Fortescue Delivers With $1 Billion Profit for the Year

Andrew Forrest’s mining company, Fortescue, has steamrolled right through its financial year and shows no signs of slowing down. The Perth-based miner has announced a full-year profit of A$987.9 million for the year ending in June, thanks to Chinese demand and increased iron ore prices.

Fortescue shipped nearly 41 million tonnes of iron ore from Western Australia, which contributed to the profits being up from $561 million the previous year. Now under the leadership of CEO Nev Power (although founder and former CEO Andrew Forrest still sits on the board as Chairman), Australia’s third largest iron ore company is on the path to boost its operating capacity from 55 million tonnes per annum to 155mta over the next two years. “This has been an outstanding result for Fortescue this year,” Nev Power told The Australian.

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Fortescue’s full year results also showed sales revenue had increased 69 per cent to $5.2 billion.Chinese customers contributed more than $5 billion in revenue, and Nev Power says that Fortescue is still witnessing continued demand from China. “We haven't seen any deferral of shipments or changes in order patterns, but there's no question that the tightening of credit in China has started to moderate demand in a small way,” Nev Power said.

Fortescue said it would pay shareholders a final dividend of 4 cents a share now that it is a tax paying company.

Shares closed Friday on the ASX at $5.75, contributed to an 8.4 percent drop in the benchmark index.