By Anna Chaberska
(Reuters) – Swedish miner Boliden reported a bigger-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter core earnings on Thursday, sending its shares more than 7% higher, even though the company scrapped its dividend for last year.
Boliden cancelled its ordinary dividend for 2024 to reduce the expected new share issue associated with the acquisitions of the Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan mines from Lundin Mining.
“We got a clear majority message that this was a preferred route,” CEO Mikael Staffas said in a conference call about shareholders’ reactions.
Ahead of the earnings report, some analysts viewed the acquisitions as a potential risk to the dividend’s size, but were confident of a payout.
Boliden’s operating profit, excluding the revaluation of its process inventory, rose to 3.81 billion crowns ($348.8 million) from 2.02 billion crowns a year earlier, beating a company-provided consensus of 3.59 billion crowns.
The result was mainly driven by acquisitions and production, the mining and smelting company said in its quarterly report.
Staffas was confident of Boliden’s prospects in Europe in the immediate future, saying the electrification and energy transition would be the main demand drivers for copper, zinc and nickel.
“We are not really worried that Europe will not need our metal,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Boliden increased its capital expenditure forecast for 2025 to 14 billion crowns from 13.5 billion crowns due to a roll-over from 2024.
It expects maintenance shutdowns at smelters to drive down operating profit by 500 million crowns in 2025.
In the reported quarter, Boliden resumed production from the Tara mine in Ireland, which had been placed on care and maintenance to meet financial and operational challenges since July 2023, and completed the expansion project of Aitik, the largest copper mine in the Nordic region.
The company also said the expansion project in Odda zinc smelter in Norway was close to completion after a delay announced last year. ($1 = 10.9244 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Anna Chaberska and Agata Rybska in Gdansk; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
