RTT News reported that India focused miner Vedanta Resources Plc profit for the fiscal year 2012 was hurt by higher operating costs and increased export duty rates on iron ore. Revenues grew 23% helped by recent acquisitions of Cairn India and Zinc International. The company also increased its dividend and said its outlook for natural resources remains robust.
Vedanta noted that the euro zone crisis, sluggish growth in many industrialized countries including the US, political unrest in Africa all impacted its results.
Meanwhile, EBITDA, a key bottom line earnings measure, increased 13 percent to USD 4.03 billion as a result of increased volumes across most of its commodities and the successful integration of recent acquisitions. But, the EBITDA growth rate was lower than revenue growth rate mainly due to higher coal costs and commodity linked costs.
Mr Anil Agarwal chairman of Vedanta Resources said that "This has been a transformational year for the Group in which we completed the Cairn India acquisition, announced the consolidation of the Group and delivered strong production growth. We are one of the largest diversified natural resources companies globally, and with our growth projects largely completed, are well placed to continue this strong growth."
Vedanta said its newly acquired assets performed well, with Cairn India driving production forward by 21% and Zinc International's output well ahead of last year. LME prices for copper, aluminium and zinc were lower than last year. Iron ore spot prices also decreased.
The company said that industrialization and urbanization in China and India and other emerging economies continues to drive demand and it is well positioned to serve these markets. For the fiscal year ended March 2012, the company's profit before tax declined to USD 1.75 billion from USD 2.68 billion reported last year.
On a per share basis, earnings were 21.6 cents compared to 270.2 cents per share in the prior year. The company said its underlying earnings dropped 46% YoY to USD 1.42 due to lower attributable profit from subsidiaries. Revenue grew 22.6% to USD 14 billion from USD 11.43 billion a year ago.
The board also recommended a final dividend of 35% per share up 8% from last year to shareholders of record on August 17th 2012 payable on September 5th 2012. This will bring the total dividend for the year to 55 cents per share, 5% above last year.
Source - RTT News
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