Cape Town - Harmony Gold on Thursday declared a dividend for the six months to the end of December in addition to reporting that it had repaid “most of its debt”.The miner, which has operations in South Africa and Papua New Guinea, reported an interim dividend of 50 cents.
The company said positive cash flow generation had also enabled it to reduce net debt from R1.1 billion at the end of June 2016 to R289 million at the end of December.
Harmony recorded an 8 percent increase in gold production during the period under review while also reporting R627 million cash inflows from hedging activity. Revenue, including the gold hedge, increased by 3 percent to R9.868 billion.
Read also: Harmony sees improvement of up to 255%
“We achieved all we set out to in the six months from 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2016. We delivered on our strategy to mine safe, profitable ounces and increase our margins,” said Peter Steenkamp, chief executive officer
“Our cash flow continues to be strong, which allowed us to declare an interim dividend, the second dividend in 12 months.”
Headline earnings amounted to 150 cents per share, more than 100 percent higher than the headline loss of 103 cents in the comparable period a year before.
Steenkamp said Harmony was on track to deliver on guidance for the full year: “We will continue our strong operational performance and create further value uplift.”