Vanessa Torres has reiterated Perenti’s commitment to Africa as the global mining services contractor hands down an underlying net profit result of $192 million.
The global contractor’s new managing director, Ms Torres, handed down her first full-year briefing on Monday morning.
Perenti’s underlying net profit rose by 8 per cent from to $192 million for the 2026 financial year, while its statutory net profit fell from $137.8 million to $44 million at the end of June.
The profit slide was due to $54.3 million worth of impairments, along with a $64.4 million non-cash loss due to Perenti’s sale of BTP Group, which was announced on Friday.
Perenti’s overall revenue was relatively flat, dipping by 0.8 per cent to $3.46 billion.
The board declared a final dividend of 4.50 cents per share, ensuring FY26’s total dividend reached 7.75 cents, a rise of 7 per cent from the prior corresponding period.
In FY27, Perenti’s annual revenue guidance has been set for $3.45-3.65 billion, an EBIT range of $335-355 million and a net capital expenditure of roughly $370 million
“The completion of various projects impacted our revenue growth in FY26, with the Botswana underground project finishing at the end of FY25, accounting for circa $250 million of revenue,” chief financial officer Michael Ellis said.
“This was offset by increased drilling services revenue on rising utilisation and several contract wins in contract mining – further highlighting the benefits of scale.”
Analysts used the full-year briefing to ask about Perenti’s work in Africa against the backdrop of changes to localisation laws related to surface mining.
Perenti recorded a $25 million non-cash impairment related to idle surface fleet in West Africa due to those law changes, with a previously announced sale of its on-site fleet expected to fetch up to $40 million.
“We still remain very committed to Africa," Mr Ellis said.
“We’ve been saying that for a while, for the right projects, so I just want to be clear on that as well.”
These sentiments were echoed by Ms Torres, who was presiding over her first results briefing since succeeding Mark Norwell in May.
“I recently actually went to Ghana to see our operations there. Underground mining is very different to surface mining,” Ms Torres said.
“Surface mining today, I think there’s a lot of players there. There’s a lot of incentives from, for instance, equipment suppliers – I’ve seen some of that firsthand.
“But underground mining, in terms of what we really bring, is the productivity and the techniques.
“And those are very difficult to localise.
“Of course, there’s a pressure to work in joint ventures – but so far, managing those joint ventures hasn’t reduced our margins overall.
“With underground mining, I’m still very confident we have some very good opportunities ahead.
“But also, I think we have a lot of standing in Africa. So, we do have a lot of work with communities, a lot of work with government, so we are well positioned there to continue.”
As of 10AM AWST, Perenti shares were down 1 per cent to $2.40, after reaching a high of $2.54 around an hour into trade.
