News

March 01, 2010

Anglo-Pacific Group Expects To Move Up A League This Year, With A Canadian Listing And More Royalty Purchases

By Charles Wyatt

There is no way London listed Anglo Pacific Group can be described as flamboyant, but it comes up with the goodies on a very consistent basis and the fan club is growing. In the recent results for 2009 most forecasts from brokers were beaten with some ease, though they had tended to err on the side of caution - which is understandable, as 2009 was a far from ordinary year. As chairman Peter Boycott points out the first half 0f 2009 was characterised by falling stock markets and the banking crisis, while the second half saw an improved economic outlook and substantially higher commodity prices. But to put it in such simple terms tends to underplay what actually happened during what was a very strange and frightening 12 month period. At Christmas 2008 many juniors in the resource sector were wondering if they had a future, but by Christmas 2009 they were making some fairly ambitious plans for 2010. Thus while Anglo Pacific’s total income for 2009 was, at £27.5 million, some way down on the £35.1 million of the previous year, it was at any rate ahead of broker expectation of £25.4 million.

The same goes for profits before tax – down, but ahead of expectations. The decision to increase the dividend for the year, from 7.8 p per share to 8.35p, tells yet another story. There are plenty of reasons behind such a decision, but foremost is the fact that Anglo Pacific is a royalty company and four new royalties were acquired last year. In fact it is the only royalty company listed on the London stock exchange, and companies for which it is impossible to carry out peer comparisons often...