ARM to report improved interims owing to impairment absence

AFRICAN Rainbow Minerals (ARM) expected to report a vastly improved interim earnings performance year-on-year owing to an absence of impairments that affected the numbers in its 2017 financial year.

In a trading statement to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange today, ARM said basic share earnings for the first half of its 2018 financial year would be between 912 and 930 cents compared to a loss of 134c/share previously.

During the previous period, the company wrote-down its Nkomati assets for R711m as well as booking an attributable impairment on its stake in Modikwa, a platinum mine, for R734m, and an impairment loss of R422m for the Assmang joint venture related to the sale of its Dwarsrivier mine.

Headline earnings for the first half had been “… positively affected by an increase in average realised US dollar commodity prices for most of the commodities that ARM produces, which was partly offset by a stronger average realised rand/US dollar exchange rate,” it said.

As a result, headline earnings per share for the interim period ended December 31 were expected to increase by between 10% and 16% to between 986 and 1,037 cents compared to 893 cents previously.