VALTERRA Platinum followed up a special dividend at its year-end results in February with another handsome payout saying on Wednesday it would dish out 70% of interim earnings, equal to R15.1bn.
Earnings for the six months at R82,02 per share were the third highest in Valterra’s history (previously Anglo Platinum) and were owing to an 85% year-on-year improvement in metal prices, which have since cooled.
Shareholders will receive an interim base dividend of R32.50 per share, equal to R8.6bn, representing 40% of headline earnings in terms of the firm’s dividend policy. But it will also pay an additional dividend of R6.5bn or R24.50 per share.
This makes for a total dividend of R57/share.
The realised platinum group metal (PGM) dollar price for the six months came in at $2,801 per PGM ounce (or R45,993, an increase of 66%). But the numbers were also assisted by an 18% increase in refined metal sales of 1,74 million, itself a function of increased refined production, up a quarter.
Valterra pushed out furnace maintenance to the third quarter, partly to benefit from electricity savings, but higher refined output was also a function of increased concentrate production. Valterra’s Amandelbult mine in Limpopo province continued to recover from stoppages suffered in 2025 floods as a result of torrential rains in the first quarter.
Cash operating costs of R20,677 per PGM ounce were flat year-on-year, but there is cost pressure for the second half of the financial year owing to disruption caused by the Middle East hostilities involving the US and Iran. All-in sustaining costs, including expansion capital, fell by 21% to $996 per 3E ounce.
Valterra said for 2026 it had maintained AISC guidance at $1,050/oz. “We have seen some inflationary impact in the first half — about R250m — and we’ve also assumed an oil price of around $90 a barrel for the second half within that $1,050 guidance,” said Sayurie Naidoo, CFO of Valterra in an interview.
“But based on the cost-cutting initiatives we’ve embarked on, as well as efficiencies in the business, we’ll be able to offset some of that inflation,” said Naidoo citing renewable energy cost savings, and, as a result of moving the stock count into the second half, that gives us an electricity benefit.
