Newmont Mining Corporation has decided to link gold prices to the dividend it pays in order to gain more investors. Currently investors are using Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) to buy a share of gold as a hedge to currency devaluation. All investment portfolios prefer to keep some percentage of gold as it is more stable than other investments.
Gold Exchange Traded Funds allow investors to invest in the gold market via electronic media without physically buying gold bullions or shares in gold companies. As the price of gold has been increasing in the last few years, Exchange Traded Funds in gold have steadily gained in popularity. Now Newmont hopes to get these investors to invest directly with the company rather than in Exchange Traded Funds by linking the dividends paid to the actual price of gold.
CEO Richard O'Brien said that for every $100 increment of gold we’re thinking about a 20-cent increase in Newmont's annual dividend rate. He added that this gives investors a direct play on gold through not just the principle of valuation in our stock, but also through direct cash participation. Mr O’Brien said that people were afraid of currency devaluation. Nobody can devalue gold but the marketplace.
Newmont is also looking forward to boosting up its gold production in 2001 to 5.1 to 5.3 million ounces. They are also planning on pushing up the production of copper to 190 to 220 million pounds. Copper is often produced as a by-product of gold mining. The increase in production is likely to come from the expansion of projects it has in West Africa. It will also be making improvements at its Boddington mine in Western Australia. By 2017 the Denver based company hopes to up its production by 35%.