(Wyoming Business Report, March 2) – After the recent announcement of the $1.64 billion sale of its trona mine near Green River, FMC Corp. announced that it is upping its dividends for shareholders.
After the recent announcement of the $1.64 billion sale of its trona mine near Green River, FMC Corp. announced that it is upping its dividends for shareholders.
For any shareholder of record as of March 31, the company will be giving a regular quarterly dividend of 16.5 cents, a 10 percent increase of the last dividend doled out in January.
“Today’s announcement reflects our board’s continued confidence in generating future earnings growth and cash flow,” said FMC President Pierre Brondeau.
The company has not yet closed on the sale of its Wyoming trona mine, but has told the Business Report they were confident it would close before the end of March because of a “clean” sale to a similar, yet trona-free company named Tronox.
FMC Corp. has run the soda ash mine with about 1,000 workers for the past 65 years. FMC’s Green River staff will transfer over to Tronox leadership and continue to operate under a more or less independent structure. In fact, Tronox CEO Tom Casey said the quality of the employees was one of the most influencing factors in the purchase.
About a month after FMC announced it would sell its alkali division to finance the acquisition of amultinational crop protection agency based in Denmark, the company’s stock hit a trough of $51.60. Since then, it has risen steadily to $64.38, an increase of almost 25 percent. Still, the company was trading at $83.10 in March 2014.
FMC is the largest employer in southwest Wyoming until Tronox takes the reins.
