"Mate, ya get no argument from me about the generous dividends...

"Mate, ya get no argument from me about the generous dividends Twiggy and team has provided for all us punters. In fact as at last night the yields were sitting at 10.2%, adding in franking credits, around 13%."

I'll buy you a goldfish if you the 12-month prospective dividends amount to 10% of the current share price. And if you insist on believing that, I've got s bridge to sell you.

Also, you make it sound like receiving generous dividends is something that is somehow unique to FMG.

FMG's sector peers also paid massive dividends... at greater payout ratios than FMG, as it happens. Here are the comparative numbers over the past 5 years for FMG against RIO:

FMG:
Cumulative NPAT = US$31.6 bn
Cumulative Dividend Payments = US$22.1bn
=> Dividend Payout Ratio = 70%

RIO:
Cumulative NPAT = US$63.7 bn
Cumulative Dividend Payments = US$47.4bn
=> Dividend Payout Ratio = 74%

[Source: Audited Financial Statements]



"Does anybody find it hypocritical to be whingeing about Twiggy whilst at the same time living high on the hog off Twiggy's ingenuity and hard yakka?"

As shown above, you could have lived even higher on the hog owning FMG's sector peers, for which not only was a higher proportion of earnings paid out as dividends, as shown above, but RIO's share price has outperformed FMG across every reasonable investment time frame during FMG's foray into the Great Green Grift.





So, your unbridled cheerleading of the stock notwithstanding, it has been outperformed by its sector peers.

And with those sector peers, their owners don't have to have blind faith in the areas the managers of their companies are deploying shareholder capital, because RIO and BHP are sticking to their knitting of mining, even in electrification-facilitating metals, notably copper. As opposed to unproven, kite-flying concepts totally unrelated to core competency.

After FMG's dramatic share price fall in recent months, the stock is trading at a P/E multiple of around 10.5x-11.0x. That's right in line with RIO.

Why - apart from blinkered ideology - would anyone pay the same valuation multiple for a de facto personal fiefdom, which is investing - seemingly on the basis of captain's picks - in highly conceptual areas of business with indeterminate financial outcomes, when one can buy, on the exact same valuation multiple, the pre-eminent global mining company with the best quality assets and whose growth strategy can be held to financial return scrutiny?

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