12th Aug 2015 06:50
LONDON (Alliance News) - Centamin PLC Wednesday said its pretax profit rose in the first half of 2015, leading the company to increase its interim dividend by 11%.
The FTSE 250-listed gold miner with its flagship Sukari gold mine in Egypt reported a pretax profit of USD18.8 million in the second quarter of 2015, rising from USD11.3 million in the same period a year earlier, as revenue rose to USD124.2 million from USD102.6 million.
Profit before tax and exceptional items in the second quarter came in at USD29.7 million, which was also up from USD24.6 million.
That brought the miner's pretax profit for the first half of 2015 to USD47.4 million, up from USD31.9 million a year earlier, as revenue climbed to USD259.7 million from USD205.3 million. Pretax profit before exceptional items was USD72.2 million in the half compared to USD60.7 million.
Centamin raised its interim dividend to 0.97 cents per share from 0.87 cents a year earlier.
"Centamin is pleased to have generated strong cash flows, allowing both increased dividend payments to shareholders and continued investment in exploration, despite the continued pressure on the gold price," said Chief Executive Andrew Pardy.
The miner said it remains debt free with USD212.6 million worth of cash, bullion on hand, gold sales receivables, and available-for-sale financial assets at the end of June.
Centamin had already published its production results in July and reaffirmed its full-year guidance of between 430,000 to 440,000 ounces of gold.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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