Continuing positive market conditions and the company’s strong cash generation has enabled the company to once again distribute excess cash resources to shareholders by way of special dividend. A special dividend of 61 cents per share and a final ordinary dividend of 166 cents per share were declared by the board.

Growing demand for cement will require that additional capacity and more frequent equipment replacement be undertaken by the company. These investments are inherently large and the company will introduce increased levels of external debt to fund this expenditure.

Whilst new capacity, such as the Batsweledi project have lower cash production costs, the benefit of this is likely to be off-set by increased energy, operating and logistics costs in other parts of the business and will possibly limit a further widening of the cash operating margin.

In a year that held much excitement and challenge, the PPC team once again displayed the outstanding qualities that have made the company what it is today. From unbundling to on-time delivery and logistics planning, the people at PPC strove to be the best and my thanks go to them and our board of directors, especially Eddie Theron who retired at the last meeting, for another excellent year.