Jupiter earns well off Tshipi

Australia’s Jupiter Mines continued returning its profits to shareholders from its stake in the Tshipi Borwa manganese mine in SA, prompting Pallinghurst Resources, a major owner of the company, to cash in part of its holding.

Australia’s Jupiter Mines continued returning its profits to shareholders from its stake in the Tshipi Borwa manganese mine in SA, prompting Pallinghurst Resources, a major owner of the company, to cash in part of its holding.

Jupiter, which owns 49.9% of Tshipi, said distributions to the owners of the mine had already totalled R2.6bn, against a construction cost of R2bn.

The Tshipi mine is moving from strength to strength and is expected to report sales of 3.3-million tonnes of manganese ore for its financial year to end-February, notching up net income of $160m and earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation, which is basically an operating profit number, of $250m. In 2017, Tshipi sold 2.3-million tonnes of manganese ore. Jupiter has the right to sell and export its 49.9% of the mine’s production.

Manganese prices shot up in 2017 and producers in SA, one of the world’s leading sources of manganese, increased output. The Tshipi board had resolved to return R1.1bn to its shareholders, half of which would go to Jupiter, which has a manganese marketing business buoying its balance sheet. In December, Tshipi had expected to distribute R600m to its owners.

Jupiter said on Monday it would spend $42m on a share buy-back programme for 5.81% of its shares in issue. Pallinghurst said it would receive R94m for selling part of its 18.4% stake in Jupiter in March.