Centerra Gold (TSE:CG) Profitable Again

Centerra Gold (TSE:CG) has returned to profitability this quarter, as stability in Kyrgyzstan helped the gold miner to increase production, along with higher gold prices, helped them to a solid performance.

For the quarter, Centerra exceeded expectations, generating earnings of $29.8 million, or 13 cents a share. Last year in the same quarter the company had a loss of $79.6 million, or 36 cents. That was related to higher costs and diminished recovery of gold. Analysts had been looking for 5 cents a share on average.

Revenue increased to $152.2 million, a gain of 46 percent.

The flagship of Centerra is its Kumtor mine in Kyrgyzstan, and it operates a second mine in Mongolia - the Boroo mine, which is much smaller than Kumtor.

Gold production increased from 110,457 ounces in the second quarter of last year, to 121,728 ounces the last quarter.

Centerra Gold CEO Leonard Homeniuk sells 60% of Shares

While Centerra Gold (TSX:CG) CEO Leonard Homeniuk says the reason he sold his shares in the company were for financial reasons, the plunge in gold prices, along with the drop in the stock prices, had to be part of the reason for the sell off as well.

Homeniuk sold 60 percent of his shares in the company, which equaled almost $6.9 million. His reasons stated were for add more diversity to his portfolio, as well as finanicial planning.

The stock shares were sold between March 11 and March 18 for prices ranging from $13.51 to $14.68. The close for the stock price at the end of the week was $12.34.

He was lucky in his timing, as the stock has consistently dropped over the last week, and the 478,700 shares he sold would have been worth a lot less than he got for them.

Even with selling the stocks, Homeniuk says that he believes the shares are still undervalued.

At this time Centerra has two mines in operation, the Kumtor Gold Mine in Kyrgyzstan and Boroo Gold Mine in Mongolia.