Gold Star Results for Northern Star

Northern Star today reported its financial results for the six months to December 31, 2018. The results reflected a combination of the strong performance at Northern Star’s Australian mines and the significant investment the Company made in its next round of growth, particularly at the Pogo gold mine in Alaska.
The Pogo acquisition, which was included in Northern Star’s accounts from September 28, 2018, helped underpin a 43 per cent increase in revenue from the previous corresponding period to A$633.5 million. This led to a 33 per cent increase in the interim dividend to A6¢, fully-franked, which is in keeping with the Company’s policy of paying dividends equal to 6 per cent of revenue. Underlying net profit was up 11 per cent from the same time last year at A$89.1 million and statutory net profit was 4 per cent higher at A$82.1 million.
Northern Star Executive Chairman Bill Beament said it was a solid result which was driven by the strong performance of the Australian operations and the upfront investment made in Pogo.
“We generated an industry-leading return on equity of 20 per cent excluding the Pogo acquisition, which is particularly exceptional when compared with the Van Eck GDX index 5-year average of negative 2.9 per cent,” Mr Beament said.
“At the same time, we invested a record A$83 million in exploration and expansionary capital, A$10 million of which was at Pogo.
As yesterday’s announcement demonstrated, the exploration results we are generating at Pogo are world-class and will help us achieve our objective of growing mine life, production and cashflow there.
But those sorts of results don’t come for free. We need to invest in Pogo in the same way as we have invested in our other Tier-1 operations and based on what we are seeing, I have no doubt we will reap significant returns from that investment at Pogo in the same way or better than we have done at Kalgoorlie and Jundee.”