Randgold Resources Limited Lifts Dividend By 25%

The shares of Randgold Resources (LSE: RRS) (NASDAQ: GOLD.US) rallied 50p to 6,135p during early London trade this morning after the FTSE 100 miner announced it would lift its annual dividend by 25% to $0.50 per share.

Randgold, which mines gold in Mali, Congo and the Ivory Coast, said profits during 2012 had improved 16% to $511m after production advanced 14% to 794,844 ounces. Gold sales during the year gained 17% to $1,317m.

The miner also confirmed its balance sheet carried cash and gold amounting to $403m at the year end, despite capital expenditure during 2012 coming to $563m.

Mark Bristow, Randgold's chief executive, said:

"It's been a particularly eventful year but the team once again rose to the challenges. Not only did we achieve very creditable results for 2012 but we start 2013 in good shape and with a renewed focus on growing our production and managing our costs."

The "eventful year" included frequent power cuts -- and a fire -- at the group's Ivory Coast mine as well as a military coup in Mali.

Still, longer-term Randgold investors may not be too worried about last year's challenges. During the last ten years, investors have seen profits jump seven-fold and the share price -- following various gold discoveries -- soar more than 20-fold.

With a present market cap of £5.6bn, Randgold is valued at 17 times today's profit figure and yields a tiny 0.5%. Clearly a lot of Randgold's current valuation is based on the amount of gold the company believes it can mine in the future.

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