By Jaime Llinares Taboada

Shares in Anglo American PLC rose Thursday morning after it reported a significantly higher profit for the first half of the year, and said it will return $4.1 billion to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

The FTSE 100 mining company made a net profit of $5.19 billion for the six months to June, up from $471 million a year earlier when the Covid-19 pandemic caused a decrease in production.

Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization jumped to $12.14 billion from $3.35 billion, reflecting significantly higher commodity prices. The metric came well above the market consensus of $10.88 billion--taken from Vuma and based on 12 analysts' estimates.

"The first six months of 2021 have seen strong demand and prices for many of our products as economies begin to recoup lost ground, spurred by stimulus measures across the major economies," Chief Executive Mark Cutifani said.

Stronger commodity prices contributed $7.9 billion to the total $8.8 billion underlying Ebitda increase, the company said.

Anglo American said it would pay an interim dividend of $1.71 a share and make $2.0 billion of additional returns, including $1.0 billion via a special dividend and $1.0 billion via share buybacks.

The buyback program will start immediately and end no later than Feb. 14, 2022. The special dividend is equivalent to $0.80 a share.

"We entered this period of strong demand and prices for many of our products with a strong balance sheet and we are therefore in a position to deliver both the investment in our sequence of margin-enhancing growth projects and also return excess cash to our shareholders," Mr. Cutifani said.

Shares at 0710 GMT were up 4.4% at 3,263 pence.

Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at jaime.llinares@wsj.com; @JaimeLlinaresT

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 29, 2021 03:33 ET (07:33 GMT)

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