Not yet, only me guessing but once they clear debt ( which for...

Not yet, only me guessing but once they clear debt ( which for all intents and purposes they should be nearly there by end of this financial year ) I would suspect they will follow similar approach to whc( 20-50 % of eps) .

I suspect but some m@a opportunities might / will arise but over next year or two so they probably don’t won’t to tie themselves into a rigid framework too quickly . This also goes for buybacks , like whc are currently doing . They will want to suck it and see for a year or two before deciding on buybacks after looking for m@a opportunities and seeing what market cap this thing trades at .

Companies like whc rightly went to buybacks because the market was simply not valuing it correctly giving the cash earnings profile ( whc was ridiculously trading at near 1x earnings early last year which became such an obvious buy it was ridiculous , and yes the market finally woke up . It is still barely above 2x which justifies the continuing buybacks) , so it becomes almost obvious when this happens the best way to boost returns to long term shareholders is to buyback those shares that are happily trading for sub fundamental value. This boosts both eps and dps to long run shareholders . Mgt with smr having only recently acquiring the ex bhp assets needs a little time to rightly assess , how is Mr market going to value this thing once we start publishing a history of earnings of those assets under our mgt ? But to date we don’t have enough track record for a smart call yet to be made about the value of buybacks or not to shareholders .

Personally I am a great believer buybacks should be only considered when there isn’t m@a opportunities or significant organic capex projects to fund growth and hence should really be considered only by businesses approaching maturity in earnings profiles where the market is consistently ( over years) undervaluing those cashflows . Long way really from smr sayings it’s in this position .

In my own forward calculations of eps , I factored in from next year Fy 2024 , circa midpoint of whc range ( 35% of eps) as possible for likely dividend .

My high level rough sums currently are 250 usd estimate of longer run price @ 0.75 usd/ Aud = 333 Aud less circa 60 royalties ( Qld govt are daylight robbers) = 273 Aud net Aussie returns - minus 130 cost of production ( pumping this up a tad for inflation ) =143 cash margin x 13 Mt = 1.85 Bn - 50 M corporate and other G&A = 1.80 Bn , multiply by 0.7 ( 30% tax) = 1.25 Bn post tax earnings which is 1.40 per share or a P/E ratio 2.33 on circa 900 M shares , very low P/E ratio.

With a couple years of earnings under the belt with this sort of runway of earnings I would think it could trade up to 4 - 5 times eps ( still low but this is reality of coal stocks when big part of market will now permanently give it a swerve) which would put price somewhere between 5-50 to 7 dollars as a realistic 2-3 year target .

I think it’s the sort of share then that will keep a loyal following for the dividends , if they are paying around 33 % payout you would be somewhere around 15% franked dividends on current prices . If the runway of earnings was maintained and no m&a comes up that might push up to 50% payout with special dividends along the way if these good prices are maintained ( which my assessment of the macro situation and under investment in quality met coal assets globally , I think is likely ) which would put it above 20% franked dividends at current price levels . Again both these projected levels of dps also in their own right suggest that earnings and payout profile would support a share price well above 5 dollars per share .

Of course if there is m@a and they can funnel their cash into becoming a 20 Mt tonne plus producer , then that’s a whole different analysis then . So there is exposure there with smr to some speculative growth too imho .