Sasol released a trading update this morning for the year to end June 2011. Here goes a copy paste: "Expected headline earnings per share for the financial year ended 30 June 2011 to increase by between 22% and 32%, and earnings per share to increase by between 18% and 28%, compared to the prior year." Last year HEPS clocked 2667 cents per share, if you take the middle of the range at 26 percent higher on HEPS, I get to 3360 cents for the full year. Which roughly puts the company on exactly ten times earnings historic.
I would expect on that basis the dividend for the year to be around 1350, so I am expecting between 10 to 10.40 ZAR a share dividend for the second half. So, at current levels 335 ZAR, it is all rather easy to measure, right? Right. And on a dividend yield of 4 percent. Actually, if you look at a whole lot of oil majors (which we did yesterday), many of them are trading on similar type of multiples. Crazy cheap. And the big thing that I said to Byron is that for a company like Sasol, unlike many oil companies who are constantly searching for short term wells, their gas and coal deposits are much longer dated. A point worth making. Results still a long way out, 12 September. A lot could happen between now and then I guess. Cheap? Yes.