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JSE-listed coal and heavy minerals miner Exxaro Resources expects to report attributable earnings per share (AEPS) of between R26.90 and R28.86 for the year ended December 31, 2018, which is an increase of between 39% and 49% compared with the R19.23 apiece reported for the year ended December 31, 2017.
Headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the period should be between R26.07 and R27.08, compared with R5.02 apiece in the prior comparable period.
While the company’s coal businesses benefited from higher selling prices, the company attributed the higher AEPS and HEPS to once-off transactions incurred in 2017 relating to the implementation of the replacement black economic empowerment (BEE) transaction.
The transaction resulted in the BEE shares having to be treated as treasury shares, and excluded from the weighted average number of shares (Wanos), which at year-end was 251-million, compared with 311-million in the prior comparable period.
“If the one-off impacts of nonrecurring transactions are excluded for both financial years, the core HEPS (based on a core Wanos of 332-million shares) for the reporting period are expected to be between R20.73 and R22.15, which is an increase of between 3% and 10% compared with the R20.11 reported for the prior comparable period,” Exxaro explained.
Exxaro’s financial results will be released on March 14.