Northam announces 5.8% rise in headline earnings

JSE-listed miner Northam Platinum [JSE:NHM] announced a rise in headline earnings in a 'continuously tough trading environment' in its summarised financial results for the year ended June 30.

The group announced on Friday morning that normalised headline earnings for the group - defined as headline earnings adjusted for the impact of BEE transactions - grew by 5.8% to R421.5m, over R398.3m in the 2017 financial year.

Headline earning per share were 82.7c for the year ended June 30, over 78.1c in 2017. Group sales revenue, meanwhile, rose 10% to R7.6bn.

Northam noted that the price of platinum had declined by 5% in dollar terms over the past financial year, and it was expecting a surplus of platinum for the 2018 calendar year.

"This underperformance of the platinum price, compared to the other PGMs, is largely attributable to the drop in demand for platinum from two of the traditional pillars of demand, Western Europe's light-duty diesel autocatalysts and the Chinese jewellery industry."

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