resuming payouts halted in 2012 as it grappled with plunging prices for the metal. Operational improvements and cost cutting measures helped to boost earnings, the Johannesburg-based miner said. Asset sales also helped reduce net debt to R1.8bn, a third consecutive annual decline.

“The hard work of the past five years has enabled us to today announce that we have reintroduced the dividend, establishing a pay-out ratio of 30% of headline earnings,” CEO Chris Griffith said in the statement. “Anglo American Platinum is now a fundamentally different business, having restructured and repositioned the business.”

Amplats, as the company is known, has been selling and winding down older, less profitable operations as it seeks to cut costs and adjust to a lower price of platinum. The metal plunged more than 40% in the three years through 2015 and has traded relatively range-bound since. The miner has sold assets to Sibanye Gold [JSE:SGL], Lonmin [JSE:LON] and Northam Platinum [JSE:NHM].

So-called headline earnings, which exclude some one-time items, surged to R3.89bn for the 12 months through December, compared with R1.87bn a year earlier.