27th Feb 2019 06:43
LONDON (Alliance News) - Diversified miner Rio Tinto PLC hiked its normal payout and issued a special distribution Wednesday amid "strong" 2018 results and healthy production expectations for 2019.
In 2018, pretax profit widened 42% to USD18.17 billion from USD12.82 billion the year prior. This was after revenue rose 1.2% to USD40.52 billion from USD40.03 billion the year before.
"We have once again announced record cash returns to shareholders of USD13.5 billion on the back of USD18 billion of underlying Ebitda and a Return on Capital Employed of 19%," Rio Tinto Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastian Jacques said.
Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation narrowed 2.4% to USD18.14 billion from USD18.58 billion the year before. This was broadly in line with the USD18.15 underlying Ebitda economist consensus, according to company-compiled figures.
Jacques continued: "These strong results reflect the efforts of the team to implement our value-over-volume strategy as we continued to strengthen the portfolio and invest in future growth."
Rio Tinto proposed a 135.96 pence final dividend per share, up 5.0% from 129.43p the year prior. For the full year, the dividend rose 9.5% to 232.78p from 212.56p the year before.
What's more, the London and Sydney-listed firm announced a 183.55 pence special dividend following a series of asset sales during the year. Rio Tinto also has USD1.1 billion outstanding from its USD3.2 billion share buyback programme, due to complete by February 2020.
"Our world-class portfolio and strong balance sheet will serve us well in all market conditions, and underpin our ability to continue to invest in our business and deliver superior returns to shareholders in the short, medium and long term," Jacques said.
In mid January, Rio had reported that Pilbara iron ore production in 2018 grew 2% to 338.2 million tonnes on the year prior. Mined copper output was also up 33% year-on-year at 633,500 tonnes.
In contrast, bauxite production in 2018 declined 1% to 50.4 million tonnes and aluminium production of 3.5 million tonnes was down 3%. Titanium dioxide slag was down 15% at 1.1 million tonnes.
For 2019, Rio kept its production forecasts unchanged from its fourth quarter operational update in January.
Pilbara iron ore output in 2019 is expected between 338 million and 350 million tonnes, bauxite between 56 million and 59 million tonnes, and aluminium between 3.2 million and 3.4 million tonnes. Copper production is anticipated between 550,000 and 600,000 tonnes.
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