The South 32 Ltd (ASX: S32) share price hit a record high this afternoon as the miner's red hot run continues thanks to surging coal and metals prices as investors bet on a return to more normalised levels of global inflation.
For the year ending June 30 2017 South 32 posted a net profit of US$1.2 billion on revenues of US$6.95 billion and rewarded investors with a final dividend of US 6.4 cents per share. That dividend payout totalled US$334 million and represented around half of the miner's earnings for the six-month period ending June 30, 2017.
As a miner of base metals like zinc, silver, lead and aluminium the group is well placed to benefit from further rises in metals prices if the global economy's rebound is able to shift a gear higher over the second half of 2017. The group has also been a beneficiary of a coal price that has gone gangbusters over the past 18 months and investors will hope that coal prices don't reverse course anytime soon.
