Sasol Won't Pay Final Dividend on High Debt

By Nina Kienle

Sasol said it won't pay a final dividend for fiscal 2024, citing high debt levels, and reported a swing to a net loss amid challenging market conditions.

The South African chemical and energy company on Tuesday said a disconnect between headline earnings and cash-flow generation, as well as high debt levels, led to a revision to its dividend policy.

The new policy is based on 30% of free cash flow generated provided that net debt excluding leases is below $4 billion on a sustained basis, but the company ended fiscal 2024 with net debt of $4.1 billion. As a result, the company didn't declare a final dividend for the year.

Sasol had paid a dividend of 2.00 South African rand for the first six months of the year. For fiscal 2023 as a whole, the company paid out total dividends of 17 South African rand a share.

Headline earnings dropped 66% to 11.51 billion South African rand ($650.1 million) and turnover fell 5% to 275.1 billion South African rand for the fiscal year ended June 30.

The company posted a net loss of 44.27 billion South African rand compared with a profit of 8.80 billion South African rand a year before. Sasol had previously said its fiscal 2024 results would take a hit from impairments on chemicals and fuel assets, mainly due to weak prices.

Write to Nina Kienle at nina.kienle@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 20, 2024 03:05 ET (07:05 GMT)

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