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While tech stocks were among the assets that saw their price hit a record high during 2021, so too were many commodities, among them copper and iron ore.
That was good news for mining giants such as Rio Tinto – and today the company revealed just how good.
The 149-year old business reported underlying earnings of $21.4bn (£15.8bn) for 2021 – up 72% on 2020.
At a pre-tax level, profits doubled to $30.8bn (£22.7bn), while Rio saw its broader measure of profitability – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) – rise by 58% to $23.9bn (£17.6bn).
This helped the Anglo-Australian titan generate some $25bn (£18.4bn) in cash – and a big chunk of that is going to be handed to shareholders.
Rio announced a special dividend which, along with the final dividend and the interim dividend already declared, takes the total pay-out to investors totalling some $16.8bn (£12.4bn).
That is not only the highest dividend in Rio’s history.
It is the second highest on record for a FTSE 100 company and is topped only by the thumping one-off £18bn doled out by Vodafone when, in 2014, it returned to shareholders some of the proceeds of the $130bn sale of its stake in the US mobile operator Verizon Wireless.
To put the size of the dividend pay-out into context, it is roughly equal to the annual economic output of Albania.
Rio Tinto’s payout is topped only by that of Vodafone in FTSE 100 history
Jakob Strausholm, chief executive, said Rio was “firing on all cylinders” in terms of its financial performance and dismissed suggestions that the company was simply benefitting from the hike in metals prices.
He said: “Compare today’s results with our performance during a similar period of strong demand and high commodity prices a decade ago.
“In 2021, we converted a…
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Source : skynews
