Wednesday 15 February 2017 10:34 am

Anglo American Platinum is back in profit, but it still isn’t paying dividends

Anglo American today said its platinum business is back in profit.

Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), the world's top producer of the precious metal, delivered headline earnings of $126m (£101m) compared with a loss of $10m in 2015.

However, for the year ended 31 December, the mining giant will report underlying earnings in respect of Amplats of $65m compared with $168m in the previous year. It also won't resume paying dividends, which it stopped after 2011, Reuters reported.

In a separate statement, the company announced Amplats will sell a majority stake in its South African Union mine and its MASA Chrome Company for 400m rand (£24.7m).

It will sell an 85 per cent interest in the Union Mine and 50.1 percent in the chrome company to a subsidiary of Siyanda Resources while keeping its Mortimer smelter operation. Siyanda currently owns 49.9 per cent of MASA Chrome.

According to the agreement, the South African firm Siyanda will sell concentrate produced by the Union Mine to Amplats for seven years from the completion of the transaction.

The deal is expected to be complete this year.

Cash from the sale will go towards carving down more of Amplats' debt, which it reduced to 7.3bn rand in 2016 from 12.8bn rand, partly from the proceeds of disposals and customer pre-payment deals, Reuters said.

Amplats' Johannesburg-listed shares were down more than three per cent today in line with the sector.