Followers of perhaps the best performing gold mining major of the past few years are directed to the following article I’ve published on the Seeking Alpha website: Randgold: Tough Quarter, Good Results. Interestingly Randgold (LSE: RRS, NASDAQ: GOLD)’s stock price has not risen nearly as much as some of its peers but that is because of its far better performance while virtually all the other major gold stocks were dropping like stones. It has no debt, has not needed to take any impairments and is operating a progressive dividend policy where again most of its peers have been slashing their shareholder payments. It has thus just announced a 10% dividend increase to $0.66 a share.
Highlights from Q1 2016 are as follows:
- Profits up 19% quarter on quarter and 25% on corresponding quarter of prior year
- Production down 11% quarter on quarter but up 4% on corresponding quarter of prior year
- Total cash cost/oz up 3% quarter on quarter but down 8% on corresponding quarter of prior year
- Cash increases 19% to $253.8 million on the back of reduced total cash costs and higher gold price
- Solid quarter from Loulo-Gounkoto with production in line with plan and significant decrease in total cash cost/oz
- Morila delivers steady performance with lower costs
- Tongon production impacted by quaternary crushers commissioning and power supply interruptions
- Kibali completes challenging quarter including optimising 100% sulphide feed, compounded by mill downtime
- New Moku JV adds 1 275km2 to Randgold exploration portfolio in same greenstone belt as Kibali
- West African exploration programmes deliver positive borehole and trench results
- Shareholders approve 10% increase in annual dividend of $0.66 per share
In addition to the article on Seeking Alpha linked above, you can download the full quarterly statement at http://www.randgoldresources.com/quarterly-reports-page/3321