MOSCOW, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - Polyus Zoloto [RTS: PLZL], said Tuesday its net profit for the first six months of 2006, calculated according to International Accounting Standards, increased by $983 million to $1.03 billion year-on-year.
"This significant increase in profit during this period was primarily brought about by the sale of 20% of the South African company Gold Fields in March 2006 for $980 million," the company said.
Operational profit increased by $39 million to $93 million year-on-year, the company said in a news release.
Polyus Zoloto is the largest gold mining company in Russia, accounting for around 20% of the country's gold output. The firm's output in 2004 was around 33.75 metric tons, but that figure is expected to rise to about 100 mt/yr by 2010, making it one of the world's top five producers of the precious metal.
The company said that its revenues grew 76% year-on-year from $169 million to $297 in the first six moths of this year, while sales increased by 27% primarily through consolidated output of gold-mining assets acquired in September 2005.
The company's assets include gold fields in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk Region and Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as well as the Magadan Region in the Far East.
Polyus Zoloto recently launched a program of first-tier American Depositary Receipts for its common stock after receiving an approval for its ADR program from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission July 10, 2006.
The company circulates 66,719,711 shares converted into ADRs, or 34.99% of the common stock, outside Russia.
The Bank of New York, with assets of more than $103 billion, is a depositary bank for the company's ADRs and ING Bank (Eurasia) is a custodian bank for the Polyus Zoloto ADR program.
With The Bank of New York, the company plans to pursue a program for relations with investors to raise the liquidity of its shares and develop the secondary market of its stock and ADRs.
