Market Report: Egyptian gold miner Centamin surges by more than 16 per cent

Centamin declared a final dividend of 1.99 cents per share, compared to the expected 1.6 cents

Never underestimate the power of a good dividend. The Egyptian gold miner Centamin surged by more than 16 per cent yesterday, despite unveiling earnings and revenue figures that were lower than expected. The jump was down to a higher than expected shareholder payout and a commitment to hand cash to investors in the future.

Centamin declared a final dividend of 1.99 cents per share, compared to the expected 1.6 cents, and pledged to pay out as much as 30 per cent of free cash in dividends in the future. Its shares rocketed by 8.65p to 62.4p, despite a warning from the miner that the legal case hanging over its right to mine in Egypt still has no end in sight.

There was a wider revival for miners, spurred by hopes that recovering gold and silver prices could spread to other metals, and by the weaker dollar. The industry added 9.84 points to the FTSE 100 and helped it to another record close, up 15.16 points at 7,037.67.

Standard Chartered topped the blue-chip index, shooting up 69.5p to 1,141p as JPMorgan added to calls for the emerging markets bank to shift its headquarters eastward. Analysts argue that the increase in the UK bank levy, announced in last week’s Budget, will hit StanChart hardest and it now makes financial sense to shift its domicile to Hong Kong or Singapore.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s opinion sent Burberry tumbling. It warned of a coming slowdown for Europe’s luxury houses due to slipping Hong Kong sales, China’s cooling economy and the dollar’s recent weakness. Burberry dropped 48p to 1,828p.

Meggitt slipped 10.5p to 564p, as Bernstein took the red pen to the aerospace engineer, but its chairman Sir Nigel Rudd snapped up just shy of £113,000-worth of shares in the business.

Optimal Payments announced a blockbuster deal to buy European rival digital payment company Skrill for €1.1bn (£804m), part-funded through a rights issue at 166p a share that raised £451m. Numis called the deal “transformational”, saying “it sharply reduces the exposure to Asia and brings credible venture capital investors on to the share register”. Optimal Payments jumped 103.25p to 522p.