South African coal miner Exxaro Resources is considering potential deals to acquire copper and manganese assets as part of its diversification strategy, chief executive Nombasa Tsengwa said on Thursday.
Exxaro’s shares were up 5.19% at 0910 GMT after the miner declared a special dividend of 5.72 rand per share, in addition to a 10.10 rand per share payout.
It earlier reported that logistics constraints and softer coal prices contributed to a 22% dip in Exxaro’s headline earnings to 11.33 billion rand ($609.19 million) last year. Exxaro had about 14.8 billion rand in net cash at the end of last year.
The Johannesburg-based company, which also has interests in iron ore and renewable energy, wants to acquire assets in copper and manganese to take advantage of the global shift from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy.
“We are actively looking. We’re in the market, but we’re not desperate,” Tsengwa told Reuters.
She declined to say if the company had begun any negotiations.
Exxaro was among investors that wanted to buy Khoemacau copper mine in Botswana but were eventually outbid by China’s MMG, which paid about $1.9 billion for the assets.
“There’s nothing that passes us by, there’s nothing we do not know that is out there on the market,” Tsengwa said. “You know, people do talk to us because they know we’re interested.”
Exxaro is weighing a number of opportunities, chief growth officer Richard Lilleike said.
Along with rivals, such as Thungela Resources, Exxaro is battling a profit squeeze from challenges in the South African market, including lack of sufficient rail capacity to move coal to ports for export.
($1 = 18.5986 rand)
(By Nelson Banya and Felix Njini; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, David Goodman and Tomasz Janowski)
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