Antofagasta is a Chilean based Mining company, with its headquarters in London. It specialises in Copper and the outlook remains very bright.

Overview

Antofagasta plc (LON: ANTO) is a copper miner based Chile. The firm employs around 6,000 people in Chile and specialises in Mining of Copper on its 5 mines around the country. The head quarters is based in London and it has been on the stock market since 1997, showing an impressive 14,000% return over its lifetime.

Financials

From a financial aspect the share is pretty solid. Total market cap is £16.4bn with 2021 turnover $7.4bn and a profit after tax of $2.3bn (running on a 31% profit margin). Revenue and turnover have both grown exceptionally well over the last 12 months. Looking at the balance sheet total cash on hand sat at quite small at $743m, but equipment and property was huge at $10.5bn. Total assets sat at $17.3bn. Total liabilities were $6.2bn, leaving net positive assets of $11bn. This gives the company a L/A ratio of 36%, which is good. For comparison Glencore sits at 38%. Both these figures are improvements YoY. It does have a pricer P/E ratio though of 16 and this is likely because it's a specialist miner of just copper. Whereas glencore mines multiple minerals.

Technicals

From a technical aspect the share looks very postive, and actually follows coppers price quite close. given this, initial targets are £18.79, followed by £19.72. A break above here could take Antofagasta to £22 and then £25. Towards the downside, support for the stock sits at £14.27, followed by £12.89. A break below here could mean a drop towards the £10 level. To spark this, demand for copper or the price of copper could have to fall quite hard, which is somewhat unlikely.

Summary

The rise in Copper prices is the main reason why Antofagasta is doing so well. Goldman Sachs recently forecasted a price prediction on copper of $12,250 by Q4 2022 (a rise of 19.5% from current levels). Clearly if this does play out, Antofagasta will benefit from this and there is no reason why they couldn't go up in line with this - hence the price targets. Overall its a pretty solid company with strong roots, established supply chains and strong demand for its raw product. Last year they also paid a large dividend of £1.11 total per share over the year, which is very good. that's a total payout of 6.6%, which is very good. This year also looks very promising as a dividend stock.