Silver Wheaton Profit Falls

(RTTNews) - Canadian silver company Silver Wheaton Corp (SLW, SLW.TO) on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter net earnings of $52 million or $0.14 per share compared with $93.9 million or $0.26 per share last year.

The company said its revenues for the quarter were down 16% at $140.4 million compared with $167.4 million in the prior year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $0.15 per share on revenues of $151.6 million for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The company said average realized sale price per silver equivalent ounce sold in the quarter dropped 22% from the prior year to $16.43.

Meanwhile its attributable silver equivalent sales volume in the quarter was up 7% from a year ago to 8.5 million ounces.

For 2015, Silver Wheaton expects attributable silver equivalent production of 43.5 million silver equivalent ounces, up 20% from the prior year.

For 2019, the company expects annual attributable production of 51 million silver equivalent ounces.

The company also declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share.