Jakarta,- Coal issuers have been busy releasing their financial performance during the first three months of this year. Most of them showed a slowdown, but they still paid dividends.

The slowdown in the financial performance of coal companies is in line with coal commodity prices which are still in a downward trend. On Monday (13/5/2024), the ICE Newcastle coal price for the June contract closed at US$ 140.1 per ton or weakened by 1.68%.

Yesterday's weakness extended the suffering of coal prices. Black sand has weakened for four consecutive days with a weakening of 4.4%.

Discussing to issuers, starting from PT Indo Tambangraya Megah Tbk (ITMG) in the first quarter of 2024 experienced a decline in performance, both in terms of top line and bottom line compactly shrinking.

As of March 2024, ITMG earned a net revenue of US$ 489.23 million, down 28.64% on an annual basis (year on year / yoy). Coal sales are still dominant in revenue, reaching US$ 454.40 billion.

In line with that, ITMG's cost of revenue also fell by 11.65% yoy to US$ 369.87 million. This result made ITMG record a gross profit of US$ 119.36 million, falling 55.28% yoy. ITMG's net profit also plummeted 66.28% yoy to US$ 61.60 million. If converted using an exchange rate of IDR 16,050/US$, it is equivalent to IDR 988.42 billion.

Next, there is a government-owned coal issuer, PT Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA) also experienced a decline in performance. Revenue was observed to shrink by 5.52% to IDR 9.40 trillion, mainly due to the coal sales segment which fell from IDR 9.84 trillion to IDR 9.29 trillion.

In line with the declining top line, PTBA's bottom line also fell 31.98% yoy to Rp790.94 billion. Previously, in the first quarter of 2023, PTBA scored a net profit of IDR 1.16 trillion.

Another coal issuer, there is PT Adaro Energy Tbk (ADRO) which printed a profit of US$ 440 million or equivalent to Rp 6.09 trillion, corrected by 18% yoy. The decline in ADRO's core profit occurred because operating income fell 22% yoy to US$ 1.44 billion in January-March 2024.

The main burden of ADRO's revenue is the coal mining and trading segment which has a negative performance. The segment generated US$1.42 billion in revenue, 21% lower than the same period in 2023.

For the record, the coal mining and trading segment accounted for 98% of ADRO's total revenue. Meanwhile, profit from this segment degraded by 19% yoy to US$372 million.

From the data above, large coal issuers in RI are fairly compact in recording a decline in financial performance. Even so, for this year the company continues to distribute dividends based on net profit from the 2023 financial year.

ITMG was the earliest to pay dividends in April, amounting to Rp1,747 per share. If investors buy ITMG shares at the maximum cum date on April 16 at a price of IDR 25,850 per share, the profit obtained reaches 6.76%.

PTBA also follows with a dividend schedule taking place this May, the cum date will be recorded on May 20, 2024, which means that until today, Tuesday (5/14/2024) if you want to target dividends, market participants can still glance to buy.

PTBA itself provides dividends per share worth IDR 397.71. If you buy today at a price of IDR 2930 per share, then investors have the potential to get up to 13.57%.

However, it is still necessary to be aware of the risk of dividend traps, because large dividend benefits can be even with the risk of falling share prices when entering the ex date period.

Next, ADRO will still hold its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) on Wednesday (5/15/2024). CNBC Indonesia Research calculates that if the 2023 net profit is conservatively allocated around 50% for dividends, then investors can get dividends per share worth IDR 395.

For the record, at the end of 2023, ADRO had distributed an interim dividend of Rp199.98 per share, so the remaining potential dividends distributed were Rp195 per share.

If based on ADRO's share price today at IDR 2900 per share, the potential cuan that investors can reap reaches 6.72%.