BHP hands out record £5bn dividend as higher production pushes up sales and profits

Global miner BHP is paying out a record dividend as higher production pushed up sales and underlying profits.

Investors in the global miner will get a final dividend of 63 cents per share (about 50p), taking total dividend payments for the year to £5billion or 118 cents per share (about 92p).

It also plans to return to shareholders the proceeds from its recent £8billion sale of shale assets in the US to BP.

Record dividend: Global miner BHP Billiton

Higher production helped boost sales by 21 per cent to £34million. Underlying profit at the miner was up 33 per cent to £7billion. Debt was slashed from £12billion to £7.7billion.

Shares fell 2.1 per cent, or 34.6p, to 1610.6p.